Transparency is a hallmark of the no kill movement. All shelters claiming to be no kill should either have their annual statistics posted online for everyone to see or provide them without delay upon request. Questions regarding the shelter’s policies should be answered in a timely manner. Anything less is unacceptable.
Although I have come across occasional claims that New Hampshire is a no kill state, I have never seen any evidence to back up this claim. Given that this blog is dedicated to no kill and that any state in our country becoming no kill would be monumental news, I have tried repeatedly to substantiate this claim on my own. Sadly, I’ve never come close to doing so because most of the shelters do not have their stats posted online nor will they provide them to me upon request. But since the claim persists, I again attempted last month to obtain the stats and get questions answered from a number of NH shelters. I’d like to share what I’ve learned.
On February 19, I contacted the New Hampshire Federation of Humane Organizations to request statistics from its member shelters. I received a response from Marylee Gorham-Waterman which reads, in part:
We do not have the 2013 statistics noted on the actual website, if that is what you are looking for. There is complete transparency form those that report – you can click on the members and go directly to their individual websites for annual reports which will have all the information you seek.
As instructed, I clicked on several of the groups at random but did not find any stats on any of the sites I visited. I decided to directly contact the eight shelters listed as founding members of the NHFHO. Between February 23 and February 25, I submitted inquiries (mostly email, two were website contact form inquiries) to the following shelters:
Animal Rescue League of New Hampshire (formerly Manchester)
Pope Memorial SPCA (formerly Concord SPCA)
Eastern Slopes Animal Welfare League
Monadnock Region Humane Society
Nashua Humane Society
New Hampshire Humane Society
New Hampshire SPCA
Upper Valley Humane
I requested the same information from each shelter:
Would you please send me your comprehensive annual stats (detailing all intakes and outcomes, including feral cats and all other animals) from your most recent year on file? I also have some specific questions I’m hoping you can answer:
What is your shelter’s feral cat policy? Are healthy/treatable feral cats ever euthanized?
What is your shelter’s policy on cats/kittens with URI? Are cats/kittens with URI ever euthanized?
What is your shelter’s policy on euthanasia? Are healthy/treatable animals (any type – e.g. dogs, rabbits, wildlife, etc.) ever euthanized?
What is your shelter’s policy on spaying pregnant animals? Are pregnant animals ever spayed?
Jen Corbin of the NH SPCA promptly responded to all my questions and provided me with the stats I sought (2013 incoming animals here and 2013 outgoing animals here). Here is her email in its entirety:
Subject: RE: Request for statistics report
From: “Jen Corbin” jcorbin@nhspca.org
Date: Thu, February 26, 2015 4:37 pm
To: eiderdown@yesbiscuit.comHi Shirley,
Thank you for your inquiry. We’re happy to hear from a fellow animal lover! Our current ‘Year End’ statistics for 2014 are about to go to print and you can access them through our Newsletter on our website www.nhspca.org when they are published, which will be in the next few weeks. Let me know if you have any trouble with that.In the meantime, I have attached our most recently complied statistics from 2013. Let me know if you need any clarification or have further questions. We are proud of our successes in NH but they are hard won and not without struggle and daily determination to save and improve lives. At the NHSPCA our goal is a loving home for every pet and we care deeply for those in our care. In addition to our dedicated staff, we support and are aided by a pet-loving community and a thriving volunteer/foster parent program; an active humane education department; and diverse pet training/retention program.
Our live release rate is currently 94%, we are an ‘Open Admission-Unlimited stay’ facility. The pets we have lost to euthanasia or death fall into two basic categories of aggression and/or extreme illness/suffering unlikely to recover.
I have answered your more detailed questions below in blue.
Let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Jen
Jen Corbin
Director of Animal Services
NHSPCA
PO Box 196
Stratham, NH 03885
(603)772-2921 x115
http://www.nhspca.orgWhat is your shelter’s feral cat policy? Are healthy/treatable feral cats ever euthanized? We believe that the shelter environment is no place for a feral cat so for the most part we refer those cats to local ‘community cat’ support groups who do TNR. That being said, when we are brought feral adult cats we do spay/neuter/vaccinate and either transfer them to one of the ‘community cat’ groups or keep them until we find a ‘barn home’ for them. We also readily take in and socialize many feral kittens through our foster program where they learn about life in a real home environment (I am a feral kitten foster myself-they’re my favorite foster opportunity). Most feral kittens become loving ‘inside only’ pets. A healthy/treatable feral cat is never euthanized, with time we can find an appropriate placement for every cat. That’s what we mean by ‘unlimited stay’.
What is your shelter’s policy on cats/kittens with URI? Are cats/kittens with URI ever euthanized? URI is an unfortunate consequence of the sheltering environment when you’re trying to save every life you can have a lot of cats in close quarters. We have an isolation unit where we quarantine and treat cats who contract URI. Very occasionally a geriatric cat or underage kitten will become so ill that they cannot recover and it becomes kindest to euthanize, but that is rare now since we’ve upgraded our ISO unit; for the most part, once they recover they are returned to the adoption floor.
What is your shelter’s policy on euthanasia? Are healthy/treatable animals (any type – e.g. dogs, rabbits, wildlife, etc.) ever euthanized? Our euthanasia rate is about 5%. We spend a great deal of energy, time and resources bringing surrendered and rescued pets to a healthy, or manageable adoptable state. We treat every animal in our care as an individual. No pet passes through our doors that we don’t develop an attachment to.
What is your shelter’s policy on spaying pregnant animals? Are pregnant animals ever spayed? Known pregnant animals are placed into foster care to birth and raise the off-spring. Rarely, a very early stage pregnancy is spayed when it is only discovered on the operating table.
It sounds like the NH SPCA is doing excellent work and the transparency is impressive.
I also received a response from Beth Brayman at the Upper Valley Humane Society on February 26. She directed me to the 2013 annual report posted on the shelter’s website and I have grabbed the relevant info to share here:
Ms. Brayman stated she had forwarded my email to her senior managers to get answers to my questions. I have not heard anything further from anyone at the Upper Valley Humane Society.
I received no response of any kind from the following shelters:
Animal Rescue League of New Hampshire (formerly Manchester)
Pope Memorial SPCA (formerly Concord SPCA)
Eastern Slopes Animal Welfare League
Monadnock Region Humane Society
Nashua Humane Society
New Hampshire Humane Society
Note: The executive director of the New Hampshire Humane Society is Marylee Gorham-Waterman, who responded to the inquiry I made to the NHFHO. I did write to her again and specifically requested the NHHS stats and asked my questions. She did not reply.
Glass half-full: There is one open admission shelter in NH that I feel confident in standing behind as no kill: NH SPCA. There may be others. If there are, I would love to blog about their success but can not in good conscience make any claims about what is happening in open admission shelters and/or NHFHO member shelters without having the information to back up those claims.
There are many shelter directors in this country who do not believe no kill is possible, simply because they haven’t reviewed the available data that proves otherwise. There are a small number of extremists who continually look to discredit the no kill movement. Donors in the internet age are very interested in performing due diligence before making donations to shelters and want to know their donations will not be used for killing animals. For these reasons, and primarily because it’s the right thing to do, transparency is a key component of no kill sheltering. And it follows that it is irresponsible and damaging to claim a shelter, let alone an entire state, is no kill without having the documentation to back that up. To the best of my knowledge, NH is not a no kill state.
