I've posted before about shelters that make the decision to eliminate the killing in their shelters -- and end up doing so almost completely overnight.
There are others that have a bigger task to achieve that causes it to take some time to ge there.
Such appears to be the case in Jacksonville, FL.
In 2005, the Jacksonville, FL shelter killed roughly 23,000 dogs and cats in their shelter.
In 2010, that number was cut by nearly 60% to 9,500. The number is expected to drop further -- to around 8,000 in 2011.
That's STILL a lot of dead, healthy and treatable animals -- and they know that -- but they are making progress. And are proud of that progress.
So what has led to the success?
* The increased used of volunteers to help get more animals adopted -- either by walking dogs to make them more adoptable or by taking animals to off-site adoptions. In the past 3 years they've had narly a 50% increase in adoptions at the Jacsonville shelter
* Increased use of off-site adoptions -- particularly with cats by taking them to their local PetSmart.
* Increased their use of foster homes.
* They've increasingly worked more with local rescue groups to get more animals transferred to other area shelters and rescues.
* First Coast No More Homeless Pets has adopted and created a TNR program -- where now about 5,000 cats a year are altered as part of their TNR program and released back into neighborhoods -- slowly reducing the number of feral cats in the city.
* They've also created the "SpayJax" program which aggressively targets low-income pet owners with voluntary low-cost spay/neuter services. Their goal is to eventually have the agency doing 50,000 low cost spay/neuter surgeries per year. These two spay/neuter programs have helped decrease shelter intake by roughly 35% in just the past 5 years.
* And overall, they've embraced their community to help them out. "We found that when you put some responsibility back on the community, they do this extra work," said Director of Operations Danya Parks-Freel.
Do these ideas sound familiar? Like they may have worked in other places?
These ideas aren't controversial. Everyone who has ever actually tried them knows that these types of programs work to reduce shelter killing. All it takes is having leadership willing to embrace the community, create the programs, and be willing to work their butts off to make it happen.
Best of luck to the city of Jacksonville. They have a lot of work left to do, but congrats on the progresss you've made.
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