ANIMALS 24-7 editor Merritt Clifton speaking at AR-2014.
Why did Winograd dodge a challenge?
On July 11, 2014 the AR-2014 conference hosted in Los Angeles by the Farm Animal Rights Movement was to feature a talk and video presentation by No Kill Advocacy Center founder Nathan Winograd, who was allocated more than 90 minutes.
When FARM offered me 15 minutes to speak in the same room, preceding Winograd, he withdrew.
Best Friends Animal Society cofounder Francis Battista and Los Angeles Animal Services general manager Brenda Barnette spoke in his place, at my invitation.
Francis Battista
(Best Friends Animal Society photo)
Nathan-come-lately
Neither Battista nor Barnette enjoys Winograd’s level of name recognition, yet both have far longer experience in animal sheltering, and in a typical year both are responsible for rehoming more animals than Winograd has supervised rehoming in his entire career.
Ironically, I had quite a bit to do with Winograd’s rise to national prominence. In 1988, as news editor of the Animals’ Agenda magazine, I was among the very first people, perhaps the first, to give Winograd national exposure, in connection with his role in helping to introduce neuter/return feral cat control as an undergraduate at Stanford University.
I reported about Winograd’s work at least 19 times in 22 years. The very first article distributed by the ANIMALS 24-7 news service, in April 2008, six years before the ANIMALS 24-7 web site debuted, exposed a PETA threat to sue Winograd over his blogs about PETA killing homeless dogs and cats.
Nathan Winograd
Vanishingly little integrity post-2007
Unfortunately, with due respect to Winograd’s many positive contributions to humane work, recounted in my review of his 2007 book Redemption (Review: Redemption, by Nathan Winograd), I have seen vanishingly little integrity in his post-2007 activities.
For starters, Winograd is two generations too young to be anything like the father of no-kill he postures as being.
(See Who invented no-kill.)
Euthanair machines like this one were the most common type of decompression chamber used in animal shelters during most of Phyllis Wright’s career. Wright was instrumental in abolishing them.
Phyllis Wright
Also of significant note are Winograd’s misrepresentations of the late Phyllis Wright, 1927-1992, whose 1979 essay “Why we must euthanize” is a frequent Winograd foil. I knew Wright, and clashed with her several times during her last years of life, especially over neuter/return feral cat control, which she bitterly opposed.
Nonetheless, I thought well of her, and still do. Wright’s most enduring contribution during her 38 years in humane work was promoting the use of sodium pentobarbital to kill animals when necessary, in opposition to the use of gas chambers and decompression, which were the standard shelter killing methods throughout most of her tenure in humane work.
The most comprehensive book-length treatment of how random source animals were used in research was How Shelter Pets Are Brokered for Experimentation:
Understanding Pound Seizure by Allie Phillips.
Pound seizure
More animals in those days were claimed from shelters for laboratory use than were adopted into new homes, under pound seizure laws which largely passed into history toward the end of Wright’s life.
Unfortunately, Wright could not envision a time when killing huge numbers of surplus dogs & cats would not be necessary, because there had never been such a time in her experience, and within the memory of anyone else she worked with.
Winograd was a young shelter volunteer toward the very end of Wright’s time. Sheltering in that era greatly shaped Winograd’s impressions; but the shelter atmosphere then prevalent vanished so long ago from most of the U.S. that “Why we must euthanize,” ubiquitous then, is scarcely remembered today. I am in shelters almost every week, dozens per year in all parts of the world, but have not seen a copy of “Why we must euthanize” posted on a shelter wall in the present century.
Brenda Barnette
Exaggerated resumé
Winograd, meanwhile, has no significant experience in doing animal control sheltering. The San Francisco SPCA had already turned the city animal control contract over to the Department of Animal Care & Control by the time Winograd arrived. (Barnette at the time was already an SF/SPCA senior executive.)
Winograd’s later experience heading the Tompkins County SPCA in Ithaca, New York, was about as atypical as a shelter management stint could have been. The Tompkins County SPCA already killed far few animals per 1,000 residents of the community than the U.S. norm, with relatively few feral cats around because of the harsh regional climate, no dogfighting, and no inner city issues, in one of the best-educated communities in the nation, home to one of the oldest and biggest veterinary schools.
Asheville Humane Society pit bull promotion. A pit bull recently rehomed by the Asheville Humane Society after passing the ASPCA’s “Safer” test on July 7, 2015 fatally mauled six-year-old Joshua Philip Strother.
Warehousing & hoarding
It is no accident that animal control departments that try to follow Winograd’s prescriptions typically soon abandon or amend them, as in the city of Philadelphia and the state of Delaware, because his prescriptions are not realistic in the first place.
Warehousing animals indefinitely contributes to shelter deaths from disease and fighting, not to more adoptions.
Dangerous dogs cannot be safely rehomed, even into homes with no other pets and no children, because it is not possible to ensure that any dog never has the opportunity to attack visitors or passers-by.
Parcelling animals out to shelterless “rescues” is all too often a prescription for increased hoarding; failed “rescues” in the present decade have accounted for more animal impoundments due to neglect than isolated and deranged individuals.
Finally, no amount of increased adoption promotion can overcome the reality that it will not be possible to adopt our way out of shelter killing until shelter animal intakes fall to approximately half of the present level.
(See “Why we cannot adopt our way out of shelter killing.)
San Francisco & Ithaca numbers
Winograd helped to achieved some positive results in San Francisco and Ithaca, but the actual numbers are much less impressive than his disciples tend to believe:
Maddie’s Adoption Center in San Francisco, opened in 1996, introduced an overdue revolution in animal shelter design, but also inspired many organizations to build “adoption palaces” instead of effective spay/neuter outreach programs.
What the numbers show
During Winograd’s tenure in San Francisco, the national rate of shelter killing fell from 21.1 animals killed per 1,000 humans to 16.8, an improvement of 4.3 animals — 0.7 better than San Francisco.
During Winograd’s tenure in Ithaca, the national rate of shelter killing fell from 15.7 to 14.8 — a drop of about one animal killed per 1,000 humans. Winograd achieved a drop of 2.1, but starting from an already extremely advantageous position.
Winograd compared to Wright
Shelter killing actually fell much farther and faster during the Phyllis Wright era than since then, and certainly fell farther and faster during the Phyllis Wright era than since the 2006 debut of the No Kill Advocacy Center:
Beth & Merritt Clifton
Animals 24-7
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It is ridiculous to me that Winograd is allowed to speak at the national animal rights conferences. He is no more an animal advocate than the folks at the National Animal Interest Alliance or Rick Berman’s constellation of animal industry lobby groups, whose rhetoric he echoes.
He took breeders’ longtime argument that shelter euthanasia is the fault of shelters, not irresponsible breeders or pet keepers, and successfully sold it to many in the animal rights and welfare community. In this way he might be called the PT Barnum of our movement.
Actually P.T. Barnum himself was the P.T. Barnum of the humane movement. American SPCA founder Henry Bergh clashed with Barnum as early as December 1866, initially about Barnum’s practice of feeding live prey to snakes, but soon Bergh was confronting Barnum about elephant use and misuse too. An 1884 confrontation described by The New York Times involved Barnum’s use of a skin-whitening bleach, designed for sale to African Americans, to change a grey elephant into an alleged sacred white elephant. Despite their many conflicts, however, Barnum appreciated Bergh as a worthy adversary, and honored Bergh after his death with a statue which still stands in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
So true. I remember a pet industry brochure from “back in the day” that made all the same arguments and may have even been called The Myth of Pet Overpopulation.
Great article Merritt. If anything, more complimentary to Winograd than warranted. You should explore the division and infighting he has created, as well as the unconscionable diversion of precious funds from spay/neuter to warehousing. That fund diversion continues to delay no-kill, not advance it.
I hope you learned a valuable lesson. Now if you will just learn the same lesson about Best Friends and Barnette, we might be on the same page. Thanks for the writeup.
This infighting can all go away in short order. Animals not being killed just because they were born and are now surplus can all go away within two decades. So why are we not implementing the policies that would bring about this day? Because there is TOO much money to be made on the sorrowful lives of animals by the large organizations. These helpless puppies and kittens are great PR and Ad campaigns. The surplus inventory maintains the existance of these orgs. An endless supply of money.
The animals lives would be better off spending 2/3 of our resources with low cost to free S/N, door to door service if needed to accomplish, and then mandatory S/N laws with hefty fines for unaltered animals. All under control in less than 20 years. Would take retooling the system and telling the big boys to take a hike. But animals would stop being killed!!
Honesty Helps, what do you mean by your reference to Best Friends? I’ve heard negative opinions about them of late and wonder if you know what’s going on.
I have a great deal to share about Best Friends. I find them irresponsible myself. Campaigning adoptions of dogs that can’t be around other dogs, do they think those dogs will live on a desert island? Don, the Dogman, Chambers is an example also of their lack of responsibility. I could say much more than this about this organization that I have absolutely no use for.
Their lobbying for pit bulls when mothers are sitting beside closed caskets is appalling to me. The only reason they are even on the scene is that they buy their way in, like in LA. Barnette gave them a new shelter without even offering it to the local groups. Her daughter, who is a breeder along with Barnette, works for Best Friends. Can one say conflict of interest?
The City of Los Angeles in February 2011 invited proposals from local organizations for utilizing the Northeast Animal Care Center, which the city could not afford to run itself, but the estimated $3.3 million annual operating expense deterred all potential bidders except the Best Friends Animal Society, whose proposal was submitted after extensive study in August 2011. Details of the deal are here: “L.A. shelter deal transfers cash crunch to Best Friends,” http://wp.me/p4pKmM-Dk.
What a load of lies You can make up numbers and lies as much as you like but none of that changes the FACT that today shelters collectively representing about 500 cities and towns across America, including those in Kentucky, Virginia, Indiana, Utah, California, New York, Texas and elsewhere, are saving animals and as high as 99%, using the programs and services of the “No Kill Equation”. The truth is still true whether you believe it or not. All these 500 communities have adopted their way out of killing. In the US ever year, anywhere from 17-23 million households get new pets and about 4 million shelter pets are killed. So if you are able to do this very basic math you will see that there are more than enough homes for every shelter animal. You are on the wrong side of history. You are in the same camp as those who fought against women having the right to vote, against ending slavery, against civil rights.
500 cities? That would be about 2% of the animal care & control jurisdictions in the United States, and about 10% of those with public shelters, but the number appears to be greatly exaggerated. Nathan Winograd’s actual claim, investigated in early 2014 by Julie Eyrich Wall, was that, “In 2013, over 150 communities representing over 400 cities and towns across America have save rates better than 90% using our No Kill Equation model of sheltering.” Wall identified and surveyed the shelters in 72 of those communities. Forty-one (57%) said that they were not following the so-called “no kill equation.” Only 14 (19%) said they were following it. The remaining 25% had only some of the “no kill equation” programs in place. Thirty-three (46%) said they had introduced their “no kill equation” programs before ever hearing of Winograd. As to Winograd’s presumption that the numbers of potential adoptive homes exceeds the numbers of adoptable animals in shelters, his simplistic math is wrong. See “Why we cannot adopt out way out of shelter killing,” https://www.animals24-7.org/?s=Why+we+cannot+adopt, for details.
Even Mr. Winograd never challenged the fact that most of the communities he claimed denied they were following his plan. or in some cases even knew of him at all. He simply ignored it as various sources continued to report 500, 300, 200 communities etc. Reason being I guess is because if you call them up and ask them you seem to get a different answer then Mr. Winograd would like you to believe.
I have been thinking about these two articles someone sent to me online since (thankfully) I don’t receive this newsletter. Regretfully, these opinions remind me of the infighting going on with Congress between the two houses of government — instead of working together to solve problems, there is only backbiting & conflict. Saving animals’ lives should be the focus for ALL of us that care! Working TOGETHER to stop killing healthy, friendly animals in shelters should be the priority, not badmouthing those who have achieved a name for themselves in animal rescue. I don’t really care what this editor’s opinions are of Winograd or Best Friends — both are helping, not hurting in the long run. My opinion, for what it’s worth. No donation to your “kitty” either.
A. Taylor’s commentary interestingly inverts the reality that Nathan Winograd and the No Kill Advocacy Center have ceaselessly attacked animal shelters and animal advocacy organizations around the U.S. since 2006, while ANIMALS 24-7 has to date editorially pointed out the weaknesses of their position just once.
A Taylor….I do not think you are inverting anything….
Animals are voiceless and it is up to caring humans to speak for them
Senseless infighting and politicking will get them nowhere.
The animals/shelter issues are analogous to the US population/current Congress. It’s the masses that suffer
I don’t doubt several cities are trying to adopt their way out of euthanasia. Including the city I live in. But it doesn’t work.
They have mass adoption events where over a 1000 dogs and cats are adopted in the course of one weekend. Unlike Winograd and his disciples some of us. In. rescue know there might be a home for every animal but not every home should have a animal.
We. have. seen the. results of these mass adoptions. Dogs being adopted and when. they find out they cannot be returned they are adandoned Dogs chained out. I know of one dog that was impaled when he tried to jump the fence an his chain hung him up. He died on the fence.
After these adoption events rescues like ours get phone call after phone call from people who “adopted” animals and do not want them. The organization they adopted from will not take the animal back.
So. Please do not tell us how well this is working.
The reality is that “No-Kill” is expensive, and it has and will continue to bankrupt shelters and continually tap the wallets of taxpayers. Delaware has seen that all too well as a result of passing “No-Kill’s” CAPA legislation. We’ve seen almost all our shelters facing deficits, and one of them (Safe Haven) went into bankruptcy as they tried to treat every sick or injured animal within a year of taking on a dog control contract. New Hampshire provided a model for shelters that cost efficient, is more effective, and doesn’t require abandoning animals on the streets as Delaware has seen what can happen with the “No-Kill” effort here. Here is a comparison of the costs between a couple of the highlighted “No-Kill” communities of Washoe County and Austin versus New Hampshire.
RENO/WASHOE
And Nevada Humane can only continue to remain a viable entity for another 5-6 years based on the the losses they’ve sustained since the no-kill effort began.
Washoe/NHS – Intake 15,000.
2005 Combined Expenses – $5,347,996.
2010 Combined Expenses – $7,816,195.
Note – Nevada Humane has lost nearly $4 million since no-kill began.
Nevada Humane
$4 Million in Deficits Since No-Kill Effort Began 2006
2004 403,343.00
2005 2,168,793.00
2006 (1,000,367.00)
2007 (855,614.00)
2008 (237,365.00)
2009 (1,000,164.00)
2010 (293,971.00)
2011 (749,016.00)
2012 182,030.00
———————————————
Austin Animal Services
2008-09 $ 5,397,428
2009-10 $ 6,008,659
2010-11 $ 6,883,679
2011-12 $ 7,612,186
2012-13 $ 8.2 million
2013-14 $ 8.9 million proposed ($714,000 increase)
———————————————–
Delaware SPCA
Deficits since No-Kill Effort Began 2008
Losses going down by taking less animals each year.
2008 (814,100)
2009 (573,154)
2010 (361,163)
2011 (120,123)
2012 (4,782) *
*(this loss was lowered by the investment returns of $200-300,000 more than previous years, so the shelter was fortunate there was a booming stock market)
Intake
2006 – 8,213
2007 – 5,664
2008 – 3,820
2009 – 4,091
2010 – 3,495
2011 – 3,425
2012 – 2,989
2013 – 2,697
Adoptions
2006 – 2,727
2007 – 2,251
2008 – 2,184
2009 – 2,415
2010 – 2,109
2011 – 1,862
2012 – 1,641
2013 – 1,664
——————————————
And with the exception of 2012, Topkins County SPCA who has taken Nathan Winograd’s path has face financial deficits for years, and unless they can sustain the increase in revenue of 2012 and continue the deficits of the last 10 years, they will not be a sustainable entity long term either.
http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/?FuseAction=NPO.Summary&EIN=150624378&BMF=1&Cobrandid=0&Syndicate=No
———————————————————————————————————
New Hampshire’s statewide spay neuter program cost $300-350,000 a year in comparison, and they import dogs, while Austin has closed doors when they have overcrowded. So it’s pretty obvious that targeted spay neuter is more fiscally responsible, fiscally sustainable, and more successful than the Winograd equation which is merely a repackaged version of what many shelters were doing before he ever came along.
Great Article Merritt,
I am not a fan of Winograd. I believe he does more damage then he will ever do trying to help animals by encouraging industrial Hoarding. It’s a simple, numbers don’t lie… You have 10 homes and 200 dogs= not enough homes. I’d like to see how much they spend daily to provide and care for these animals vs how many animals could have been fixed to STOP the problem…?!?!