Spay/neuter worked; “We can save them all” through adoption has not worked
Who keeps the spirit of prevention alive in animal welfare?
In ancient times, people carried fire along with them – coals in a pot, a clay-lined basket, or a hollowed-out stone.
Fire was precious, a matter of survival for the whole community, and someone had the vital role of “keeping the flame” – safeguarding it, nourishing it, ensuring it could be passed on.
The spay/neuter movement is our flame in animal welfare, and it too must be safeguarded.
Public Health for Pets
Back in the 1990s a ‘movement’ was born. What sparked it was the huge numbers of animals who ended up in shelters – far more than could possibly find homes, let alone good, permanent homes. It was called the spay/neuter movement, or as we like to say, Public Health for Pets.
Public health is based on prevention of problems, and some people in the animal welfare movement saw clearly that preventing litters would be the way to solve the enormous problem of too many cats, too many dogs. Preventing problems is always less expensive, more effective and efficient than waiting for problems to proliferate and then trying to solve them.
Circa 1970 U.S. animal shelters euthanized from 17 to 23 million cats and dogs annually, mostly because of “too many births and too few homes,” as shelter workers often explained.
Something had to be done
What happened over the following thirty years was unprecedented and to some extent unexpected.
First spay/neuter caught on with the public, largely as a matter of convenience for pet-keepers, but ever more people having their pets fixed for personal reasons also brought a huge reduction in the numbers of puppies and kittens brought to animal shelters.
By 1990 the shelter euthanasia volume was half of what it had been 20 years earlier, even though the adoption volume had peaked in 1981, then flatlined.
(See Record low shelter killing raises both hopes & questions.)
We found that by networking, doing careful follow-up, allocating funding for prevention, raising awareness of the problem and its solution, we could drastically reduce the rate of unplanned, unwanted litters of cats and dogs born.
Targeted low-cost & free s/n programs, plus TNR
Targeted low-cost and free spay/neuter programs and the advent of trap/neuter/return birth control projects addressing feral cats [TNR] cut shelter euthanasias in half again by 2000––even though, despite vastly increased adoption promotion, adoption volume remained flatlined.
During that era we published a newsletter, connected interested people to network within their states, wrote letters to the editor and appeared in magazines, worked with public health departments and animal control agencies, and we held conferences specifically focused on spay/neuter statewide, regionally, and attracting national participation in 1993, 2000, and 2008.
The years between 2010 and 2024 have seen a sharp decline in the interest in, and funding of, this prevention. Many people are now starting to see the results of putting all faith and funding into rescue, adoption and transport. As the focus on prevention faded, the numbers of animals in shelters, and worse yet, being turned away from shelters (who is keeping track of that number???) is now rising.
If “the movement” had not become “the industry”
People are frantic, talking about ‘compassion fatigue’ and ‘kitten season.’
Adoption volume is still flatlined. The hope that we can adopt our way out of shelter euthanasia has failed to materialize for half a century or longer, even as donors continue to throw money at the unfulfilled promise that “We can save them all!” while low-cost and free spay/neuter programs are starved out of existence.
Had “the movement” focused on problem-solving not turned into “the industry,” focused on tear-jerking fundraising appeals based on single animals in need of homes, and had we kept our eyes on the prize for an additional 10 years, we might be at “true no kill” by now.
It was the focus on spay/neuter that brought the drop of 75%, from 12 million euthanasias to three million between 1990 and 2010, building on a cumulative drop of 87% since 1970. Spay/neuter worked!
The flame has all but gone out
That was the flame. The flame has all but gone out. We need to bring oxygen to rekindle that flame – the oxygen being funding, hard work, marketing, recruiting new people, and using the tools we have.
If we do not rekindle the flame––start over, really––then we, and the animals, can look forward to worse and worse conditions. Who will step up to keep the flame going?
[See also Why we cannot adopt our way out of shelter killing and We cannot adopt, warehouse or rescue our way out of dog & cat overpopulation!, by Jeff Young.]
[Involved in animal advocacy since 1974, Esther Mechler has either founded or helped to cofound ten organizations of national prominence, nine of which either still exist or have active descendants. Founding Spay/USA in 1990, Mechler retired as executive director in 2008, becoming director of a much smaller animal charity called Marian’s Dream. While continuing at Marian’s Dream, Mechler founded the United Spay Alliance, which she still heads, in 2016.]
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As Animals 24-7’s editor Merritt Clifton has repeatedly written and pointed out, it was the Blue Cross of India (BCI) that was responsible for proposing the first spay-vaccinate-and-release programme for street dogs in the world – a programme recognised in http://www.environmentalhistory.org as a milestone in world environmental history. Please do refer to this entry in 1959 just after the one pertaining to Jane Goodall.
Though BCI was able to get the government of India to become the first country in the world to make catch-and-kill illegal and mandate s/n. It is yet to be aggressively taken up though. Even the limited efforts have reduced the terrible toll of at least 20,000 confirmed human rabies deaths in 1995 to around 400 or less today, Besides no dog has been legally killed by any municipal authority since 2001. In Madras city alone, over 50,000 dogs were being killed by the municipality in 1995 and Madras became the first city to stop the totally ineffective slaughter.
Esther, the “keeping the flame” analogy is a good one. Regrettably, major funders of animal welfare initiatives have changed their focus from spay/neuter to access to care, given the shifting environment in the veterinary profession. Increasing corporate ownership has significantly increased prices that pet owners are forced to pay, which has resulted in a reduction in access to care. I believe that spay/neuter is an essential element of access to care. As a High-Quality, High-Volume Spay/Neuter surgeon, so many of the animals I sterilize have NEVER been to a veterinarian before. This gives us the opportunity to get these pets started on a lifetime of wellness and prevention. It is unfortunate that these same funders do not recognize this connection. In my mind, recognizing, celebrating, and encouraging the connection between spay/neuter and access to care would go a long way towards “keeping the flame going.”
Educated from a very early age to the truth that neutering (spay and neuter) is THE ANSWER to lessening animal overpopulation just as family planning is THE ANSWER to human overpopulation, I advocate for this every day. It is frustrating and deeply disappointing that, as in seemingly all things, visibility and financial gain have trumped the respect, protection, and love of these unconditionally loyal and loving living beings who bring so much joy, camaraderie, empathy, beauty, and love into our lives.
Sharing with gratitude. NEVER STOP working and advocating for spay/neuter.
All the big bucks corporate so-called humane organizations should have spay/neuter and vaccination medical clinics! Oh you bet they can afford it! The ONLY reason they don’t is because they don’t want the problem solved just like the veterinary association doesn’t. These same humane organizations should have their state humane officers enforcing animal protection laws!!! They do not do that for the same reasons!!!! They do NOT want to solve problems of these helpless animals; they want to make money!!!
Esther. A true force in the movement.
Esther Mechler, I appreciate your writing this article and share your frustration with the reduced emphasis on sterilization by funders. Can’t wait till we have a spay shot, but, while there is progress, it is not something we can wait for. We need effective levels of surgical sterilization, now! Hugs to you.
Joyce Briggs retired in 2023 after 18 years heading the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs.
Esther has done more for animal welfare in America than anyone I know. The big groups have become very bureaucratic and the vet profession has ignored the issue for years. Now we have a lot of economic euthanasia and yet my profession and the big very rich humane groups still have no answer. I am ashamed.
See also We cannot adopt, warehouse or rescue our way out of dog & cat overpopulation!, by Jeff Youung, DVM.
So many great comments to an outstanding article it’s hard to add.
I left rescue in 2023 after several volunteers were IMHO needlessly injured and I continued to observe volunteers doing work city employees should be doing. I’m not blameless in the process but wonder how many qualified shelter workers/volunteers have made a similar calculation?
It gets tiring being labeled some variation of a killer while “No Kill” organizations cash checks and do little to minimize the real issue that is overpopulation. It’s not all pets filling shelters, it’s “pit bulls” and cats that fill and largely die in shelters. Organizations like Best Friends and Maddies have made that fact an impossible discussion to have.
If it’s all in “how you raise them,” who in their right mind will adopt a five year old “pit bull” not knowing “how it was raised?” Either we stop births or stop the denial of genetics. I submit both. with a heavier emphasis on the forme, r since we will never adopt as fast as animals breed.
This brings me back to spay/neuter. Two weeks back I received several frantic calls that someone had been mauled at a local rescue. What apparently brought the situation to light was not the mauling, but several dogs being euthanized.
I know the owner and sat down for a cup of coffee. While I consider him a friend I’m not certain at this point the feeling is mutual. He could have been sued into bankruptcy in which case no further animals would be saved. Not to mention in the time it takes to place one problem dog, he could have saved 5 or 10 nice dogs. More to the point, I won’t share his last month’s vet bills, but estimate he could have spay/neutered 500 dogs/cats.
There are limited resources, limited adopters, and hopefully for the grifters, limited prey who don’t realize that bumper sticker donation costs lives.
There is no bigger impact than spay/neuter. Everything else is tantamount to pushing the ocean back with a broom.