Metrics of misery: a flawed live release rate
Editor’s note: ANIMALS 24-7 guest columnist Ed Duvin, often called “The Father of the No-Kill Movement” for his widely distributed 1989 essay In the Name of Mercy, wrote in that essay, “If our movement spent as much time soberly evaluating our policies and programs as we do polishing our public image, then no doubt the struggle for justice would be on higher ground….Surrounded by the deaths of millions of precious beings, this industry has demonstrated neither the concern nor competency to even validate the information upon which it bases life and death decisions.”
This remains among his foremost concerns.
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How does a movement properly assess the fruits of its labor? How plentiful the crop; how sweet the fruit; or how fertile the soil for future seasons? These are essential questions, but the answers are elusive when measuring success in altruistic endeavors. Other disciplines are more clear-cut, but social causes often stumble in the dark, inadvertently compounding the very wrongs they seek to remedy.
In the 1980s, I began writing on the “killing them kindly” mantra of shelter leadership. There wasn’t widespread discontent over the astounding percentage of shelter animals killed, and complacency was the norm. No thoughtful person would suggest that every life could be saved, but far too many of the bodies stacked high were victims of institutional inertia.
“New dawn” optimism dashed by Asilomar Accords
In the ensuing years, there was optimism that a new dawn had arrived in sheltering, but that hope was dashed in 2004 with the Asilomar Accords. The participants lacked standing to speak for the movement, but the Live Release Rate they promulgated soon became the prevailing standard. Although treated as though it came from on high, there wasn’t a shred of verifiable data to support Live Release Rate as a valid indicator of population control.
Starting with the effects of Live Release Rate on individual shelters, when the performance measure of an executive director is attaining a 90% Live Release Rate, it tends to produce cherry picking and rehoming of unsterilized and unsafe animals. Stated succinctly, Live Release Rate incentivizes management practices that serve shelter executives, not the end goal of eliminating overpopulation.
“Get 70% or flunk”
The scientifically grounded method of reducing population is not Live Release Rate, but the 70% Rule. It states that 70% of the total population must be sterilized to achieve a replacement level or decline.
The initial name, coined circa 1992 by the late Chico State University physics professor and spay/neuter clinic founder Robert Lewis Plumb, was Fibonacci’s 70% Rule, since it was based on a logarithm developed by the 13th century mathematician Leonardo Bonacci, better known as Fibonacci of Pisa.
That understandably did not catch on until Merritt Clifton in 2002 in a headline, “Get 70% or flunk,” linked Fibonacci’s animal reproduction models as explained by Plumb to both dog sterilization programs in India and the 70% vaccination rate long sought by epidemiologists as the threshold for stopping the spread of infectious diseases.
Marvin Mackie, DVM
Through extensive research on Fibonacci’s reproduction models and Louis Pasteur’s vaccination models, Marvin Mackie, DVM validated “Get 70% or flunk.” In his distinguished 45-year career, Dr. Mackie performed over 250,000 sterilizations. The contribution of Fibonacci, Plumb, and Mackie to the prevention of overpopulation cannot be overstated.
(See Marvin Mackie, 88, all but invented early-age & high-volume, low-cost s/n.)
There have been numerous studies validating the 70% Rule, including those of the World Health Organization. The World Health Organization has long used the 70% vaccination threshold, developed through mathematical modeling. More directly applied to sterilization, the validity of the 70% Rule is reinforced by Nassar and Mosier’s landmark research. This study demonstrated that dog births only fall below natural attrition rates when a 70% sterilization threshold is achieved, and Klement et al. arrived at the same finding for cats in a 2022 study.
No studies support “Live Release Rate”
I could continue citing empirical studies demonstrating the efficacy of the 70% Rule, but I’m at a loss to find one that provides a scintilla of support for the Live Release Rate. Despite the impressive body of scientific evidence, I harbor no illusions that the leading voices in sheltering will alter their course. My hope rests with those shelters whose self-interest is not invested in Live Release Rate, as choosing expediency over science will only lead to more detours and dead ends.
Moving from the scientific to strategic realm, this is the statement that I wish had been issued from the Asilomar participants: “Millions of innocent beings have perished for the sole ‘crime’ of being homeless, with their broken bodies stacked in barrels. We urgently need to address the roots of overpopulation rather than the manifestations.”
Larger shelters being built
Instead, larger shelters are being built, as though nothing has been learned from history. Is it not patently evident that shelters are working on the wrong side of the stream?
Apparently not, as most shelters continue retracing worn footsteps that only serve to perpetuate the tragedy.
How many more lives will be lost before shelters embrace a systemic approach?
Individuals joining a progressive cause are bound by their commitment to an ideal, but noble intentions often fall short of achieving optimal results. Movements are subsets of the larger culture, subject to the same influences and failings. As with corporations, the more affluent and powerful organizations become, the greater the peril of their vision being obscured.
Animal sheltering as pyramid scheme
We see this presently, as power has become concentrated at the apex of a steep pyramid. These affluent organizations are accountable to no one, and they tend to conflate their interests with those of the cause. Yet, most shelters, not unlike good soldiers, blindly fall in line.
Perhaps it’s easier to follow the leaders than to exercise independent thought and critical analysis, but homeless animals suffer the consequences while the coffers of the wealthiest organizations continue to grow. Do you want to continue processing animals in and out of your shelters, seeking a 90% LRR, or will you choose a path to empty shelters?
Not the devil incarnate
I hasten to add that my intent isn’t to portray our leading organizations as the devil incarnate. In the main, these are good people who are deeply committed, but I respectfully submit that they have grievously lost their way. I understand that they sharply differ from my perspective; what I don’t understand is their refusal to engage in good-faith dialogue.
I previously posited the argument that most shelters are on the wrong side of the stream, treating the effect rather than cause. Is there not a moral imperative to cross that stream, finally ending what overbreeding has created and the movement has enabled? By prioritizing LRR over sterilization, the movement not only does a disservice to the animals, but also to the movement’s integrity as a beacon of light.
Animal Balance
For those seeking innovation over stagnation, I urge you to contact Animal Balance. Utilizing state-of-the-art high-quality high-volume vaccination and spay/neuter surgery, their achievements in the Galapagos Islands have historic significance.
Under the most adverse conditions, with the islands overrun with animals being killed by rat poison, Animal Balance created a model for every nation to emulate. It wasn’t shelter-based, but rather used mobile sterilization clinics whose productivity in high-volume sterilization was unprecedented.
“Lassie, come home!”
No one anointed me as the movement’s conscience, and I claim no unique insight beyond placing considerable weight on empirical research. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have a personal reason for writing this piece. In Best Friends’ No-Kill Timeline, they kindly refer to my writings as “…setting the philosophical stage for the no-kill movement.”
I’m not deserving of that accolade, but I was privileged to play a role in the no-kill movement’s inception. All I ask of my old friends is to come home.
The movement’s founder, Henry Bergh, expressed these words in referring to the protection of animals: “It is a moral question in all its aspects.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Indeed, in distilled form, it is a moral question. Is the answer to embrace the status quo or follow an empirically proven course? The choice is yours.
(See also How humility can help animal advocates to change the world, by Ed Duvin; and Good is not good enough! by Ed Duvin.)
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I have always agreed 100% with you and with Mr. Duvin. Those who claim to care about these innocent living beings need to do likewise. It should never be about accepting pretty, comforting words and pop-culture set-it-and-forget-it spin. Each one of these lives is precious and needs to be treated as such.
If we devoted just a modicum of the time and effort to spay/neuter and “humane education” as we did to so many absolute wastes of time and money, you would not be making these pleas and I would not be having to share them.
Sharing with gratitude and that eternal hope.
If more activists had your insight, Ms. Petzak, this piece would never have been written. Thank you.
This long time general advocate with no specific lived experience in the shelter movement other than having always adopted my beloved pets from a local Shelter, and been one to understand the essential reality of the necessity of limiting overpopulation by S/N, am in total agreement with this post.
Until I read of the ‘live release/transportation’ concerns so well expressed in these commentaries, I was ignorant of the problem so am deeply grateful for this monumental effort to articulate it and present it in a manner that is not confrontational but merely explanatory.
To me this is just effective common-sense being brought to play to address what was an intractable problem, but with the apparent successful evidence of the work of ‘Animal Balance’ is doable REALITY at work. The deceptive cloud of the practices of those noted organizations must now be lifted and we must implement S/N as the only viable SOLUTION ! Enough PRETENSE and OBFUSCATION – No more EXCUSES.. Just ‘get the job done’ !
Thank you, Ms. Livesey-Fassel. Your last sentence should be mandatory reading for the movement’s leadership.