Shelter Animals Count finds more dogs euthanized than cats in shelters for first time since the first surveys were done PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania; BRUNSWICK, Maine; ATLANTA, Georgia––A political fight over spay/neuter funding in Pittsburgh, the seven-year-old Feline Fix by Five campaign directed by Esther Mechler from Brunswick, Maine, and the recently released 2023 Annual Analysis from […]
Squishy shelter numbers conceal dropping the ball on spay/neuter
How much real progress toward eradicating cat & dog overpopulation has been lost through a focus on the wrong bottom line? (Gerry Childs, now retired from a long career in sales in many different parts of the U.S., recently celebrated 50 years of volunteering at every stop for animal shelters, spay/neuter projects, and feral cat […]
Cat rescue tales from Lahaina, both sad & glad
Two million bucks for the Maui Humane Society: catnip for all? LAHAINA, Maui, Hawaii––A week after animal rescue teams led by the Maui Humane Society were at last allowed into the burn zone, where 115 people and untold numbers of animals died on August 8, 2023 in a wind-driven firestorm ignited by downed electrical wires, […]
Lahaina rescuers win access but find few animals; pigs not to blame for fire
Threat of lawsuit appears to concern officials more than the plight of animals marooned by the firestorm, hundreds already rescued LAHAINA, Maui, Hawaii––Eighteen days of animal rescuers battling bureaucracy to retrieve surviving animals from inside the Lahaina burn zone, leveled by wildfire on August 8, 2023, ended abruptly when Maui County announced that, “As […]
Lahaina: National Guard top brass defends keeping rescuers out on TV
Cats and rare birds are still seen more often in & around the burn zone than the ASPCA LAHAINA, Maui, Hawaii––National Guard adjutant general Kenneth Hara on the evening of August 24, 2023 addressed questions about animals still at large in fire-stricken Lahaina for all of two minutes on Hawaii News Now. The operative word […]
The wrong sort of vultures circle over fire-hit Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii
Maui animal charities need all the help they can get. Nationals with their hands out need a sense of shame. WAILUKU, Maui, Hawaii––Vultures are not native to Hawaii, but metaphorical vultures of the human variety are now conspicuously circling over the smoking ashes of Lahaina and several other parts of Maui, begging donations via […]
Hawaii wildfires: who is helping animals on smoldering Maui?
Communications down, info scarce, but rescuers are on the job WAILUKU, Maui, Hawaii––With 53 human dead and counting, 1,700 homes burned, 3,000 acres razed, cell phone and internet service down all over the island, and more than 13,000 people homeless, animal news from the Maui fire disaster area as of the evening of August 10, […]
Puppies & kittens everywhere, but none in shelters to adopt
Suspension of spay/neuter & intake services due to COVID-19 cuts adoptions by a third from 2019 NEW YORK CITY––Celebrating rehoming every dog and cat in custody soon after COVID-19 shutdowns began, animal shelters from coast to coast are suddenly––and predictably––weeping, wailing, and tearing hair about having no adoptable animals to offer in response to […]
Yes, ANIMALS 24-7 is an essential service to the humane community!
You saw why just yesterday Two ANIMALS 24-7 headline articles posted just yesterday, We need to open up spay/neuter – now!, by Bryan Kortis, and Pit bull attack deaths only slightly slowed by COVID-19 stay-home orders, underscore why ANIMALS 24-7 remains on the job, as active as ever, through weeks of global shutdowns of all […]
We need to open up spay/neuter – now!
by Bryan Kortis, National Programs Director, Neighborhood Cats When the shutdowns in our country began due to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, in early March 2020, the animal welfare field reacted quickly. Shelters were closed to the public, services were curtailed to the bare minimum, and cages were emptied through adoptions and recruitment […]