Help an Animal // Help Your Local Shelter

Behind the Numbers: ‘Turn-Away Shelters’

Many people are surprised to learn that when limited admission, or so-called “no kill,” shelters fill up, they turn away homeless and unwanted animals.

When the Norfolk SPCA (NSPCA), near PETA’s headquarters, implemented a selective-admission (and subsequent “turn-away” policy), intake numbers in other area shelters naturally increased. Some animals refused entry by the Norfolk SPCA burdened shelters in neighboring jurisdictions. The nearby Virginia Beach SPCA, which accepts all animals and does not charge a drop-off fee, accepted 71 animals from Norfolk in one month alone.

The number of animals who need help does not change when one facility closes its doors to the less cuddly, cute, healthy, young, “adoptable” animals.

In 2004, the Norfolk SPCA took in only 1.7 percent of all homeless animals in the area—that’s only 765 out of 45,450 homeless cats and dogs.

Sadly, not all the dogs and cats turned away by “no-kill” shelters make it to other facilities. Countless animals are abused, abandoned, or even killed by people who don’t want them. Others face starvation, disease, predators, being killed or maimed in traffic, and cruelty on the streets.

No-kill shelters don’t add up from a financial standpoint, either. For example, in Pittsburgh, Animal Friends, Inc., a no-kill organization, is building a new facility at an initial cost of $7.3 million dollars with a maximum capacity of only 300 animals. Animal Rescue League, an open-admission shelter in the same city, houses 8,000 domestic animals each year and treats 2,000 injured or orphaned wildlife annually—on a yearly budget of $2.3 million. With a release rate of approximately 60 percent, about 4,800 animals each year at Animal Rescue League are adopted or returned to their guardians, while currently only 2,200 animals are adopted from Animal Friends, Inc., each year.

PETA will never turn its back on an animal in need, even when that means taking in animals who are diseased, badly injured, aggressive, or elderly—animals who have little to no chance of being adopted or helped by anyone else—and providing them with a painless release from a world that does not want them.

You can improve the lives of dogs and cats suffering from cruelty and neglect.

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