Truemors
As we have probably all heard: "If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem." I believe in this situation, it does hold true.
First, my credentials: I do not have any training in veterinarian medicine, I do not have any advanced training in statistical analysis, and I am not a recognized mathematician nor a scientist. My point is that it does not take a genius to figure this out.
At random, I selected a county that I was able to access historical animal-handling data. The following is from fiscal years 1999-2006, Merced County Animal Control in central California. The numbers do not include dead animal recovery (i.e., road kill).
• 70,219 animals were handled
Of those 70K animals ...
• approx 6% were recovered by owners (4,528)
• approx 9% were adopted (6,211)
• approx 70% were euthanized (49,340)
• the remaining 15% were transferred to shelters, etc.
Therefore, in Merced County alone, almost 600 animals per month were euthanized (or almost 20 per day). Where did they come from? Why did no one claim them?
The total Human Population in Merced County was 240,162 in 2005 (latest count available).
Let's extrapolate ...
Merced County's human population is approx .00079% of the total US population. For the purpose of this analysis, I will use Merced County's numbers as representative of the US average (of course, this is not very scientific, but it serves a purpose). During those years in Merced, two animals were euthanized for every seven people living in the county.
Therefore, based on the US population of 301,139,947 (source: cia.gov July 2007) the numbers are staggering:
• 87,330,600 animals would have been handled nationally
• 61,131,420 animals would have been euthanized ... 70%
This is really shocking. That works out to 727,755 animals per month were euthanized nationwide, or 24,258 per day, between 1999-2006.
Based on these non-scientific, analytical results: three-quarters of a million animals are killed every month in the US ... do we have a problem here? Do you really think that allowing your pet to have just one little litter would be noticed by anyone? How about you and everyone else thinking that?
Whether these numbers are close or not, no one can deny our country has a huge pet overpopulation problem.
The solution is that every pet owner accepts their part of the responsibility. And that means you, too.
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