More states are becoming ‘no kill.’ Animal rescue group wants NC to join them by 2025
1,077 dogs and cats are killed in North Carolina shelters every week, according to a national animal rescue group.
Can those deaths be eliminated in the next five years?
Best Friends Animal Society and its partners in the state have set an ambitious goal for 2025: creating a no-kill North Carolina, according to a video the group released Monday. It’s part of a national no-kill campaign for shelter animals by the same date.
“In 2018, nearly 56,000 dogs and cats were killed in animal shelters in North Carolina just because they didn’t have safe places to call home,” the group says on its website. “Together, we’re changing that.”
The society released a study in August with staggering data on the number of shelter animals killed in each state in 2018, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.
North Carolina ranked third with 55,900 animals killed — just behind Texas (No. 1) with 114,000 and California (No. 2) with 111,000.
Best Friends Animal Society sets a benchmark save rate of 90 percent for a state to be considered “no-kill,” meaning at least 90 percent of all cats and dogs entering its shelters are saved.
That’s because euthanasia is sometimes “the most compassionate choice” in cases where animals are suffering or too dangerous to rehabilitate, according to the rescue group.
The governor of California has announced his intention to make it a no-kill state using taxpayer dollars, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Delaware became the first state to hit that benchmark last year, ABC News reported.
But in North Carolina, only 39 no-kill communities exist. The bulk of the state is classified as “not yet no kill,” according to the study released last year.
Best Friends Animal Society has partnered with more than 90 organizations statewide to help improve those figures, including giving the Forsyth Humane Society a $16,000 grant in November.
Forsyth County had a save rate of about 36 percent in 2017, according to a news release announcing the award.
The Humane Society took over the contract for the county’s municipal shelter in January 2018, and — by the end of 2019 — the save rate had climbed to 81 percent. Now the Humane Society is on a mission to achieve no-kill status by 2023, according to a news release.
Best Friends Animal Society has encouraged residents to get involved in the statewide 2025 campaign by joining the state’s action team, signing up for related legislative alerts and reaching out to local shelters to find out what kind of help they need.
“Through partnerships with municipal animal shelters, spay and neuter programs, animal welfare organizations and the community, we can Save Them All and make North Carolina a no-kill state by 2025,” spokesperson Hannah Stember said in the news release.
