A year in NSW pounds

The NSW government have since 2005, collected data on intakes and outcomes for pets entering their pound system. The latest available figures were recently released in a report, Analysis of Council Data Collection System for Seizures of Cats and Dogs 2010/2011.

Animal advocates have long maintained that ‘overpopulation’ is the reason shelters kill. For that to be true, shelters and pounds only taking in a few pets would only kill a few pets, while those shelters who take in a lot, would kill a higher number.

It’s worth noting the majority of pounds only process a few hundred dogs a year. Most will be collected by their owners and go home, leaving a few dozen dogs to place. Is ‘overpopulation’ killing dogs here?

There is also a line of defence kill shelters use which says since they are open admission and they take ALL pets – not getting to choose to only take in ‘nice’ pets – there will be a requirement that they kill a percentage of pets (often an relatively high percentage), for being too dangerous to rehome. For this to be valid, we should be able to take an average amongst all pounds in a state (as they are all taking in lost and roaming pets and are therefore ‘open admission’), and see the number of pets killed being pretty similar from site to site.

The figures below are the breakdown of pounds and councils for their dog intakes (I will publish cats in a future post). Take a look and then ask yourself – why is there such an enormous discrepancy in the kill rates of pounds in NSW?

See also: The surprising results of the NSW pound survey