We tend to assume that having the RSPCA involved in the animal management process, results in better outcomes for pets. As a professional animal welfare organisation, surely they must do a better job than say, a local council left to its own devices. And sometimes, when a local pound is being run with serious deficiencies or inhumane animal treatment, this might be true.
But does having the RSPCA – with all their supposed compassion and the multi-multi-million dollar budgets – managing your your local council pound result in the optimum performance? Do the maximum number of animals get saved?
As the annual figures from the NSW Division of Local Government (DLG) ‘Council Data Collection System for Seizures of Cats and Dogs 2011/2012’* show, maybe not.
Here are the animal intake and outcomes for the pounds in NSW, currently operated by the RSPCA NSW (click to enlarge)
They show that around 63% of cats and 25% of dogs are killed in RSPCA NSW pounds.
Dubbo is the highest for cats at nearly 80% – while 35% of dogs are killed at Coffs Harbour.
But overall, the council contracted facilities are operating as what I would deem ‘average’ for Australia.
Mainly, that the RSPCA NSW isn’t content with just operating council facilities – and then taking in extra animals as they have space/can rehome them. Wholesale killing is their business. As combining these ‘pound figures’, and the figures from their Annual Report for the same year show.
The RSPCA NSW are ‘double-dipping’ their killing. That is, they kill 63% of cats while in the pound, ‘transfer’ out 1,045 of them, then they kill a further 66% of their overall intakes in their high-kill shelters.
Dogs, they kill 25% of pound intakes. Then they transfer out 2,413 dogs to their other kill facilities. Then they kill 46% of overall intakes in their own high kill shelters.
However, despite being RSPCA run pounds, the original pound statistics aren’t included in the end-of-year Annual Report. Effectively meaning around half of all animals processed by the RSPCA NSW are ‘invisible’ to potential donors and supporters.
Moving pets from one location to another and deliberately limiting the amount of information the public can access on operations, helps high kill shelters sanitise their figures and keep killing out of the public eye. Like the proverbial ‘cup and ball trick’ thousands of pets vanish, with little hope of the public ever being able to see through the slight of hand.
Unlike local councils, who are accountable to the public and are required to produce animal management data under Freedom of Information, or Right to Information laws, private charities can pick and choose what statistics they present to the public. If data is too damning, they can simply choose not to publish it. Meaning, not only could your local pound be worse off under the management of a major charity – you might not be able to find out in the future how it is operating at all.
The RSPCA NSW, once a year, publishes a single total of pets processed combining all locations. Not only is this information painfully out of date by the time it becomes public, it is practically useless for animal advocates to use to assess their individual city’s performance. A transparent approach would see each RSPCA produce monthly figures for each location – including all pound figures and transfers – to allow local communities to appraise their local situation.
A safe future for pets will come when shelters stop killing behind closed doors, implement all eleven components of the No Kill Equation, and regain the public’s trust and support. No Kill demands transparency. It gives animal lovers the tools they need to assess their local shelter, regardless of who is in charge.
Only by rejecting all convenience killing, can we as a community change the operations of shelters like the RSPCA NSW, who continue to use the ‘overpopulation’ they artificially created, to justify continuing to kill in the face of alternatives.
We need to demand the killing stop today. Get informed. Get statistics. And become the change in your community.
*I have been able to source the complete figures from the DLG and will release them as soon as I can get them formatted up
The RSPCA is also ‘double dipping’ with their title. Private charities/shelters do what they do FOR PETS, not for profit. The RSPCA has laws for it only, therefore turning it into a government institution. They sell themselves as contractors for council pounds, therefore they are funded by the government.
To the public, they’re not a government run body, they’re a charity that’s not funded. Where’s the $139million in their bank account coming from? True charities are ALWAYS run at a loss, so how can the RSPCA afford billion dollar upgrades?
Thanks Shel for this analysis.
This is why it’s so important for councils, as ratepayers’ representatives, to ask the right questions. Cessnock council recently forced RSPCA to report back the results for animals from its impounding contract with RSPCA Rutherford, regardless of whether they were killed at pound or later in RSPCA’s high kill shelters. The 2012-2013 part year results to date were 31% kill rate and 77% for cats (total 49%) – much higher than what they will admit in the 2013 DLG figures when these finally come out, and much, much higher than the final year 2010-2011 figures that the RSPCA contract replaced.
This deception of the public is entrenched: the contract between Cessnock council and RSPCA NSW contains a clause specifically directed to this manipulation of their data.
A really elegant piece of analysis. Devastating that the figures are even worse than they seemed to be, and they seemed to be awful and devastating the the RSPCA should be willing to stray so far from its mission and treat the lives of animals so cavalierly.