Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control euthanized about 40 percent of Indiana’s animals last year, but took in just 8 percent of the state’s animals, according to animal welfare organizations.
Best Friends Animal Society, which has a goal of making all U.S. animal shelters zero-kill facilities by 2025, told the Fort Wayne City Council that more than 3,000 animals were euthanized by animal control in 2023. Stacey Rogers, central regional director for Best Friends, said the society addressed the city council to raise awareness in the community that the shelter stands out from other shelters in Indiana.
“When our data team looked at all shelters reporting 2023 data, Fort Wayne ranked in the bottom 10% nationally for overall rescue rate and in the bottom 5% for dog rescue rate,” Rogers told the Journal Gazette’s Madeline Kidd. “While these are tough times for shelters right now, being in the bottom 10% or bottom 5% for dog rescue rate means the shelter is definitely exceptional in its ability to save lives.”
Animal Control is an open-access shelter, unlike many other shelters that can choose the number and types of animals they take in. City ordinances and reciprocal agreements require the department to take in all unwanted pets and stray animals, as long as they come from Allen County.
Animal control’s alarming statistics for 2023 are part of a national trend: The animal rights group Shelter Animals Count reported in February that the U.S. has seen an increase of 900,000 animals taken into custody since January 2021, and last year, more dogs than cats were euthanized for the first time since 2016.
More than 6.5 million animals were taken into U.S. shelters and rescues in 2023, marking the fourth consecutive year of overcrowding and adoption rates not keeping up with the challenge. Last year, 4.8 million cats and dogs were adopted, but pet adoptions are not keeping up with animal intakes as economic factors such as unemployment, inflation and housing make it difficult for owners to keep pets.
As a result, more than 359,000 dogs and 330,000 cats were euthanized in the United States in 2023.
“All animal shelters are struggling right now,” Jessica Henry Johnson, executive director of Humane Fort Wayne, told The Journal-Gazette. “We’re all asking ourselves, what can we do to improve survival rates? Are we doing enough? If not, what more can we do?”
The city awarded Animal Control $500,000 from more than $50.8 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to expand capacity for its animal shelter programs, but the plan is in jeopardy. Site Director Amy Jo said construction cost estimates were higher than expected.
“I’m not sure what we can do,” she told the Journal-Gazette. “We’ll have to sit down with the property manager and the city auditor and see if we can solve this problem.”
She doesn’t have much time: All ARPA-funded projects must be foreclosed or disbursed by the end of this year, city spokesman John Perlich said. Projects that are foreclosed at the end of 2024 have to be disbursed by the end of 2026.
The good news is that Humane Fort Wayne is set to open a new 25,000-square-foot facility in July on more than five acres at 901 Leesburg Road, which will double the organization’s capacity for dogs and five times its capacity for cats, and animal control is already allowing Humane Fort Wayne to adopt out more animals every day.
Henry Johnson, speaking at the world’s largest animal welfare conference in San Antonio last week, advocated for animal shelters in densely populated areas to transport animals to parts of the country that need them more. He believes that expanding the network of animal shelters would help animal control reduce pet overpopulation.
She also said there is room for discussion among local residents about creating more pet-friendly housing options in Allen County.
“We have a lot of people who drop off their pets at our shelter because they’re moving to a place where they can’t keep pets,” Henry Johnson said. “I think this could be a significant problem alleviated if landlords simply allowed them to keep pets.”
Animal control overpopulation is a local problem, which is why the solution requires local involvement.
Seitz and Henry Johnson say Allen County’s biggest problem is the number of puppy mills in northeast Indiana. Animal Control’s euthanasia rates have risen as a result of the “COVID puppy” phenomenon and continue to do so as people give up animals they acquired during the pandemic.
Dogs and cats are not toys or fashion accessories: research shows that they are living beings that experience joy, fear, anger, disgust and love.
Unless Americans take seriously the promise of providing lifelong homes for the pets they adopt, animal shelters (such as Animal Care and Control) that are required to take in all unwanted animals will continue to suffer from high euthanasia rates.
