Animal charities cut back programs in response to global recession

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2009:

 

 

Animal charities cut back programs in response to global recession

 

Downsizing to close a reported $32

million income shortfall in fiscal 2009, the

International Fund for Animal Welfare on October

18, 2009 closed the IFAW bear rescue center in

Pan Yu, China. The last five resident bears

were trucked 1,260 miles from southern Guangdong

province to the Animals Asia Foundation bear

sanctuary at Chengdu, in central Sichuan.

" We agreed that IFAW would pay for the

transfer, and that we would then take over all

expenses related to the care of the bears, "

Animals Asia Foundation founder Jill Robinson

told ANIMAL PEOPLE. " I have no idea what is

becoming of the vacated Pan Yu sanctuary, "

Robinson added.

Robinson was an IFAW consultant when she

first saw the Pan Yu bears, in 1993, at a

hospital-owned facility that tapped their gall

bladders to extract bile, for processing into

traditional medicines. Now believed to be in

decline in China, the bear bile industry was

then still growing, after the basic methods were

developed in North Korea--but commercialization

had made keeping bears economically unviable for

the hospital.

" Originally there were nine bears, "

Robinson remembered. IFAW founder Brian Davies

agreed to rescue them, to publicize and promote

an IFAW campaign against bile farming. The Pan

Yu property was leased, the rescue center was

built, and the bears arrived in 1996--just

before Davies retired.

Four years later Robinson spun off the

Animals Asia Foundation as an independent

charity, in order to build the much larger

Chengdu santuary and extend campaigning against

the bile industry to Vietnam.

" IFAW agreed to take sole charge of the Pan Yu bears, " Robinson said.

Since then the Chengdu sanctuary has

" welcomed 265 bears into our little place of

peace and love, " including the five bears from

IFAW, " and we're hopeful that the Chinese

government will keep its promise of more to be

rescued before the end of the year, " Robinson

said.

 

Feeling the pinch

 

While economists project that the world

economy has begun improvement, after two years

of recession, animal charities of every size are

still feeling the pinch, and can expect to feel

it until toward the end of 2010. This is because

charitable giving tends to be a " lagging

indicator, " increasing mostly after donors enjoy

improvement in their own financial affairs.

Small animal charities are coping with

more animals who need help at the same time

donation amounts are down. Large animal

charities, have these same problems, in addition

to diminished fundraising capacity, because they

have often lost substantial cash reserves that

formerly generated the interest and dividends.

Ironically, state laws passed decades ago to

protect charities from losing their assets

through bad investments have kept some of the

wealthiest animal charities in the world from

spending down their reserves to maintain program

services, leaving smaller charities to pick up

the slack.

The Massachusetts SPCA, struggling with

a $15 million shortfall in anticipated revenue

and a loss of $11.5 million from reserves,

responded by closing three shelters in 2009. All

three were soon reopened by other entitites. The

former MSPCA shelter in Springfield was sold to

the Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society for $1.2

million in April. The former Martha's Vinyard

shelter was leased to a new charity called Animal

Shelter of Martha's Vinyard. The former Metro

South adoption center was on September 15, 2009

leased at no charge to a coalition called the

Animal Protection Center of Southeastern

Massachusetts.

The MSPCA still operates shelters in

Boston, Centerville, Methuen and Nantucket,

with hospitals in Boston and Nantucket.

 

California crisis

 

The San Francisco SPCA, also among the

world's wealthiest humane societies on paper,

but also pinched by revenue shortfalls, in

October 2009 quit opening on Mondays. The

SF/SPCA had operated seven days a week for 141

years.

The economy is having an impact on all

animal welfare and rescue organizations right

now, " SF/SPCA president Jan McHugh-Smith told

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Justin

Berton. " We're all dealing with an increased

need for service, and we're all seeing a

reduction in donations. "

The SF/SPCA continues to offer free or

low-cost veterinary care to low-income pet

keepers--with requests for free or low-cost help

running 37% ahead of 2008, McHugh-Smith told

Berton.

The SF/SPCA budget crunch, bad as it is,

is mild compared to the $26 billion deficit for

the state of California. For nearly half of 2009

an impassé between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

and the state legislature left California without

a budget.

The compromise that ended the standoff

" included a provision that reduces the mandatory

holding period for stray animals from six days to

three days, " noted San Francisco Chronicle staff

writer Peter Fimrite. Supporters of the change

contend that it will merely allow shelters to

euthanize animals with poor adoption prospects

sooner, enabling the shelters to hold for longer

the animals whose adoption prospects are good.

Critics believe the shorter holding period will

send the California shelter death toll back from

about 400,000 a year now to circa 600,000, where

it was when the six-day holding period was

instituted in 1998.

 

U.K. shelter intake

 

U.S. shelter intake and killing have

barely changed in more than a decade, according

to the annual ANIMAL PEOPLE compilations of

shelter data, begun in 1993. The United

Kingdom, however, in the twelve months ending

in March 2009 experienced an 11% increase in

shelter dog intake, according to the Dogs Trust

2009 Stray Dog Survey.

" This is the largest annual increase

since our records began in 1997, " said Dogs

Trust chief executive Clarissa Baldwin.

" Previously we saw a steady decline, but the

latest statistics show a huge jump in the number

of stray dogs both handled and put to sleep by

local authorities. Some dog wardens said the

recession could have been a contributing factor

to the increase, while others cited the change

in the stray dog law last April. "

Explained Joachim Moxon of The

Independent, " A 2008 change in the law means

that statutory responsibility for stray dogs in

England and Wales has passed from police to local

councils, " who " often lack the funding to round

up the animals, while limited working hours mean

that people who rescue strays often must keep

them overnight. "

Though these factors might explain why

more dogs are at large, they would not explain

why more dogs were taken in.

By U.S. standards, the U.K.numbers are

not alarming: just 107,228 dogs impounded

nationwide, about 2.5% of the U.S. total in a

nation with about 20% of the U.S. human

population. More than 90% of the U.K. dogs were

rehomed, compared to about 50% in the U.S.;

only about 9,300 were killed, fewer than in some

U.S. cities. U.K. shelters killed barely 1.5

dogs per 1,000 human residents, less than half

the U.S. toll of pit bull terriers alone, and

less than 25% of the total U.S. rate of shelter

dog killing.

Dogs Trust does not track shelter cat

data. The Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, of

London, reported a 20% increase in dog adoptions

in fiscal 2009, but a 10% decrease in adoptions

of cats. At the same time, BBC News reported,

Battersea has received more calls from people

wanting to surrender kittens, and had begun to

put people wanting to surrender cats and kittens

on a waiting list.

Dogs Trust called for the introduction of

compulsory microchipping, to try to increase the

animal rehoming rate. " Thirty-one percent of

stray dogs who were returned to their owners in

the last year were returned with the help of

microchips, " said Baldwin.

While the U.S. numbers have not yet

jumped nationwide, over an entire year, there

is concern that they might, as occurred in

2002-2003 after funding for low-cost

sterilization programs faltered. Shelter killing

increased nationally by 700,000 over those two

years. The current crunch is again hitting

low-cost sterilization programs.

New York state, for example, has had a

state-subsidized sterilization voucher program

since 1996. On August 20, 2009 the New York

Department of Agriculture and Markets suspended

the program because it ran out of money. " The

vouchers, for either $20 or $30, are available

to people who adopt pets from shelters and meet

financial guidelines, " explained White Plains

Journal News reporter Laura Incalcaterra. The

program was suspended with 8,869 vouchers still

unused, which had to be used by October 1.

" Once those vouchers have been paid, the

state will reinstate the program in counties that

have surplus [unissued] vouchers, " Incalterra

continued. " In counties without surplus

vouchers, New York will reinstate the program

once enough money accumulates from funding

sources. Those sources include the $3.00

surcharge on dog licenses for dogs who are not

spayed or neutered; unclaimed deposits left with

shelters; $20.00 of the $25.00 annual charge for

custom 'Love Your Pet' license plates; and

private donations. "

An ominous hint of what might be ahead

came from Nashville, Tennessee--one of the most

affluent cities in one of the poorest U.S.

states, with the seventh highest state rate of

shelter killing in the U.S. over the past 10

years. The Nashville Humane Association in

August 2009 reported a 20% increase in animal

surrenders, with a 15% drop in adoptions. Happy

Endings Animal Rescue, also in Nashville, saw a

70% drop in adoptions, founder Cindy Gosselin

told Claudia Pinto of the Gannett Tennessee news

service.

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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