RSPCA busy but fewer animals
The good news is RSPCA ACT found homes for 92 per cent of all the dogs placed in its care in 2011. The bad news is 99 dogs and 23 pups still had to be euthanised for health, medical and behavioral reasons.
RSPCA ACT chief executive officer, Michael Linke, said although his organisation had been very busy there had been a reduction in the number of animals needing care.
And we saw dramatic improvements in our kitten care program in the latter half of 2011, he said.
A total of 613 cats and 520 kittens were put to sleep because they were either feral, very sick and carrying incurable diseases, or aggressive.
Our overall homing rate for cats, excluding ferals, was 69per cent, Mr Linke said.
The number of euthanised kittens was down by 22per cent.
Of the 7923 animals received by RSPCA ACT in 2011, 2946 were native wild animals and 1168 of the 3432 domestic animals had been surrendered by their owners.
Mr Linke said his organisation had successfully reunited 1204 animals with their owners and released 787 natives back into the wild.
Animals placed in the care of the RSPCA were a mixed bag with birds, lizards, rodents, chickens, ferrets, sheep, goats and pigs supplementing the more usual cats and dogs.
Staffordshire bull terriers were the most represented dog breed at the shelter in 2011 with 196, 139 of them strays, being taken into care. A further 35 were surrendered by owners, seven were born in the shelter, six were seized by RSPCA inspectors and nine were brought in by Domestic Animal Services. Only 91 of the strays were reclaimed.
Another 52 staffies were adopted out, 41 were transferred to DAS, seven were euthanised, two were returned to their owners and four died of natural causes.
Bitzers, staffs, labradors, maltese, jack russells, kelpies, cattle dogs, border collies and shih tzus were also well represented.
Mr Linke said the shelter had received 2946 wild animals, a reduction of 8per cent on 2010.
We released 787 native animals back to the wild, a 26per cent release rate, which is expected given the amount of trauma most wild animals see before coming to the RSPCA, he said.
Sadly still more than 50per cent of native animals brought into care have been inadvertently interfered with by humans. This includes car strike and pet attack as the two biggest reasons animals are brought into our care.