Gwinnett animal shelter cuts euthanasia rate

The Gwinnett County Animal Shelter, sharply criticized by a county task force for “gross mismanagement” 18 months ago, has cut its euthanasia rate nearly in half over the past five years, records show.

The 2012 report from the commission-appointed task force cited problems like animals being euthanized daily while the shelter sat mostly empty. Rescue groups were given as little as 45 minutes to find new homes for animals before they were scheduled to be euthanized. The shelter’s management was disorganized and most staff generally acted with “indifference, intolerance and apathy,” the report said.

However, Gwinnett now has one of the lowest euthanasia rates among metro area county animal shelters, according to records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The 2013 rate was 31 percent, down from 59 percent in 2009.

“Every effort is made now not to euthanize,” said Curtis Northrup, chairman of the county’s Animal Advisory Council. “The culture is, ‘Let’s save these animals.’”

Other county-run shelters in metro Atlanta also have seen progress in cutting back euthanasia, though record-keeping problems and management turnover in some cases make those improvements hard to track.

The Cobb County animal shelter’s euthanasia rate dropped from 42 percent to 36 percent over the past five years. Over the same period, its adoption rate hit 40 percent.

Last year, the nonprofit LifeLine Animal Project began operating the Fulton and DeKalb animal shelters. Fulton’s euthanasia rate dropped by nearly 40 percent after LifeLine took over in March 2013, hitting 37 percent compared with 58 percent in the same period the previous year.

The improvements in Gwinnett’s euthanasia rate have not meant a higher price tag for taxpayers. In fact, county spending on the shelter — which totaled $3 million last year — has not changed significantly in recent years, said the shelter manager, Sgt. Chip Moore. But the shelter will see a $475,000 budget increase this year as part of an overall hike in county spending.

Higher adoption and rescue rates mean the shelter saves money on animal care — though those cost savings are plowed back into shelter operations, Moore said.

Among the changes the 2012 task force suggested: hiring a dedicated rescue-group coordinator, marketing animals using Facebook and other media, holding regular public adoption events, and seeking more help from volunteers.

The shelter needed a new manager and a new mission, the task force said. And shelter operations should be overseen by civilians, not the police department.

Not all those recommendations have been adopted. The Gwinnett shelter remains under the police department’s control. (Cobb County’s animal shelter also is operated by the county’s public safety department.) And Gwinnett officials, following a general policy of limiting social media use, won’t let the shelter have an official Facebook page to help find homes for animals.

Still, shelter management has made major changes. Last year, the shelter founded the Kitten Farm. Instead of euthanizing kittens too young to be adopted, shelter staff and volunteers filled a single room with 50 to 60 kittens, which remained until they were old enough to be adopted. More than 700 kittens passed through over an eight-month period.

The shelter also has a rescue coordinator who works with about 200 different rescue groups to help place animals, Moore said. The shelter holds adoption marathons, takes animals to off-site adoption events, offers special rates on hard-to-place animals, and teams up with outside groups to promote adoptions.

“A lot of the ideas and ways that we’re doing things (now) came from the employees,” said Moore, a veteran police officer who became shelter director in 2013. “Whereas before, when they presented ideas, it wasn’t very well accepted by management.”

Last year, 15 percent of all animals coming into the shelter were placed with rescue groups. And 2012 was the first time in the past five years that more animals were rescued or adopted than euthanized.

The Gwinnett shelter also is taking in fewer animals. It handled about 7,900 animals last year — about 5,500 fewer than in 2009.