Statistics for 2016 from the City of Bloomington Animal Care and Control revealed the shelter is succeeding in its goals of decreasing euthanasia and intake rates and increasing adoptions and volunteer hours.
Most of the animals admitted into the Bloomington animal shelter are healthy, good-natured dogs, cats and rabbits,according to a City of Bloomington press release.
However, some animals are considered too sick, too injured or too aggressive or behaviorally unstable for adoption, so the shelter considers euthanasia as an alternative.
In these cases, the release states that euthanasia is the most humane alternative to a life of suffering or being confined to a cage.
According to the release, the shelter had a 10-percent euthanasia rate in 2016 — down from 16 percent the year before.
In 2016, the shelter also sent 700 animals to foster homes, placed more than 2,300 animals in adoptive homes and had more than 10,000 hours of volunteer work.
The shelter said in the release that it encourages Bloomington and Monroe County residents to spay and neuter their pets, adopt shelter animals, foster pets, become volunteers, or donate money or resources.
Education, animal rehabilitation and community engagement are also ways the shelter seeks to help animals.
“It is not words or phrases that help animals but actual efforts, programs and initiatives,” the animal shelter said on its Facebook page.
It added, “Simply turning a back on these animals and merely pronouncing that euthanasia should not exist won’t make euthanasia go away.”
Brooke McAfee
