01/01/2021
Happy New Year! As you know, Chicle Animal Foundation is no longer contracted to run the Tri-Cities Animal Shelter. Chicle ran the shelter in 2019 for the months of April thru December, and then all of 2020. Attached are the shelter stats for the last 5 years (the shelter was previously run by A2Z Animal Sheltering in 2016, 2017, 2018, and Jan/Feb/Mar of 2019). In 2021, the shelter will be run by Neo’s Nation Animal Foundation.
Also included is a breakdown of stats per month for 2019 & 2020 when Tri-Cities Animal Shelter was run by Chicle. It is interesting to see the impact of COVID (adoptions up) and the impact of kitten season. Intakes of dogs dropped since 2019, but cat numbers were crazy high. We in-took 1,794 cats in 2020! Again, that number is CRAZY compared to previous years (199 DOA's, so 1,595 alive in our care). Chicle is super proud of our dedication to the animals who were in our care. In 2020, we adopted out 1,070 cats and dogs. We transferred out 800 cats and dogs to rescues. Thank you to our rescues! Rescues have phenomenal foster based programs and some have in-house vet care. When our spay & neuter appointments were difficult to secure (COVID issues), we relied heavily on transfer opportunities because we made the commitment to adopt out altered animals. Rescues also helped with sick or injured animals and we can’t thank rescues enough.
We had 60 cats participate in our trap/neuter/return program and 91 feral cats were relocated in our barn cat program. Unfortunately, we do have to make decisions on euthanasia for severely ill or injured animals. All animals euthanized were examined by a vet and euthanized at the vet. We euthanized 13 dogs in 2020 (5 were in December. 4 were hit by car and 1 was found having a seizure in an alley and couldn’t be saved). We had to euthanized 121 cats for 2020. Numbers for euthanasia would drop if owners would keep their animals safely contained on their property and spay and neuter.
Chicle also did a phenomenal job saving feral cats, ring worm cats, cats with upper respiratory infections, and bottle babies. This was made possible by donations we received that went to vet care and by our foster program. We worked with foster families and they saved lives, however some died in our care, but we tried. We had 10 feral cats escape our outdoor enclosure (this number stinks). Fortunately, they were all altered and some are hanging around the shelter performing rodent control.
Chicle Animal Foundation thanks our shelter community for making a change in the right direction. Thank you to staff, volunteers and donors. Please continue to be an advocate for animals in the Tri-Cities!