A state is considered to be “no-kill” if it is able to save at least 90% of the animals that enter its shelters, according to the Best Friends Animal Society. No state has achieved this status until now – Delaware has officially become the first and only no-kill US state for shelter pets.
The Best Friends Animal Society is the only national animal welfare nonprofit organization dedicated to ending euthanization of shelter animals. It helped Delaware to achieve this historic milestone by collaborating with state shelters and government officials to implement several animal control tactics that have been proven to improve adoption rates and curb shelter intakes.
Delaware has 59 different “no-kill” communities. Thanks to them, 11,900 animals were saved from being euthanized. Best Friends hope that more state legislators and US communities will follow Delaware’s example. It may be the only way they’ll achieve their goal of making the United States a no-kill country by 2025.
For now, the United States overall has a save rate of 76% with over 4,300 communities identified as “no-kill” regions. Texas and California are the states with the highest rates of shelter deaths. If you’re curious about where your state and community rank on the Best Friends no-kill map, you can visit the organization’s website to learn more.
Sadly, the situation across the country remains that 2000 animals die in shelters every day, with a rate of 2 cats for every dog. The main reasons are that limited resources and pet overpopulation create obstacles to saving lives. Best Friends is doing their best to change this by receiving highly adoptable animals that would otherwise be euthanized and helping communities make sustainable change through mentorship and resources.
Last year, about 733,000 dogs and cats were killed in animal shelters across America, simply because they didn’t have safe places to call home. Best Friends believes that together, we can change that and achieve no-kill for dogs and cats nationwide by 2025. People can help by supporting support their local shelters by fostering, adopting, donating, volunteering, supporting spay/neuter organizations and holding elected officials accountable to make sure shelters get the help they need.
Holly Sizemore, chief mission officer for Best Friends Animal Society, told TODAY:
We absolutely have been able to track the catalyst of change and the speeding up of life saving that’s happening in shelters all across the U.S. I believe the public wants to be a positive part of the solution.
The beautiful thing about this movement is that it is such a nonpartisan issue. It doesn’t matter where you may fall in your political views — everybody loves animals and most everyone understands how valuable the human-animal bond is. So I do believe this movement is not only about saving animals’ lives, but it’s kind of redeeming us as people, and showing what kindness does to elevate us all and to just make a better world.
