Perspective | Animal Advocacy
No-Kill 2025: A Mission to Save Lives
What it is and how YOU can be a part of it?!
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”-Nelson Mandela
What does No-Kill 2025 mean?
No-Kill 2025 is a movement by Best Friends Animal Society to put an end to the killing of healthy animals in shelters across the country. According to the ASPCA, (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), 1.5 million shelter animals are euthanized every year. Best Friend’s No-Kill 2025 mission is to save every cat and dog in a shelter that can be saved. This means healing and treating animals that can be treated. It also means reducing the number of animals that enter shelters each year. Euthanasia should not be a means to take care of pet overpopulation.
“No-kill means that an end-of-life decision for a pet is an act of mercy rather than one done for convenience or lack of space.”-Best Friends
What are people doing to make this happen?
Best Friends has set up a benchmark of a 90% save rate for shelters to aim to achieve. This is because generally, less than 10% of the animals entering a shelter have irreparable issues that disrupt quality of life. The idea of creating this benchmark gives shelters a goal to work toward. Some might even exceed 90% and save 98% of animals that enter the shelter. The movement is to prevent shelters from euthanizing healthy animals to meet shelter or government issued quotas of how many animals “need” to be killed.
There are many ways in which we can work to achieve this goal:
- Building No Kill Communities-One shelter at a time. Best Friends defines a community as no-kill when every single shelter within that town/city (whether government run or humane society, etc.) has reached a 90% save rate or higher and sticks to the philosophy of saving every animal that can be saved. We don’t want shelters to fabricate a 90% save rate. We want transparent policies about adoption, the animals, and programs within the shelter, a true commitment and unified public message about saving lives and a collective effort to end this huge problem.
- Educating about shelter reform-This is a crucial aspect to bringing about change. Educating and providing training for animal control officers and shelter workers so that people in various roles in various departments are collaborating to save as many lives as possible is what we really need to create lasting change. If a shelter wants to save more lives but has no resources at its disposal, (no volunteers, no rescue groups helping foster or transport, animal control bringing more animals in, no fundraising, no spay/neuter programs), then the shelter is going to have an extremely difficult time becoming no-kill. Working together is a great way to share resources, build strong relationships and transform a community.
- Making spay/neuter surgeries more available-It is unsettling to think a healthy dog or cat will be euthanized to make space for another dog or cat while people purposefully breed more puppies and kittens. The average number of kittens a cat has in her litter is 4 but can range anywhere from 1 to 12. And the average number of puppies a dog has in her litter is 5. If a male dog that is intact has relations with just a few neighborhood female dogs that are not spayed, that can easily become 15 new puppies needing a loving home. Working to make spay/neuter surgeries in areas where people may have a harder time affording or getting their pet the surgery is extremely important because cost should not be a deterrent from doing something that saves lives. It’s also important to spread awareness about how beneficial it is to get your dog or cat spayed/neutered. Not only does it provide health benefits but it also is helping prevent more litters and more pets entering shelters.
- Community cat programs (trap-neuter-release)-Every community has different needs. Your community might have more dogs entering shelters than cats or stricter guidelines on pet housing policies. About 2/3 of animals killed in shelters are cats, and a lot of cats are feral or free-roaming cats and their trip to the shelter ends up being fatal. A community cat program like trap-neuter-release is amazing because it entails trapping, neutering, vaccinating and then releasing the cats back into the wild-it’s humane, it gives the cats a healthier life, and it protects humans as well.
- Foster programs-This is an extremely giving way to help animals in need. By fostering an animal from a shelter, you provide a safe and quiet place for an animal to stay while it’s searching for its forever home and in the meantime open up space for another animal. You also can help an animal that might have special medical concerns heal or receive more one-on-one attention than it might get in a shelter. Fostering is also an awesome way to allow the animal to get used to being in a home and prepare it for its forever home. Finally, fostering is a great way to lead to adoption.
How you can help!
- Volunteer your time, money or resources. (Walk dogs at your shelter, donate, transport animals, bring old towels and newspapers to your shelter or ask them what they need.)
- Become a Best Friends 2025 Action Team Member.
- Reach out to shelters in your community and ask how you can help them become no-kill. (Best Friends has an AWESOME resource called the Lifesaving Dashboard where you can click on your state and city and view the lifesaving status of shelters in your area.)
- Adopt an animal from Best Friends Sanctuary or from a shelter near you!
- Foster an animal.
- Spread the word/educate!
- When you shop on Amazon try shopping Amazon Smile where you can support a shelter or a bigger organization at no extra cost to you.
Making a difference
When you learn about an issue going on in the world, whatever it may be- poverty, hunger, lack of clean water, etc.-It is sometimes hard to know how you can be effective in changing the world or even contribute to solving the problem. Some problems are so big that you need more than one person to help. But it all starts with one. One person, one voice, one action. It is possible for you to make a difference no matter how small your action feels or looks.
