ANALYSIS OF 2004 CLARK COUNTY
ANIMAL CONTROL STATISTICS

The Las Vegas Valley Humane Society has been compiling Clark County animal statistics for seven years using the same format. This format is generally accepted for comparison of animal control programs. We are open to suggestions on ways to make the data more comparable. One item tending to reduce the comparability of the report is the “other” category. This is a forced number arrived at by subtracting the sum of the four items reported from the total impounds. Ideally for comparability this number should be zero as the Henderson number is for 2004. The larger the number the more distortion in comparisons. Examples are in North Las Vegas the “other” category is 28% of total impounds and the City of Las Vegas number is 15%.

Because various animal control organizations present the data for the attached report in different formats we have to extract the information and make decisions that affect the report. We realize that there are unavoidable distortions such as animals impounded one year and adopted out the next, but these numbers should tend to cancel out. If each animal control organization would furnish just the impounds and numbers in the four categories in a way that reduces the “other” category, comparisons will be more accurate.

There are a number of ways to analyze the data reported. A common method is the per cent of impounds that are euthanized. We prefer to look at the number of impounds per 1000 residents. An animal control program that has only 10 impounds per 1000 residents is certainly more effective than one with 40 impounds, if there is comparable enforcement. In any program there are a small number of unavoidable euthanizations. The program with 10 impounds may be forced to euthanize 50% of impounds while the program with 40 may euthanize only 25%. Obviously the program that kills only 5 animals per 1,000 residents is better than the one that kills 10 even though it kills 50% of the animals impounded.

Over the seven years that the humane society has kept statistics the number of animals killed per 1,000 residents has slowly declined from 16.2 in 1998 to 14 in 2004. The number of animals impounded has decreased from 38.3 per 1,000 residents in 1998 to 33.2 in 2004. Unfortunately in the same period the number of adoptions per 1,000 residents has decreased from 16.2 to 9.2 in spite of increased efforts and expenditures by the animal adoption agencies in the county.

We see no indication that the yearly decrease in the number of adoptions per 1,000 residents will change in the future. The costs per adoption will also continue to rise. Spay and neuter programs as a way to reduce overpopulation thus become more effective relative to adoptions every year. Expanding the spay and neuter programs in Clark County is the only cost effective method of reducing pet overpopulation and the associated killing of animals. There are many examples of the success of such programs in the US. San Francisco and New York City have both reduced their animal euthanasia rates to below 5 per 1000 residents. This has been accomplished through drastically reducing the number of animals impounded primarily through extensive spay and neuter programs. We would like to see this reduction in Clark County and are continually working towards this goal. The costs of government financed spay and neuter programs are recovered in a few years by the reduction in animal control costs. More importantly the number of animals killed is drastically reduced by such programs.