RSPCA ACT Breaks Animal Welfare Records again in 2015

RSPCA ACT achieved fantastic outcomes for animal welfare across the organisation during the 2015 calendar year.

During the year over 4,400 domestic animals came into care at the Weston shelter. This number is on par to previous years. The biggest change has occurred with why animals came into the shelter. Over the year there were 35% fewer animals surrendered and an 18% reduction in stray animals coming into the Weston Shelter. On the other hand, RSPCA ACT saw a four-fold increase in animals seized by or surrendered to our inspectors (1109 live animals compared to 275 the year before).

RSPCA ACT CEO Tammy Ven Dange felt that this change was due to the renewed focus on RSPCA ACT’s core mission, “By investing more in the prevention of cruelty, the number of incoming animals through our inspectors increased so significantly that we did not have the capacity to take in as many stray or surrendered animals from the general public this year – particularly adult dogs.”

RSPCA ACT Inspectorate also saw a jump in successful prosecutions through the year. In total there was 15 successful prosecutions compared to 0 the previous year. There was also another 25 cases pending court decisions.

“The statistics speak for themselves. Our inspectors have been working incredibly hard this year to protect and pursue justice for animals in need in our community,” Tammy said.

RSPCA ACT was also very busy with adoptions with over 2,800 animals finding a home which was an increase of 18% over the previous year. This is due to the significant increase of feline adoptions.

Tammy was pleased to see a large number of Canberrans choosing to adopt from the Shelter, “Our adoption numbers, particularly for felines is directly related to our local supporters choosing to adopt animals from us rather than buying them off the internet or from various other commercial operations. We could not possibly continue to break these adoption records of 16% increase in cats and 10% increase in kittens in 2015 if Canberrans did not help us rehome them.”

The organisation also saw a 7% increase of kittens coming into the Shelter. During the month of September, RSPCA ACT ran the first of a three year desexing program to curb the number of cats and kittens coming into care at the Weston Shelter.

“We desexed 360 adult cats for free this year to try to reverse the growth trend in the number of unwanted kittens we see at the Shelter. This is only Year 1, and we are not really surprised to see that incoming number continue to rise. However, if it doesn’t start to decrease by the end of Year 4, we will have a much bigger problem on our hands as a community, At least we are proactively trying to do something about this issue.” said Tammy.

RSPCA ACT also had the lowest number of dog, cat and kitten euthanasias ever on record.

Tammy was proud of staff and volunteers hard work throughout the year, “We will never put down an animal because of space constraints. However, as the Shelter fills to and above capacity at times, it is much, much harder to keep them healthy as they can give each other the flu and other viruses. I’ve am extremely proud of the hard work and dedication of our entire team of staff and volunteers to keep animals healthy until we can find them a new home.”

See full statistics here.

For more information please contact:

Joshua Pickham, Marketing Coordinator, RSPCA ACT

Email: jpickham@rspca-act.org.au

Phone: 02 6287 8110

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RSPCA ACT Breaks Animal Welfare Records again in 2015

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