JESSICA VILLAGOMEZ: ‘Chicago is not a good place to be a stray cat. According to a Freedom of Information Act request, Chicago Animal Care and Control (CACC) euthanized 1,007 animals from June 1, 2017 to September 30, 2017. The euthanizations, the act of putting an animal down, came at a time when Chicago animal welfare organizations had committed to accepting animals displaced by Hurricane Harvey in Houston this past summer. Of the 1,007 animals, the most euthanizations happened to domestic short-haired cats, with 278 euthanized. Another 105 of the euthanized animals were pit bulls, 94 were raccoons and 94 were bats… Euthanizations were classified in seven different categories including: Confiscate, Dispo Required — disposal requests for already deceased animals, Euthanasia required, Owner Surrender, Return, Stray and Wildlife…
Cynthia Bathurst, executive director and co-founder of Safe Humane Chicago, said that the summer season is one of the busiest times for CACC because animals are more likely to be outside. “When the shelter is completely full and they don’t have the capacity to take every animal that comes in, in that case it’s what they call a capacity of care issue,” Bathurst explained. This means that the shelter has to choose animals to be euthanized that have been there the longest and are least likely to be adopted, or ones that have a medical or behavioral issue the shelter is not equipped to deal with… Animals classified as euthanasia requests or sometimes, owner surrender, are animals brought into CACC by owners to be euthanized. Euthanization costs $10 at CACC, according to their website’. SOURCE…
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