Thousands of cats (and dogs) are killed by the public shelters in Alaska every year. Many, perhaps most, of those animals didn’t have to die. A more open relationship with the public and a more humane living situation for the animals could prevent these deaths.
The dream in the creation of public animal ‘shelter’s was to provide a place where lost and abandoned animals would have a refuge and care until they could go back to their homes or find new ones. But in Alaska, as in much of the country, the reality for an animal, particularly a cat, entering a ‘shelter’ means that they have a good chance of not coming out alive. This is not because of some defect or failing of the animals, but the breakdown of our shelter system.
Over the years, Clear Creek Cat Rescue has rescued cats from most of the shelters in southcentral and the Kenai Peninsula—Houston shelter, Mat-Su shelter, Anchorage shelter, Seward shelter, Kenai shelter, Soldotna shelter, Homer shelter—as well as taking cats from Dutch Harbor and other outlying areas. And what we’ve learned is that the system is broken. In almost every case, any criticism of the public shelter, no matter how careful and helpful, will result in being blacklisted. This applies to adopters as well as to rescues.
This situation unfortunately is not unusual in the world of shelters. All across the country, rescue groups have faced the terrible dilemma of either silently watching ill treatment and unnecessary killing of animals in order to be allowed to save a few, or speak up for change and be denied the right to rescue any. Most rescue groups feel they have no choice. The fear of having more animals killed because the rescue is no longer allowed to rescue has crippled rescuers from even speaking up. They continued to operate in that place of fear, controlled by the whims and desires of managers who held the power of life and death in their hands.
This is not only true in other places with other rescues and other shelters. This is the reality today with the MatSu shelter.
In March of 2024, less than 24 hours after Clear Creek posted on facebook a copy of an injured kitten’s MatSu shelter medical record, the manager of the MatSu shelter suspended Clear Creek’s rescue rights. The medical record showed that a kitten hit in a road was kept in a cage for 4 days with no vet care for his broken pelvis at all– no medical care, no pain meds–and then they killed him. This is the kitten that a Clear Creek volunteer had picked up beside the road and was on her way to an emergency vet when the shelter authorities insisted that the kitten be taken to the shelter rather than a vet. Under duress of being threatened with a citation, we complied.
After rescuing cats from the MatSu shelter for 15 years, CCCR has been banned as an ‘approved’ rescue. Not because we did something wrong, but because we exposed the truth about what the MatuSu Shelter had done to this kitten.
This little orange boy who was killed after being given no care for his injuries is only one of the many cats, and dogs, who suffer and die because of the antiquated ways of dealing with animals at the MatSu shelter. The shelter hides behind secrecy of the public not knowing what really goes on in the back room. And those who expose them or who object–whether rescues or employees or volunteers–are summarily removed.
The animals who end up at the shelters are victims of humans’ neglect and disregard. That this neglect and disregard continues at our public shelter is unconscionable. They need help from all people who care about their survival. Please be an advocate of positive change in our public shelter system. If we don’t speak up about the problems in our shelters, about the unnecessary killing, who will?
It’s time for a change.
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