Lifesaving Statistics
Animal Intakes and Outcomes
There are about 13,000 adoptions every year at the Wisconsin Humane Society. It’s remarkable that nearly 30 animals leave our shelters each day to go to their loving homes. Strong community support makes that possible.
We’ve come a long way since 1971, the year the Wisconsin Humane Society – and the rest of the country – experienced the peak of pet overpopulation. In that year, a staggering 48,608 animals came into the shelter and 33,679 of them were euthanized, a 31% save rate.
In 1999, when we opened the Milwaukee Campus on Wisconsin Avenue, an open admission shelter, we made a promise never to euthanize animals for reasons of space or time, and we’ve upheld that commitment ever since. We’ve also brought the approaches that make that possible to Brown, Door, Ozaukee, Racine, and Kenosha Counties, ensuring better futures for animals.
Our community still faces significant economic hardship and we continue to pioneer ways to save more animals who come through our doors every day. Much of our intake comes from people who are surrendering their animals because they have nowhere else to go. For a variety of reasons, they can no longer care for their animals and have often exhausted their own placement resources – family, friends, online listings, etc. Their animals often have medical or behavioral issues (more than half our animals need extra medical or behavioral support), making it harder for their original owners to find willing adopters. So they bring them to us.
In addition to taking animals whose owners can no longer care for them, we provide animal control services for Racine, Brown, Door, Kenosha, and Ozaukee Counties. We house animals seized by law enforcement, provide a safe place for survivors of cruelty and neglect, and quarantine animals after they’ve attacked or bitten. We are also the largest partner to the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission (MADACC). While the vast majority of our intake is local, we also receive animals from other Wisconsin shelters and out-of-state shelters.
To all these animals, we offer clean kennels, warm beds, loving hearts, and medical attention. We are proud to be entrusted with the care of so many wonderful animals every year and we deeply value the compassion and respect our staff upholds in every animal interaction. Sadly, not all of these animals can be saved. We rehabilitate the animals we can, but we will not place a dangerous animal back into the community, nor will we allow an animal to suffer unnecessarily from medical issues we cannot treat.
For more information on our outcome decision-making philosophy, please visit our FAQ page.
The Wisconsin Humane Society is dedicated to transparency through the sharing of shelter intake and outcome statistics for our sheltering work. These intake and outcome statistics are determined using the Data Matrix as calculated by the National Federation of Humane Societies. These graphs are interactive and hosted by Shelter Animals Count, an independent, centralized, standardized database for animal shelter statistics. You can select various years of data or view only certain species. The Shelter Animals Count database updates on the 15th of each month.
How can the public help?
Can you foster a litter of kittens? Or sponsor a spay/neuter surgery, thus preventing generations of unwanted cats? Would you be willing to donate food for a family who loves their dog, but can’t afford to feed her? We need community support to continue to decrease pet overpopulation, and we need funding to provide resources to the growing number of animals who are in need of medical and behavioral support.
❤ Click here to foster. Click here to donate. Click here for our wish list.
