Shelters can be bad places for cats. At best, they may expose them to infectious disease and to the risk of stress-induced illness. At worst, they are a frightening — even terrifying — experience followed by death. Is it time for a fundamental change in how we shelter cats?

Yes, say two of the nation’s top experts on animal sheltering, Dr. Kate Hurley, DVM, MPVM and Dr. Julie Levy, DVM, PhD, DACVIM. Pointing out that only 1 in 50 cats taken into shelters is claimed by an owner, and unsocial/community/feral cats face intolerable stress with even less of a chance of survival, they suggest a different approach, one that puts life first:

A recent (January 2012) poll by the Associated Press found that almost three-fourths of Americans believe shelters should be “allowed to euthanize animals only when they are too sick to be treated or too aggressive to be adopted.” However, when no limits are placed on intake, in most communities shelters admit more than twice as many healthy cats as they are able to re-home [8, 9, 10]. This number far exceeds shelters’ ability to provide permanent housing.

If euthanasia of healthy cats is not considered an acceptable option and the number of cats presented to a shelter exceeds the number of adoptive homes, this leaves two basic possibilities: 1) adding alternative live outcomes for cats admitted to the shelter (generally in the form of sterilization and release to a non-housed environment, e.g., trap-neuter-return), or 2) deferring or declining intake in the first place. For any possibility, we must bear in mind what real alternative options exist. Even if there are concerns or problems associated with new approaches, we need to consider whether they are preferable to the current situation, rather than whether they represent flawless solutions to all the many issues associated with free-roaming or abandoned cats in our communities.

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