Kaua‘i Humane Society 252% over capacity, sending animal shelter into crisis

The Kaua‘i Humane Society is 252% over capacity, with 357 animals in its care as of Tuesday.

Another 120 cats and dogs are being held in foster care. The influx of animals has created a capacity crisis for the Humane Society, with it proving difficult to find permanent homes for its would-be pets.

“Sheltering typically is a little bit of a roller coaster,” said Nicole Crane, executive director of the Kaua‘i Humane Society. “We have kitten season, so we know our population is going to go up. Sometimes during the summer we get more animals. Then, during the holidays, we get more animals out.

“There’s always a little bit of a wave, or an ebb and flow. But what we’re seeing is those avenues that we had for outcomes aren’t there like they were previously.”

The Kaua‘i Humane Society has seen a reduction in adoptions, and a reduction in off-island transfer opportunities due to other shelters’ similar capacity crises.

“We’re not adopting 100-plus animals a month anymore because of a variety of reasons that people are going through, whether it’s financial or economical, or housing,” Crane said. “There’s not this outflow option and so we are getting this backup [of animals], which is a little bit new to us … There’s nowhere for them to go, and they continue to come in.”

This year the Kaua‘i Humane Society has taken in more than 400 kittens under the age of eight weeks needing exceptional care – bottle feedings and medical procedures. All require a lot of resources.

The Kaua‘i Humane Society also has seen many animals needing intense medical care or humane euthanasia due to vehicular injuries. Multiple cats and dogs this year have been brought in who had been hit by cars. In the past three weeks, two dogs were brought in who had jumped out of a vehicle while tied up and were dragged behind the vehicle.

In instances where the quality of life would be exceptionally diminished, it is considered cruel
to allow the animal to continue to suffer and a humane euthanasia is performed. These cases of humane euthanasia affect the animal shelter’s ability to continue claiming a no-kill status,
because even though these lives were ended humanely, they count against the positive outcomes.

A no-kill status is calculated by dividing the number of live outcomes (adoptions, transfers and
returned animals) by the total outcomes (those outcomes plus euthanasia).

The Kaua‘i Humane Society is not yet euthanizing animals for space or time. The animal shelter is only euthanizing for medical reasons.

The sheer number of animals at the animal shelter also increases risk of disease.

“It just puts our animals at greater risk to have such a high population, because there’s this potential for animals to get sick and not survive,” Crane said.

Difficult decisions also will have to be made, if the shelter’s resources continue to be stretched thin. Some injured animals may not be able to receive the treatment available when the shelter was below capacity.

“If we have an animal that really needs a lot of therapy … and we have so many animals to take care of, we don’t necessarily have the resources at that moment that we had when our population was a lot less,” Crane explained. “So you’re still only euthanizing for behavioral and medical [issues]. But there is also this risk of, what resources do we have available? Can we spend three months on this one animal?”

In the long term, Crane said more cats and dogs must be spayed and neutered to address the shelter’s overcrowding problem.

“We did a huge spay/neuter thing just for cats in the last few years and we thought it was helping. But all of a sudden, we are way up again,” she said. “There’s just a lot of procreating going on, on the island, and we just have not been able to stay ahead of it.”

To foster Kaua‘i Humane Society shelter animals, call or text 808-631-2844. The Kaua‘i Humane Society will provide all supplies and medical care for the animal..

Through February 2024, all cat and dog spay and neuters are only $35 and include a microchip, per county and state laws.