S.F. ACC’s leaders claim that their new policy of denying services to lost, abandoned or homeless but friendly cats is in the best interest of the cats. This obviously flies in the face of common sense and is reminiscent of the fictional language of Newspeak in George Orwell’s “1984.” That said, could there be other, more concrete but hidden benefits to the policy? If not for the cats, then benefits for ACC?

In the field of Economics such benefits are called internalities, a long-term side effect that is supposedly not considered when making a decision to enact a policy. In ACC’s case, whether or not its leaders intended such internalities, their effect is obvious. Fewer cats impounded means:

• Fewer staff needed to care for them, saving labor costs and/or allowing job openings at ACC to remain unfilled. Such savings can apply to kennel attendants, veterinary staff, front desk clerks, animal control officers, and those who train and supervise volunteers.
• Fewer feline meals served, less equipment used, fewer medical and security services required (such as flea treatments and microchipping), less kennel cleaning and sterilizing supplies, less euthanasia drugs used, less paperwork to process, and other operational savings.
• A balanced budget. In the past ACC management struggled every year to balance its budget. This struggle even resulted in at least one Director losing her job. Lower operating costs give a boost to staying in the black.
• A higher live release rate, i.e., the percentage of animals who leave a shelter alive. The live release rate is the primary standard or metric of an animal shelter’s success. When most of the cats available for adoption are either healthy owner-surrendered cats or socialized kittens, their chances of being adopted or transferred to rescue groups or to the S.F. SPCA, i.e., leaving ACC alive, is much greater than taking in all stray cats, i.e., being an “open-door” shelter. Stray cats have a higher risk of disease (external and auto-immune), parasites like tapeworms, hidden injuries, inadequate socialization, emotional trauma, and other liabilities. Such cats are at greater risk of euthanasia, extended shelter stays, and iatrogenic (shelter-caused) mortality. In other words, accepting all strays can lower ACC’s live release rate.

One of ACC’s online guidelines to someone who has found a stray cat states, “You can help us” by caring for the stray cat you found while trying to find the cat’s guardian yourself. It may sound cynical, but ACC helps itself in many other not-so-obvious ways by enforcing this unrealistic and draconian “return to field” policy.