There are too many “Return to Field” (RTF) studies of animal shelters to examine more of them individually (see previous Posts on this petition site analyzing four such studies). Virtually all the studies that examined the impact of an RTF policy demonstrated that:

• RTF resulted in fewer in-shelter euthanasias of friendly, healthy stray cats in previously poor-performing, high-kill shelters.
• All the shelters participating in studies had abysmal live release rates before the studies. A shelter in rural Hillsborough County in southwest Florida achieved a respectable live release rate of 85.5% for cats in 2018 after initiating a program that sterilized and returned ALL stray cats, feral and friendly. Before the program their live release rate was 4.6%! Almost all cats had been euthanized.
• Most participating shelters had previously offered no TNR services for feral cats.
• Positive results included lives saved through TNR programs introduced as part of the study, so the discrete effect of RTF remained unknown after the conclusion of the studies.
• Many of the studies lumped all owned, stray and feral cats into the one category of “free-roaming cats,” i.e., any cats who are free to roam the streets, despite the crucial need to care for the cats in each category differently.
• In all the studies, friendly stray cats brought into the shelters were sterilized and vaccinated before being returned to the field. ACC discourages bringing cats to them at all, so San Francisco’s friendly stray cats remain outdoors and do not benefit from such services.
• The well-known dangers to outdoor cats were not even mentioned in the studies. On the contrary, the cats’ outdoor habitats were simply labeled as their “homes.”
• No followup was tracked or even possible for the cats who subsequently may have died prematurely because of the threats they encountered after their return to the “field.”
• There was also no followup to determine if returned cats had a caretaker and daily access to food and water.
• There was no comparison with shelters that already had high live release rates (like ACC has had for many years).
• Few or none of the universally accepted criteria for an empirical scientific study were followed.

RTF is of course preferable to euthanasia when no other options are available, AND a shelter has had a poor record in saving stray cats’ lives before implementation of an RTF program. 

All this petition is arguing is that San Francisco Animal Care & Control would not have been accepted in such a study because it had — and has — no need for RTF. ACC’s website even argues for keeping cats indoors to remain safe from outdoor threats and risks. By practicing Return to Field it is contradicting its own advice!  Besides, ACC’s current policy could more aptly be described as “Leave in Field,” for which no studies exist. ACC’s current embrace of such an inhumane policy, whatever they call it, must be terminated to save more cats’ lives, cats who would otherwise suffer and die prematurely — and alone.