From Jan McHugh-Smith, President, The SF/SPCA

The San Francisco SPCA mission is to protect and save animals’ lives, provide care and treatment, advocate for their welfare and enhance the human/animal bond.  To this end, we work in partnership with the San Francisco Department of Animal Care and Control to assure that healthy animals in our care are not euthanized, and we work together to place as many treatable animals as possible.  

The SF/SPCA adopted the language of the Asilomar Accords to standardize our statistics and work in collaboration with other shelters to help animals. The SF/SPCA is moving away from using the “no-kill” reference for our agency because it misrepresents the reality that some of the animals in our care with serious medical and behavior problems are euthanized.  We are committed to being transparent in our operations and to helping the public understand the plight of homeless and abused animals. The SF/SPCA recently celebrated a 97% live release rate and we are committed to saving more animals’ lives. Our animal statistics can be reviewed at www.sfspca.org/about_us.shtml. To learn more about the Asilomar Accords visit: www.asilomaraccords.org.

As the “Most Humane City in America,” San Franciscans can be proud of the fact that The SF/SPCA and the SF/DACC, working together with other rescue organizations, help more than 7400 companion animals annually and have a collective live release rate of 82% for dogs and cats.   This means that of all the dogs and cats entering The SF/SPCA and SF/DACC, 82% are reunited with the guardians, re-homed or placed in rescue.  This is an amazing live release rate for a metropolitan city of more than 750,000 people. We thank our supporters for making it possible through generous donations to sustain our life saving programs.