LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The effort to reduce Lake County's high cat euthanasia rate is producing big results, according to the county's Animal Care and Control director, who also is preparing to roll out a new program in July.

On Monday, as the 2013-14 fiscal year came to a close, Director Bill Davidson was busy crunching the numbers as part of producing his annual report on Animal Care and Control operations, and he said the news is promising.

Davidson said that cat euthanasia rates in Lake County – which in the last several years were the worst in the state – have shown a significant drop.

Over the last three years, cat euthanasia has been cut in half, the numbers showed.

In the 2011-12 year, 87 percent of the cats brought into the shelter were euthanized, according to Davidson's report.

At the same time, the “live release rate” – the number by which Davidson said most shelters determine their success – was 33 percent that year.

Then, in 2012-13, the county instituted its “community cat program,” which encourages people to bring in feral cats to be spayed or neutered and vaccinated in order to be returned to the community.

Those cats have traditionally made up a large part of the animals brought into the shelter and euthanized, according to Davidson.

At the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year, the first year of the community cat program's implementation, euthanasia was reduced from 87 percent to 52 percent for cats, and the live release rate climbed from 33 percent to 54 percent, he said.

For the 2013-14 fiscal year, the cat euthanasia rate dropped still further, reaching 43 percent, with the live release rate rising again, to 59 percent, Davidson said.

Davidson called the 44-percent drop in euthanasia over the last three years “huge,” crediting the community cat program with that improvement.

“It's a big deal,” Davidson said.

State numbers had shown that in 2011 Lake ranked as having the highest cat euthanasia of all of California's 58 counties. However, the new numbers now place Lake back at around No. 10, Davidson said.

Davidson said dog euthanasia has never been as high a problem, with the current dog euthanasia rate at 33 percent, which is about the state average.

Davidson said another impact on the euthanasia numbers is the removal of the stats for owner surrenders for animals that are sick or dying.

He said it's not part of the animal shelter system but is an affordable service offered to the community, and so didn't belong in that statistical reporting.

The other impact from the community cat program is a drop in intake for cats overall of between 5 and  7 percent this year, Davidson reported, with dog intake down by about 11 percent.

Among intakes, newborn kittens also are decreasing, as are animals that are sick or injured, he said, while feral cat intake has increased slightly.

The numbers of newborns are a statistic Davidson is watching closely because of the expected impact of the spaying and neutering of community cats.

As part of the efforts to continue to improve Animal Care and Control's cat-related programs, July kicks off the beginning of a new county policy that Davidson said is meant to complement the community cat program.

Last December the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a new stray cat intake policy that requires a $15 dropoff fee for one cat or $25 for a litter of kittens.

Davidson said that program is an alternative when people don't want to participate in the community cat program and take the cats back after they are altered and vaccinated. In those cases, the shelter will attempt to adopt out the animals.

The fees – which are common in other counties – are meant to help the shelter to offer better care to the cats it takes in, Davidson told the board.

Does Davidson expect more improvements in the cat-related statistics years to come?

“I do,” he said.

Next year, Davidson said he believes he will see some kind of shift resulting from the new dropoff policy along with a continued drop in the number of newborns taken to the shelter.

Because of the changes in policy and funding, Davidson said, the county's trap-neuter-release program will now always be in existence.

Visit Lake County Animal Care and Control online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.