The Seattle Animal Shelter (SAS) offers a spay/neuter clinic to members of the public, but its history is little-known and its work is rarely acknowledged in the media. This is unfortunate for both SAS and the public as it performs a vital animal service. At the same time, the Spay and Neuter Clinic has struggled post-Covid with a decreased service level to the City of Seattle.
WHAT IS THE SPAY AND NEUTER CLINIC?
The SAS Spay and Neuter Clinic is the result of citizen advocacy and voter approval. It was a controversial idea at the time. While SAS was founded in 1972 under a different name, the clinic only came into existence six years later. An article in 1978’s The Spectator reported that Mayor Charles Royer supported the creation of the clinic, but that it was rejected by the City Council in June 1978. A post on Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation’s website stated that local veterinarians also opposed the clinic at the time. Nevertheless, voters settled the issue in November 1978 by passing Initiative 16 and approving the clinic.
SAS is mandated by law to provide a spay and neuter clinic, specifically by Seattle Municipal Code 9.25.045, with established fees. SAS temporarily closed its clinic in 2023, but is now reopened with income thresholds for services as per below. (While this legal mandate only applies to cats and dogs, the current clinic does provide spays and neuters to rabbits and, occasionally, to guinea pigs.)
SMC 9.25.045 states that the clinic shall operate at a level according to public demand and shall be financed by surgery fees, pet license fees for unaltered animals and other means necessary. Does our city government know what the level of public demand actually is? And what about the future as more citizens are projected to move here, possibly as many as 160,000 more individuals by 2040? As for financing, we know that SAS’s budget fell from 2021-2022 to 2023-2024. As with all animal services, we wonder how much future planning for the Spay and Neuter Clinic is occurring.
SPAY/NEUTER CLINIC HAS STRUGGLED POST-COVID
The City of Seattle has over 750,000 people, many of which have animals. According to a June 2022 post on the SAS blog “The Scoop,” the Spay and Neuter clinic performs nearly 2,300 surgeries in a typical year. This is no longer the case.
From 2016 to 2019, the Spay and Neuter Clinic consistently performed more than 2,300 surgeries per year. With COVID in 2020, the numbers understandably dropped due to the pandemic and lock-down. SAS was mostly closed to the public at this time. The number of surgeries increased in 2021, but then dropped to almost pandemic levels. There has been veterinary staff turnover at SAS and this may account for the drop in surgeries. Animal shelters and rescues have experienced severe staffing shortages across the country.
However, we don’t necessarily know whether the drop is “bad” or not. Has demand also decreased or are surgeries being conducted at other clinics? Without a greater understanding of unmet demand, we can’t make a final determination. We hope to have a better idea once 2023 numbers are available.
CANINE NEUTERS AND FELINE SPAYS ARE MOST PERFORMED SURGERIES
A review of 2016 to 2022 data shows that canine neuters are the most performed surgeries at SAS, but only barely. There were 2,959 canine neuters performed during this period and 2,908 feline spays. Rabbits are also represented in the spay and the neuter categories, but at distant thirds. Guinea pigs are a negligible number at only six surgeries for the entire six-year period.
