East Baton Rouge animal shelter undergoing big changes

In the past few years, nearly three out of every four dogs and nine of every 10 cats taken to East Baton Rouge’s animal shelter have been euthanized. More than half of those killed were eminently adoptable—25% were healthy, and 30% had treatable or manageable health problems. Animal activists and grassroots groups have decried Baton Rouge’s euthanasia rate, and they’ve complained about the way animals are treated at the shelter. However, those concerned have lacked the hard data and the financial and political clout to get government decision-makers or the public to improve the situation of the community’s stray and abandoned animals. But that may be changing. In the past year, four new animal welfare organizations have been working with shelter animals, creating a synergy powerful enough to force officials finally to address the adoption rate. These volunteers insist that revolution, rather than reform, is the only way to redeem East Baton Rouge’s system and to care for shelter animals. Find out how pressure from inside and outside the system is changing how the city-parish deals with its abandoned animal problem—read the whole story in this month’s 225 magazine by clicking here.