Not enough animal shelters


Animal shelters address the pet over- population issue. By teaching humane education, students are more likely to be innately drawn to volunteer and support animal shelters and the communities that they serve. Interestingly, humans have been shown to express more empathy for pets than people26. Each day, 10,000 humans are born


in the US. In that same amount of time, 70,000 kittens and puppies are born13. As long as these birth rates exist, there will never be enough homes for all of the pets we are producing. Cats can have up to three litters in a single season — four kit- tens per litter on average, but sometimes up to 12 kittens. Without proper pet popu- lation management services, one pair of intact cats and their offspring, averaging two litters a year with 2.8 kittens surviv- ing on average, can produce 11,606,077 cats in nine years9. One pair of intact dogs and their offspring can produce 67,000 dogs in six years9. There’s an estimated 6–8 million homeless animals entering animal shelters in the US every year10. Barely half of them get adopted. In the US and Canada, about 40–50% of them are euthanized, the vast majority of which are cats11.


spay/neuter services, and public awareness campaigns17. These approaches can be applied to student lessons through humane education and engagement with local animal rescue organizations.


Managing our pet population


Stray, feral, and community pets are often defined as inva- sive species6. Ferals are the result of abandoned, intact (not spayed or neutered) pets that find niches in both rural and urban ecosystems and reproduce at exponential rates. They often transmit diseases and parasites, and are prone to aggressive encounters with humans and native wildlife species. Introducing students to social issues that lead to pet over-


population can help prevent the growing number of stray and feral pets and the consequent negative future impacts of this growing population. As educators, we can empower stu- dents to problem-solve humane solutions to decreasing the number of these “invasive species” that are an “emerging threat to biodiversity and rural ecosystems”7. There are great activities for students to practice observ-


ing ecosystem limits and reflecting on their own personal choices and values, such as the Global Footprint Network’s Footprint Calculator. It is important that we talk to kids about managing cat and dog populations as a subject of our greater management of natural resources: It is perhaps one of the clearest examples of human impacts on ecosystems.


How pets impact the environment


Humane education should be included in environmental education curricula because of the often unseen negative impacts of pets, also known as external costs. In encour- aging an attitude of environmental stewardship, we can include pets in conservation conversations. As was mentioned earlier, feral pets can threaten the


existence of native species. Cats are particularly threatening to songbirds20. “Knowledge of cat-related risk perceptions and attitudes could be used to develop communication pro- grams aimed at promoting risk-averse behaviors among cat owners and cat-management strategies that are acceptable to the public and that directly advance the conservation of native species”21. Dr. Gary S. Okin of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment


and Sustainability determined that our pets produce about 30% ± 13%, by mass, as much waste as us. They constitute 25–30% the environmental impacts from animal production for food in terms of land, water, fossil fuel use, and phos- phate and biocide production. This equates to the release of about 65 million tons of greenhouse gases19. Kitty litter in the US ends up in landfills at a sum of five


billion pounds of mined clay a year. By comparison, the solid waste output of Rhode Island was just 1.5 million tons in 2012. The same year, 2.4 million tons of clay were used to make pet litter. The clay is extracted from open-pit mines in 11 states to support this $2 billion industry18. Luckily, there


Green Teacher 126 Page 35


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