ANC Interview: Ed Boks and Ed Sayres

by Carol Givner and Hedy Litke

Ed Boks is the executive director of Maricopa County Animal Care & Control (AC&C), the largest pet adoption agency in the United States and home of the first municipal no-kill shelter, and is also director of New York City’s Animal Care & Control (CACC).

Mr. Boks is applauded as a pioneer in the philosophy of "no kill" as a means of elevating animal control to an art form.

Edwin J. Sayres has been appointed the sixteenth president and CEO of the ASPCA, an animal welfare organization that is 137 years old.

Mr. Sayres was formerly president of the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a "no-kill" shelter that is a model for animal shelters nationwide.

ANC: How did you become interested in animal welfare?

Ed Boks: Since childhood I always had a heart for animals; as much as I love people, I seemed to always enjoy the company of animals (whether dog, cat, bird, reptile, or amphibian).

Even as a child I often took lost animals in and did what I could to find their owners. Little did I suspect that I would one day devote my life to returning lost pets to their owners.

Maricopa County and New York City Animal Care & Control are both known for the number of animals we adopt into loving homes each year (22,000 and 12,000 respectively).

But the service we provide that I take the most pride in is returning lost pets to their frantic and worried owners.

In Maricopa County we return more than 12,000 lost pets to their owners each year. In New York the number is less than 2,000. It's unfortunate that New Yorkers haven't been given the opportunity to understand the true value of licensing their pets.

100% of the lost pets that come into our shelters wearing a current license go home! 99% of the pets that come into our shelters without current identification never go home again. Licensing works.

I believe it is the role of government to help people understand that the purpose of a license fee is to provide this profound public service.

We expect to see the number of lost pets returned to their owners increase in New York over the next few months as we begin to promote licensing, microchipping, and posting pictures on our website.

ANC: How did you become involved in promoting animal welfare?

Ed Boks: When I started as director of Maricopa County Animal Care & Control in October 1998, I found many members of my staff resistant to the changes I was advocating.

In 1999, I started to promote animal welfare through a simple employee newsletter that led to the development of a team of like minded leaders, who, in turn, provided me the freedom to take my message on the road.

It eventually became a platform that allowed me to share a vision for animal welfare and animal control with people across the United States to substantially reduce the number of unwanted animals in our communities through aggressive spay/neuter programs, effective methods of returning lost pets to owners, and self funding pet adoption centers and innovative adoption programs.

Today this message is being embraced from Los Angeles to New York and beyond.

ANC: As the executive director of the Maricopa County Animal Care & Control, what was the most difficult obstacle you faced in turning it into the nation's largest pet adoption agency?

Ed Boks: Perhaps they were well intentioned, but the facts demonstrate that local animal advocates committed to the previous administration did much to interfere with the implementation of the new vision.

This misguided allegiance came at the expense of countless animals as these individuals tried to discredit what we were doing. Those that are the most self-righteous and judgmental in animal welfare are the biggest obstacles to progressive and innovative change that saves lives.

Fortunately it is difficult to argue with success. It took nearly three years, but the dramatic increase in adoption rates, the significant reduction in euthanasia rates, and the evidence that innovative spay/neuter programs decrease the number of unwanted animals in a community — all driven by an animal care and control agency — utterly silenced our opponents.

Maricopa County programs, policies, and procedures transformed an animal control program into a national animal welfare leader.

Today, programs such as Big Fix, FELIX (Feral Education and Love Instead of X-termination), STAR (Special Treatment And Recovery), Safety Net, Plus One/Minus One, No-E Below the Knee, License to Love, and others are being replicated in communities across the United States; in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Utah, California, and now New York City.

ANC: What do you foresee as the most difficult challenge you will have to face in New York City?

Ed Sayres: The challenge is getting animals at risk from their primary surrender location to a place accessible by the public. It is the distribution of the pets to the people.

San Francisco is literally the size of one of New York City's boroughs. The first action plan was to look at some small, city-owned buildings or vacant retail spaces to house, at least, cats, and potentially dogs, overnight and hopefully to have adoption centers in every borough.

ANC: Then you wouldn't be working out of the shelters that are in existence right now.

Ed Sayres: That's right. They would be branded by a new name: New York City Animal Care and Control (NYCACC) and ASPCA.

ANC: What steps did you take to establish the first municipal no-kill shelter in Maricopa?

Ed Boks: Small no-kill shelters seem effective at adopting out small numbers of animals, but somewhat ineffective in the real, day to day, front line war against pet euthanasia.

The only way no-kill organizations can significantly impact the number of animals dying in a community is to work directly with animal control because that is where the animals are dying.

When animals are taken from animal control the lives saved are immediate and measurable. So, to answer your question, I wanted to illustrate the absurdity of the belief that no-kill shelters are a solution to our nation's pet overpopulation problem, when in fact they deal with minimal numbers of animals. I decided to create the first municipal no-kill shelter.

I learned that the community truly embraces and takes seriously the no-kill concept. People came to our no-kill shelter in droves. Our adoption rate shot up nearly 30% and has continued to climb for nearly four years.

Ever since, I've been advocating the municipal no-kill Pet Adoption Center concept both at home and abroad.

The municipal no-kill shelter concept will work for all animal control programs. If we had two or three more such facilities in Maricopa County we could end pet euthanasia tomorrow.

If we had a Pet Adoption Center in each of the boroughs of New York we could end pet euthanasia within a year.

ANC: As the new Acting Executive Director of the CACC, how would you compare the traditional catch-and-kill complexities of suburban communities in states like Arizona with those of an intensely urban nature like NYC?

Ed Boks: To have suburban communities you must have an urban community. Maricopa County is home to twenty-four of the fastest growing communities in the United States, and delightfully many of our newest citizens seem to be New Yorkers.

I find the expectations of my constituents in both communities to be very much the same. There is a high expectation that animal control must play a significant role in ending pet euthanasia as a form of pet overpopulation control.

This desire to stop the killing has nothing to do with urban, suburban, or rural residency.

ANC: Most people think of pet adoption as only a one-on-one situation of finding a new human companion for an animal. However, you have instigated innovative and effective programs for relocation in the community. What other avenues for relocating companion animals would you suggest?

Ed Boks: Because of the sheer number of animals our nation is dealing with and the high cost of rehabilitating, treating, curing, and training animals we must predominately rely upon the lower cost efficient methods of placing lost and unwanted animals.

Ideally, every animal has a human companion. But preparing that animal and finding that human is often beyond the cost that society can endure. That is a sad fact.

When every animal control program has achieved the level of efficiency that Maricopa County as achieved, then it will be time to discuss "other avenues for relocating companion animals."

It is my heartfelt hope that every animal control program would adopt the base line life saving programs designed by Maricopa County, including our New Hope program, our STAR (strategic treatment and recovery) Program, the No "E" Below the Knee, our Operation Food Bank, Safety Net, FELIX (feral cat love instead of x-termination), License to Love, and so many more.

My energies are devoted to these programs because they save the most lives now. Everything else is a luxury we cannot afford at this time.

If you are an animal control agency, I humbly suggest that instead of looking at your own program and asking how you might save the next ten animals, you consider adopting Maricopa County's programs to see how you can save the next ten thousand.

ANC: Your work with feral cats was a capture-neuter-return program, was highly successful for both of you. Do you think it would work in a city like New York?

Ed Boks: Yes, without question; to quote a Wall Street New Yorker, TNR is a no-brainer.

Ed Sayres: Yes, absolutely. New York poses another level of complexity because of the high population density, vertical living, and the expanse of the five boroughs.

If you can implement a safety net concept into this complexity, then you can extract from that.

ANC: Do you intend to continue working with the feral cat program with a lot of rescue agencies?

Ed Sayres: Yes, it's a matter of intensifying the relationships. Neighborhood cats are the primary target as well as providing enough spay/neuter sites to enable people to implement what we will teach them.

ANC: In your work with animals, what have you found to be the greatest cause of neglect by previous owners?

Ed Boks: I suspect the answer is that an animal's value to an owner is less than the work and expense needed to care for the animal.

ANC: Do you intend to continue with the mobile spay/neuter van? Will that be an aspect of the spay/neuter services you offer to the rescue people or the neighborhoods?

Ed Sayres: I hope to expand it. The accessible spay/neuter has to be quadrupled before we are going to see a population decline.

ANC: Besides the centers you are going to have, are there any other off-site adoptions that you plan to institute?

Ed Sayres: We'll see. The next group is really the Mayor's Alliance Events — which includes the parks. Again, we must get up to speed and do those successfully.

We used to have prominent retail stores in Union Square with dogs and cats in the holiday windows. The main thing is to get across the concept of adoption and then provide the public with a convenient way of doing it.

That's the whole essence of the success we had a PETsMART. We brought animals from remote locations and put them in an accessible location; I think PETsMART is up to 200,000 adoptions a year now.

ANC: Your relationship with San Francisco's CACC was always wonderful. Do you intend to maintain that kind of relationship with Ed Boks in a partnership?

When you were in San Francisco, you held seminars between both agencies' employees to reduce the friction between the "kill" and "no kill", which, as we know, exists in the industry. Do you have any plans to do the same thing between the ASPCA and CACC here?

Ed Sayres: Yes. I interviewed on the theme that I could be more effective locally. I agreed with the separation of animal control from the ASPCA, but the second stage of that-the collaboration part-never really took shape.

I think the best part of the work I did in San Francisco was the above-board partnership with San Francisco Animal Care and Control.

ANC: How do you foresee using the Maddie's Fund to institute some of these programs, especially in a city like New York? What percentage rate (save rate) do you think you'll be able to achieve in New York? Do you think you will be able to top the 75% you achieved in one year in San Francisco, with the fund?

Ed Sayres: No. My intuition tells me the save rate potential for NYC is lower than San Francisco.

ANC: Do you have a time frame in mind?

Ed Sayres: My numerical goal is to try to reduce "kill" by 10% per year.

ANC: You certainly have some challenges ahead of you. What do you think people can do -animal lovers-to help turn the world into a "no kill planet"? Do you have any advice for people who want to work with the movement? What can they do to help?

Ed Sayres: What I think is lacking in the city is a fostering network. Especially in cities or apartment buildings with no pet clauses, nurturing a litter of kittens from two to six weeks old, is probably something you can do.

By doing temporary fostering, you are getting your human-animal bond experience, but without the permanent responsibility. That would be incredibly helpful.

The other contribution people can make is their awareness. There is a good blueprint, either from Pet Finders and the Internet, as well as the locations we establish for dogs and cats available in the city, encouraging people to consider looking at the ASPCA, CACC, Bide-a-Wee, or any of the Mayor's Alliance Partners.

ANC: You mentioned the high number of large dogs that we think of as unadoptable animals. Are you considering other options, such as working with sanctuaries?

Ed Sayres: There is certainly a population of dogs that is "sanctuary appropriate". I have spoken with the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary about the possibility of transitioning some dogs we might have here, especially some of the Animal Precinct cases that are probably not suitable for the average NYC home.

ANC: Do you have any plans that you haven't mentioned or anything else you would like to add?

Ed Sayres: We are working on a program you will see in Animal Watch, the Strategic Alliance, which looks at communities that have a very high save rate in order to analyze and dissect how they have achieved it.

It's about assisting a community vs. imposing a particular philosophy onto a community. The solution is communities assessing their own situation and their own demographics and creating the biggest menu of possible strategies So, that's what I'm trying to do-get better cohesion.

There is a very high level of competency here. I'm hoping to deliver the best of it out to the field in an effective way.

ANC: What can animal lovers do to help turn the world into a no-kill planet?

Ed Boks: Spread the word: support animal control, help implement and fund life saving programs in the organization where the killing occurs. Where else can you so immediately measure the results of your donations?

ANC: What are your plans for the future?

Ed Boks: In many ways I feel as though the future is now. The last time I answered this question in an interview I said I would love to go into other communities to establish strong animal care and control teams to effectively further the cause of no-kill.

I'm truly honored to be working with the wonderful people of New York City to do just that.

ANC: How do you plan to work jointly with Ed Sayres to make NY a no-kill city?

Ed Boks: Ed Sayres is a buddy of mine. He too has taken on a challenging role.

If Al Gore had won his home state he would be president today. I think the same could be said of the ASPCA. If they could win over their hometown they could be the premier animal welfare organization in the United States again.

Knowing Ed Sayres as I do, I think he is up to this challenge.

After meeting some of the current ASPCA Board of Directors, I'm encouraged that the A, like the New York City Animal Care & Control, may be ripe for a renaissance.

I can think of no better colleague than Ed Sayres to face the animal welfare challenges in New York City today. Ed and I are currently discussing ways to partner on improving our spay/neuter programs, humane law enforcement, wildlife rehabilitation strategies, and the possibility of placing no-kill pet adoption centers in each of New York's five boroughs.

If these things are achieved, Henry Bergh's vision, which Ed and I both share, to promote and protect the health, safety and welfare of all the animals in New York City will take a significant step towards fulfillment.

This is a very exciting time to be in New York!

© 2003 Animal News Center, Inc.