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St. Mary's County shelter reports rise in intakes, live-release rate near no-kill threshold
Summary
Shelter staff told the Animal Control Advisory Board that intakes rose 55.8% compared with the same period last year, driving more outcomes and an 88.62% live-release rate; staff and volunteers are pressing outreach, foster, and medical strategies to lower euthanasia and meet grant benchmarks.
The St. Mary's County Animal Services Division reported a sharp increase in intakes and faster average departures for animals during a board update May 7. "From March 5 to May 6, we had 247 owner surrenders ... for a total of 419 animals," Animal Services Division Manager Hollis Lampe said, and added the shelter currently had 73 animals in care.
Why it matters: the shelter's live-release rate during that period was 88.62%, an improvement from 83.86% in the same period in 2024, but still below the 90% commonly used to signal ‘low- or no-kill’ status. Lampe and volunteers told the board that the county is close to, but has not yet reached, the threshold agencies and funders use to judge some grant success.
Lampe gave the intake and outcomes detail: 247 owner surrenders, 4 returned adopted animals, 10 seized or in protective custody, 32 strays, 19 transfers in from coalition partners and 7 animals born in care, totaling 419 intakes for the March 5–May 6 window. Outcomes for the same window were 216 adoptions, 50 returns to owners, 28 transfers out, 3 services out (return from protective custody) and 44 euthanasias for a total of 448 outcomes. Lampe said the shelter’s live-release rate for the period was 88.62%, up 4.76 percentage points from the same period in 2024.
Lampe also gave the average length of stay: "The average length of stay for this time period was 12.5 days for dogs and 21.6 days for cats," a drop from 17.5 days for dogs and 25.9 days for cats in 2024. She attributed part of the faster throughput to increased volunteer outreach and foster placements.
Board members and staff discussed euthanasia figures in detail. Lampe said 44 animals were euthanized in the reported period: 24 dogs, 19 cats and 1 rat. She provided reasons: for dogs the shelter listed 17 for aggression toward people, 3 aggressive to other animals, 2 severe resource guarding, 1 severe separation anxiety causing self-harm and 1 severe medical condition. For cats she said 11 of 19 were feral or unsocialized, 2 were symptomatic for feline leukemia virus (FeLV), 4 had severe medical conditions and 2 had moderate conditions for which diagnostics were not possible. Lampe noted, "So you're looking at 58 percent of our euthanasias for cats were ferals." (Attribution: Hollis Lampe.)
Board members pointed to grants and outside funding tied to euthanasia metrics: Diane Harris of Feral Cat Rescue told the board the Maryland Department of Agriculture expected to see a decrease in cat euthanasia after awarding a $24,000 grant for spay-and-neuter work in targeted ZIP codes, and said the grant application for 2026 requires past statistics to justify continued funding.
The shelter and its volunteers are pursuing several operational responses Lampe described: expanded volunteer-led off-site visibility and adoption events, fostering-to-adopt to reduce time in shelter ("If someone wants to adopt an animal that has not already been altered ... they can take that animal home as a foster to adopt until that animal can be scheduled for surgery" — Hollis Lampe), and working with community partners to fund medical cases that would otherwise require euthanasia. Lampe flagged limits in the shelter budget as a constraining factor for diagnostics and external inpatient care.
Ending: The board requested staff provide printed statistics in advance going forward and asked staff and volunteers to keep working on placements, outreach and targeted medical sponsorships as near-term ways to reduce euthanasia and increase the live-release rate.
