South Africa has no national, real-time euthanasia data, leaving many reliant on incident reports and partial shelter numbers. Meanwhile, intake surges and the illegal puppy trade force animal welfare organisations into last-resort decisions like euthanasia.
Killing puppies is harsh, sad and affects many people in an emotionally visceral way.
Take the 12 puppies that were rescued from the side of the road in Randburg late last month. They were being sold for R80 each. The SPCA saved them, but sadly could not locate the mother, and the puppies had to be euthanised.
READ | 12 puppies sold for R80 each euthanised after Randburg SPCA rescue amid illegal sales surge
A few days later, reports suggested the SPCA in Kariega faced the grim possibility of euthanising 30 cats and 27 dogs because the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality had evicted it after 57 years.
The NSPCA said the cats and dogs would not be killed as a solution to house them and keep them safe for now had been found. However, their battle with the municipality continues.
READ | Animals face euthanasia as Nelson Mandela Bay evicts Kariega SPCA after 57-year tenure
The euthanasia of cats and dogs always elicits an emotional response. And SPCAs have had to defend their euthanasia policies many times over the years.
The fact is that killing puppies, cats or any animal in specific cases is humane, necessary and well-established. To avoid animals suffering to the point of torture, reputable animal welfare organisations globally employ euthanasia. The reasons include medical, behavioural and overpopulation.
As the SPCA euthanasia policy stated, “there are fates far worse than death”.
Besides stripping away at our humanity, euthanasia is also expensive, and if not adequately carried out, can lead to diseases and other societal issues.
If we want to get this problem under control, starting with the data is a good foundation.
Except, when News24 tried to find out what the statistics for overpopulation and euthanasia in South Africa are, we hit a brick wall. There seems to be no consistent, verifiable data.
Lots of unwanted animals
In South Africa, it seems that euthanasia is mainly due to overpopulation and weak law enforcement.
Regarding weak law enforcement, the NSPCA stated that municipal by-laws required animals to be sterilised and placed a limit on the number of animals that could be kept.
“However, this is not enforced, which in many cases leads to indiscriminate breeding,” it added.
An SPCA inspector told News24 that when tip-offs about animals were called in, usually one call was placed to the local police and another to the local SPCA - more often than not, only the SPCA showed up.
The NSPCA said:
Many times, which may be the case, yes. The SPCA is, however, not empowered to enforce by-laws.
Weak enforcement of these by-laws leads to overpopulation, and thus, the cycle of euthanasia continues.
Regarding overpopulation, the NSPCA stated: “Due to severe companion-animal overpopulation in South Africa, driven by indiscriminate breeding, abandonment, low sterilisation rates, and weak enforcement, euthanasia remains unavoidable in some cases.”
But critically, the statistics for overpopulation and weak enforcement, at worst, do not exist and, at best, are decentralised and out of date.
Overpopulation is something that can be improved, but that takes a whole-of-society approach.
The NSPCA said:
What can be stated with certainty is that the intake of unwanted animals remains persistently high in many areas.
Asked for any statistics, it stated: “There is no single national, real-time dataset for euthanasia figures, as SPCAs operate independently and intake fluctuates significantly by region, season, disease outbreaks, and economic conditions.”
What we (sort of) know
What News24 could find online was this article by the Cape of Good Hope SPCA.
In 2024, it was predicted that it would have to admit 20 350 unwanted, unloved animals. That is about 56 animals a day.
It turned out to be worse. The SPCA accepted about 65 animals a day (23 621 in 2024 alone).
If adoption rates had been higher, it might have reduced the overpopulation figures. But less than 20% of cats and dogs are adopted.
That year, the State of Pet Homelessness Report showed that adoption rates from shelters in South Africa were 9% for dogs and 19% for cats.
Doing some quick, rough maths:
Only between 2 000 and 4 500 animals could realistically be adopted in 2024 - meaning about 19 000 to 21 500 pets would still be without homes.
And this is just for one year. There seems to be no other data for other years.
Ultimately, thousands of dogs and cats are abandoned, without any hope of adoption. Because cats and dogs cannot be kept in kennels or at welfare organisations in perpetuity for myriad reasons, there is a high likelihood that they will have to be euthanised at some point.
So, how many domestic animals are euthanised? We do not know for sure either.
The NSPCA said: “There is no single national, real-time dataset for euthanasia figures.”
Disputed figures
There are only a few stats on euthanasia out there, and the ones bandied about are disputed.
In Parliament last year, a presentation on the state of companion animal welfare noted that “up to 1 000 animals are euthanised daily, according to SPCA data, with Rescue Rehab SA estimating that over one million cats and dogs are euthanised annually”.
When asked to verify these stats, the NSPCA said: “It could not have been, according to SPCA data - we have indicated that we dispute these statistics”.
It added that they were unsure how these statistics were compiled and that “it is not verified or endorsed by the NSPCA”.
The NSPCA said individual SPCA’s might have their own stats, but there was no central registry.
News24 then asked Rescue Rehab SA about its figures from the parliamentary presentation.
Its founder, Ronel de Villiers, said the stats came from research they had conducted a couple of years ago and were publicly available here.
She emphasised that these were not the latest and had not been updated.
De Villiers pointed to the State of Pet Homelessness Report for the latest results.
When News24 checked the methodology, we found that the report used only data collected in 2022 through “expert interviews”.
News24 reached out to Cheryl Gaw and Ancois van Zyl, who presented to Parliament last year. Gaw is the president of Pug Rescue South Africa, and Van Zyl is from the Animal Protection Forum SA.
Van Zyl said their data came from “partial SPCA data shared voluntarily by some SPCAs, and long-standing sector knowledge”.
They acquired the Rescue Rehab SA stats from the publicly available website mentioned above.
Van Zyl and Gaw said they “have previously requested data from the NSPCA but have not received consolidated national figures”.
There has also been “no substantive engagement” with the NSPCA since the parliamentary presentation.
These back-and-forths illuminated one stark reality: there is definitely a data gap that, if resolved, may help reduce the number of animals euthanised. This information will be critical for tracking progress, aligning interests, and ensuring fewer cats and dogs are killed.
The need for evidence
De Villiers said there seemed “to be a significant data gap regarding the number of animals affected, limiting a full understanding of the scale of the issue”.
The SPCA stated it was committed “to prevent cruelty to animals and to act in their best interests, even where decisions are difficult”, adding it worked tirelessly to educate the public, sterilise animals and promote responsible ownership.
Van Zyl said euthanasia stats should be used to explain the scale of the crisis, not to blame shelters.
She added that it had been difficult to secure accurate data.
The reasons for this include:
• No mandatory national reporting system.
• Fragmented data across independent SPCAs, shelters and municipalities.
• Fear of reputational damage or donor backlash.
• Inconsistent definitions and reporting standards.
Van Zyl highlight that many animal welfare organisations were not keen to discuss this openly or to release the euthanasia stats because “that high euthanasia numbers will be interpreted as failure, rather than as evidence of an upstream breeding problem”.
She added that “without reliable data, policymakers cannot regulate breeding effectively, allocate resources, or measure whether interventions like sterilisation and adoption campaigns are working”.
“Government decision-making requires evidence, not anecdotes.”
