ASPCA Spay/Neuter Alliance: 25 Years, 450K Surgeries & Counting

Since its inception, the ASPCA Spay/Neuter Alliance (ASNA) has performed 450,000 spay/neuter surgeries on cats and dogs in Western North Carolina alone.

And those aren’t the only impressive numbers: ASNA has worked collaboratively with nearly 70 animal welfare groups and 65 transport partners in more than 20 counties across the state. Staff members perform 100 surgeries per day with the ultimate goal of decreasing the number of animals euthanized in shelters, and in its 25 years ASNA has helped increase Buncombe County’s animal live release rate to more than 90 percent.

Training Suite

In addition to providing low-cost spay/neuter options for Asheville residents, ASNA operates a robust national training program and is a reliable resource for animal welfare organizations to ensure cats and dogs can receive the surgery they need before being made available for adoption.

While kitten season keeps ASNA busy in the spring and summer, 65 staff members work tirelessly year-round, even spaying and neutering homeless animals displaced by Hurricane Florence last year before they made their way to the Asheville Humane Society to be made available for adoption.  

Thanks to ASNA’s training program, 170 clinics have opened across 40 states, sterilizing a total of more than 8 million animals.

The Starting Point

Twenty-five years ago, Asheville resident Bill McKelvy set out on a mission to save lives. At the time, many healthy, adoptable animals in Buncombe County were being euthanized every day due to overpopulation.

In May 1994, McKelvy founded the Humane Alliance of Western North Carolina, a program that would become a nationally recognized leader in high-quality, high-volume, low-cost spay/neuter services.

In 2015, the ASPCA, having supported the Humane Alliance for many years and recognizing its tremendous impact, acquired the program and renamed it the ASPCA Spay/Neuter Alliance.

In addition to providing low-cost spay/neuter options for North Carolina residents, ASNA operates a robust RACE-accredited national training program to help equip animal welfare professionals across the country to tackle overpopulation in their own communities.