October 31, 2008

Animal shelters differ on whether they should push adoptions of black cats around Halloween, or withhold releasing them to new homes, potentially protecting them from holiday pranks. (Pet Pulse Illustration by Tim Mattson)

NEW YORK -- How much for a black cat?

It's a suspicious question officials at the SPCA in Los Angeles dread, and one that supports the shelter's decision to not offer blacks cats for adoption during the month of October, leading up to Halloween.

The SPCA of L.A. has had the policy for the past 15 to 20 years, president Madeline Berstein says.

It was first enacted to ward off all the "witches" and "goblins" who might use the black cats for less than humane purposes in Halloween festivities.

"It was clear that people were getting a hold of black cats to use them as maude party accessories," Berstein said.

And every year, Berstein says, she still hears about a cat found dead or mangled in a park the morning after the holiday.

"You have the added component that people think they are unlucky," she said. "Halloween presents a chance to throw things at black cats and you never know whether anyone is going to try anything ritualistic or to imitate that."

The cautionary trend has spread to the majority of private shelters and city-owned humane societies in the Los Angeles area, which ask prospective black cat owners to wait until Nov. 1 to finalize adoption forms.

Several other spooked shelters in the St. Petersburg, Fla., and the Chicago area have also enacted a similar policy.

The premise that black cats are unlucky comes from the Middle Ages, when many believed witches avoided detection by turning into black cats.

While wildly unfounded, the speculation keeps seven of the 11 Chicago-area shelters from lifting the moratorium.

Aside from using black cats as props for an elaborate Halloween costume or party, officials at Friends of Strays, a shelter in St. Petersburg, say abandonment was also a re-occurring issue that led to the temporary adoption ban.

"We can't put our cats through that," Peggy Faden, director of public relations of Friends of Strays told The St. Petersburg Times. "They've been through enough. They were strays."

Despite the potential risks of making orphaned black cats available during the weeks leading up to Halloween, some shelters view the risk of becoming overloaded with unwanted black cats even greater.

"Black cats need every help they can get," Connie Howard, director of the Humane Society in Boulder, Colo., said. "In 27 years I have never seen anything to validate that black cats are at a greater risk at Halloween than any other time during the year."

The Humane Society in Boulder presently has 81 cats up for adoption, Howard says. Nineteen of them are black.

It is always challenging to "move" the black cats -- and dogs -- out of the shelter and into homes.

"Every shelter will tell you that black animals take much longer to find owners for," Howard said. "They don't show as well, and it is harder to see their facial expressions."

The Maryland SPCA, located in Baltimore, even offers a discount on black cats during the month of October. David Drake, director of development and marketing for the shelter, says the half-off incentive has helped boost the adoption rate.

"The idea is just that black cats do take longer to adopt than other cats so this is just to encourage people to adopt black cats," he said.

Drake doesn't think the program has created opportunities for people to wrongly take advantage of the sale price.

"We have a careful screening process and we do meet all of the adopters and do follow-up calls," he said. "We have never heard of or seen any cases of abuse related to this."

The risk of abuse is perhaps greater in Los Angeles, which is often host to "huge Halloween parties and lawn displays," not to mention warm weather conducive to a cat taking an evening stroll, Berstein says.

If people really want to adopt a black cat, she says, a stalled adoption process won't eliminate the desire.

"We want owners who want these cats for the right reasons," she said. "If someone comes in and wants to adopt a black cat during the month of October, if they really want it, they can wait until Nov. 1 to take it home."

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The St. Petersburg Times and the Chicago Tribune contributed to this article.