Almost 40 percent of the cats taken in by shelters in Ocean County in 2015 were euthanized, according to a report released by the state Department of Health.

Officials released data from the 2015 Animal Intake and Disposition Survey, a voluntary survey of the state’s licensed animal shelters.

In 2015, Ocean County shelters took in 1,933 dogs and 3,335 cats - of those, 144 dogs and 1,328 cats were euthanized. It is the fourth-highest total of cat euthanizations in the state, behind Gloucester (1,784 of 2,834), Essex (1,524 of 4,250) and Cumberland (1,451 of 3,471), according to the data.

On a positive note, the number and percentage of cats euthanized in Ocean County shelters has shown a steady decline over the last 10 years. In 2006, 3,602 of the 6,571 cats (54.8 percent) taken in by Ocean County shelters were put to sleep. In 2015, that percentage was down to 39.8 percent.

The number of animals taken in by shelters in Ocean County has fallen too, by nearly half, while the number of cats adopted from the reporting shelters has remained fairly steady: 1,837 cats were adopted from shelters in 2006, while 1,730 were adopted in 2015.

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