Shalika Siddique, Graduate Student, Oklahoma State University
Anand Manivannan, Graduate Student, Oklahoma State University
We lose approximately 920,000 shelter animals to euthanasia requests every year. Instead, these animals could’ve made 920K families happier. We would like to explore the current data from Austin’s animal center to understand what conditions lead to a euthanasia request and if measures can be adopted to prevent them. The data is sourced from Austin’s Open Data Portal and consists of two tables - intakes and outcomes, dating from Oct 1, 2013, to the present. Intakes represent the status of animals as they arrive at the animal center while outcomes represent the status of animals as they leave. Each animal in is identified by a unique Animal ID. Each table consists of 136K data points and 12 features. We first explore the distribution of data by various categories such as breed, gender, age, and intake condition. Finally, classification models like logistic regression and random forest classifiers are used to make predictions on whether an animal will be euthanized. Understanding the key factors like their intake condition, sub-type of euthanasia, breed, and age could unveil crucial insights into understanding the causes for these animals to be put down and consequently advise on where to target funding for research and facilities.
