The Winnipeg Humane Society has had to make a grim change in how it deals with some cats found dead on city streets.

While it tries to reconnect every cat with its owner, the animal welfare agency says it is facing an uphill battle because not enough people make the effort to get their pets a tag, tattoo or microchip that would identify them with an address.

So from now on, any dead cat without identification will be sent to a designated pet burial location at the Brady Road Landfill if an owner can't be located after a brief time.

"They carved out a humane space within the landfill where they will be humanely placed and laid to rest and go back to earth. It's a mass grave," said Javier Schwersensky, CEO of the Winnipeg Humane Society.

"We don't want pets to be tossed with garbage, that's not the point. Those animals were loved and they had a special relationship with humans, so we need to treat them with respect."

The humane society wants to spend more of its resources trying to help live animals than trying to track down owners of dead ones. (Holly Caruk/CBC)

The Humane Society wants animals to be reunited with their caregivers so people are given the opportunity for closure, "but the reality is that is near impossible without identification," a message on the Humane Society's website says.

It's not always that easy with ID, either, but at least there is a better chance, Schwersensky said.

So far this year, the agency has received 201 dead cats. Of those, only 72 had some type of identification and slightly more than half of those were reunited with their caregiver, he said.

Of the other 129, only three owners could be tracked down. That's a two per cent success rate.

"We're obviously not getting great results and it's very tough on everyone to deal with it for a really low rate of success," Schwersensky said.

Unidentified cats used to be kept for a while and then cremated, but doing that as well as the amount of time it takes to try to track down owners is not using the dollars from donors in the most financially prudent way, Schwersensky said.

"If there's no way we can identify them, it's very tough for us to go through all that process for no results," he said.

"If we can use those resources to bottle-feed kittens and give that kitten 18-21 years of a good life, as opposed to having a two per cent chance of reuniting a pet that has no identification, well, we had to make a choice."

Every day, the agency is dealing with numerous issues, from people bringing in injured animals to families who surrender a pet and, as a result, need counselling. There are also hundreds of lost and found animals that staff are trying to reunite with owners every year — both alive and deceased.

"This is what our community demands of us day in and day out," says the message on the Humane Society website about the reasons for making the changes to the cat policy.

"We need to prioritize our efforts on helping cats with live outcomes and helping cats with identification."

Under the new policy, all dead cats brought into the Humane Society will be searched for a tattoo and scanned for a microchip. If none is found, they will be sent to the landfill.

Those with identification will be kept at the shelter for up to a month as staff search for the owners. If that fails, those cats will be communally cremated.

The change will help the Humane Society save some money, but more important, it will free up time that can now be spent helping live animals, Schwersensky said.