Today’s post is for a very special cause, as part of the “Blog the Change for Animals” challenge. Our topic is the sorry state of the nation’s so-called animal shelters. Too many animals entrusted to these facilities suffer everything from inadequate care to being killed outright--(so I have published in blood red type).
“Euthanasia,” they call it. Euthanasia, as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary is as follows:
“The act or practice of ending the life of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable condition, as by lethal injection or the suspension of extraordinary medical treatment.” (Emphases mine.)
There is nothing ethical about the reasons for killing animals at the very facilities responsible for their temporary care until a permanent home can be found. Instead, they are concerned only with their bottom line, and available space. They do not discriminate overmuch about which animals are chosen to be killed. In some cases, it could be older or ill animals, but it is far more likely to be perfectly healthy adult animals or baby animals just beginning their journey of life. They are not 'suffering from terminal illnesses or incurable conditions.'
Instead of focusing their efforts on education, adoption, spaying and neutering of family pets and TNR (trap/neuter/release) programs for feral populations (especially cats), these places would rather collect and kill.
It is a shameful practice, and reduces to nearly insignificant numbers the equally horrific tales of individuals committing animal abuse and causing extreme harm and death. However, there is a conspiracy of silence in the media: only individuals perpetrating cruelty upon animals are exposed and held accountable under the laws of the land.
The ultimate irony lies in the very names these agencies give themselves: “American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” (ASPCA); “Humane Society of the United States” (HSUS); and local branches of the ASPCA, going by the shortened “SPCA” label. Happily, a few shelters are beginning to get the word, and are adopting out more pets than they kill, but the numbers are still skewed too far toward the high-kill shelters.
Even more shocking are the recent reports coming out about the so-called animal rights group, “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). PETA also operates a supposed shelter, but has managed to adopt out only 8 animals of the many thousands it took in during 2009, the last year for which figures are available as of this writing. The rest, they killed! Check out that story here: http://petakillsanimals.com/
This is not a pretty subject, and there is no way to dress it up to appease those easily shocked or sickened. In fact, it is that very shock and horror that is needed to create a massive cry of outrage from the public at large. It is unconscionable that the great majority of these organizations run on volunteer labor and monetary donations from the public. They get the donations by running bleeding-heart campaigns in the media, convincing animal lovers to open their wallets, and then betray the trust by acting contrarily to the advertising on which they waste the donations. Before you donate, please do research on the organization asking for your hard-earned dollars.
The statistics speak for themselves: the facilities that like to call themselves shelters are in fact, themselves directly responsible for the wanton slaughter of over four million dogs and cats annually. Four million! Yes, a four followed by six zeroes! 4,000,000! Annually! It’s a huge number, and it must come to a stop. They are murderers, plain and simple.
Even in instances where rescue groups have offered to pull the animal and find it a home, and physical rehabilitation if needed, the animals were quickly put down instead of being turned over to the rescues. This happens more often than you would think, and speaks of horrible, sadistic, evil people who kill for the sheer sick pleasure it must give them.
There are laws proposed such as this one dubbed "Oreo's Law," to force the shelters to live up to their names, yet the bills are getting tabled by political pressure from these very same organizations. What can you or I do to help stem this bloody tide and turn the screws on these powerful lobbies? Nathan Winograd’s No Kill Nation is a good place to start (http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/). The link to "Oreo's Law," mentioned above, is found from a link on this site.
At his website you will find links to the various laws being proposed, and a comprehensive detailing of the problems being faced with convincing the directors of these agencies who are interested in protecting only their salaries, and not the animals with whose lives they’ve been entrusted.
You can start the ball rolling by calling attention to this blog post. Share it on Face Book, Tweet, Digg, StumbleUpon, e-mail or whatever other means you may use to spread the word. Working together, we can do this.
Signed, Jigsaw Puzzle, Esq.,
Spokescat for the Talk With The Paws crew
(Tigger, Munchkin, Jigsaw Puzzle and Patches)
Posts
