PETA Can’t Go ‘Just One Day’ Without Promoting Killing

Condemns effort that saved as many as 10,000 shelters animals.

Adopted during a Just One Day event at a North Carolina shelter; PETA wanted her dead.

Just One Day is a nationwide campaign which occurs every year on June 11. The No Kill Advocacy Center and Animal Ark asked shelters nationwide to explore and experiment with alternatives to killing that have already proven so successful in those communities which have implemented them so that they, too, can end the killing of the healthy and treatable animals in their care by finding them loving, new homes instead. This year, roughly 1,200 organizations, including some of the largest animal control shelters in the nation, answered the call to participate. They put down their “euthanasia needles” and picked up cameras instead: to photograph and market animals. They reached out to rescue groups, hosted adoption events, stayed open for extended hours, and asked their communities to help them empty the shelter the good way. Last year, this effort resulted in roughly 9,000 adoptions nationwide on June 11, erasing one day’s worth of killing. This year, we hoped to save over 10,000 lives. And by all indications, we did.

In Escambia County, Florida, they had their best adoption day ever. In Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, 76 animals found a home. In San Antonio, Texas, 117 animals were placed. Similar stories occurred in shelters across the country, including shelters with historically high rates of killing and low numbers of adoptions. This is what the dog kennels looked like in Boone County, Kentucky, at the end of the day:

 

The number of groups participating and the number of animals finding homes was truly inspiring and showed what could be accomplished when groups come together, united by the common goal of saving lives, and laser-focus on that achievement. June 11, 2013, was a good day, a happy day, an important day, and an unqualified success: perhaps the safest day for animals in shelters in U.S. history. Thousands of animals were adopted, 1,200 shelters and rescue groups came together, adopters welcomed a new family member, the incinerators remained shuttered and the morgues stayed empty. We erased more than one day’s worth of killing in the U.S. So who could possibly oppose the effort that made it possible?

PETA.

Continuing its long and sordid tradition of undermining the movement to end shelter killing, PETA–an organization which itself kills over 90 percent of the animals they take in, which has killed puppies and kittens after they promised to find them homes, which defends even abusive shelters, which fights efforts to reform killing policies, and which has called for the wholesale round up and killing of animals, including healthy ones–posted an editorial against the Just One Day campaign calling it “smoke and mirrors” and telling those who supported the effort that saved an estimated 10,000 lives to “wake up” because they were being “duped.”

While Just One Day was designed to teach participating shelters how to use innovative programs to find loving, new homes for their animals in lieu of killing, PETA wrote that shelters should be “left alone” and that the animals should be killed rather than adopted; or as PETA euphemistically calls it, “a painless exit from an uncaring world.” And although the campaign is a joint effort by the No Kill Advocacy Center, a national animal protection organization, and Animal Ark, the oldest No Kill shelter in Minnesota, PETA disingenuously implied to their membership that the Just One Day campaign and the sponsoring organizations are a front for breeders and puppy millers–”Who is behind this initiative?,” PETA asks, “Is it breeders? People who receive money from breeders?”–though how breeders would benefit from increased shelter adoptions is a non-sequitur they don’t even attempt to explain. Indeed, every animal adopted from a shelter means fewer people buying commercially bred animals, not more.

They also nonsensically ask if it is ok to “put down the needle” for animals who are sick, inured, elderly, aggressive, feral or otherwise unsocialized. They ask if it is ok to dump animals along the highways, and they ask if it is ok to crowd dogs and cats together so they get sick. Of course, none of these issues has anything to do with an adoption campaign designed to save 10,000 lives and everything to do with trying to obscure a black and white issue with extraneous, disingenuous, unrelated implications and accusations. For the sake of argument, however, let’s answer their unrelated questions: As for overcrowding, 1,200 organizations started June 12 emptier and in many cases, entirely empty as a result of their adoption campaigns of the previous day, the opposite of overcrowding; while Just One Day was about adopting animals into homes, not dumping them along the side of an interstate.

Cat kennels at Roanoke, Virginia’s animal control shelter at the end of the Just One Day adoption drive. 

Perhaps more importantly, though, the answer to their first question is actually, “Yes.” It is ok to put down the needle for animals who have special needs because in as little as one percent of cases are the animals who enter our nation’s shelters so irremediably suffering and near inevitable, pending death that their killing actually qualifies as true euthanasia. The other 99%, including the old, the infirm, the feral and the unsocialized, don’t “need” death, they need individualized care. Sick animals need medicine, not an overdose of “fatal-plus,” the poison used to kill animals in shelters. Elderly animals need TLC and a warm lap, not the gas chamber. Feral cats need neuter and release, not incineration. And others need rehabilitative care until they are well enough and well behaved enough for a loving, new home. That is what shelters in the true sense of the word should be. And that is what progressive shelters are already doing.

But what is good news for people who truly care about animals is bad news for PETA, an organization whose employees and volunteers are schooled in and instructed to act upon the perverse idea that animals want to die. For three out of four Americans who believe shelters should not be permitted to kill healthy and treatable animals, proof that adoption can replace killing is cause for rejoicing. For PETA, it is cause for alarm: one more blow to the traditional “catch and kill” sheltering dogma that they have historically used as a shield to avoid accountability. Without the safety afforded in numbers by a nation full of shelters likewise slaughtering healthy and treatable animals, the perversity of PETA’s own killing, including that of puppies and kittens, becomes even more abhorrent and less difficult to explain to an increasingly informed and savvy public that is growing less and less reconciled to the killing. And so they fight any effort to reform shelters, including condemning what to anyone who truly cares about animals can only regard as a good thing: an inspiring, heartwarming, successful campaign to save the lives of 10,000 animals and introduce thousands of Americans to the animals who will become cherished members of their family.

Instead of listening to PETA, true animal lovers should celebrate as thousands of animals walked out of the shelter and into the loving arms of adopters–for Just One Day and beyond; Like this little dog, adopted on June 11 in Louisiana at a participating shelter, who danced his way into a loving, new home and the brighter future that only PETA would deny him:

Learn more:

In Just One Day We Saved Thousands of Animals

PETA’s Secret Slaughter of Kittens, Puppies

We Can Do It! Adopt Your Way Out of Killing

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In Just One Day…

… We Saved Thousands of Animals From Slaughter

Just One Day is a nationwide campaign which occurs every year on June 11. We asked shelters nationwide to explore and experiment with alternatives to killing that have already proven so successful in those communities which have implemented them so that they, too, can end the killing of the healthy and treatable animals in their care by finding them loving, new homes instead. This year, roughly 1,200 organizations, including some of the largest animal control shelters in the nation, answered the call to participate. They put down their “euthanasia needles” and picked up cameras instead: to photograph and market animals. They reached out to rescue groups, hosted adoption events, stayed open for extended hours, and asked their communities to help them empty the shelter the good way.

In Escambia County, Florida, they had their best adoption day ever. In Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, 76 animals found a home. In San Antonio, Texas, 117 animals were placed. Similar stories occurred in shelters across the country, including shelters with historically high rates of killing and low numbers of adoptions. The number of groups participating and the number of animals finding homes was truly inspiring and showed what could be accomplished when groups come together, united by the common goal of saving lives, and laser-focus on that achievement.

June 11, 2013, was a good day, a happy day, an important day, and an unqualified success: perhaps the safest day for animals in shelters in U.S. history. Thousands of animals were adopted, 1,200 shelters and rescue groups came together, adopters welcomed a new family member, the incinerators remained shuttered and the morgues stayed empty. We erased more than one day’s worth of killing in the U.S.

To read “In Just One Day We Saved Thousands of Shelter Animals,” my latest column in the Huffington Post (complete with lots of uplifting photographs and video), click here.

Photograph: This family drove three hours each way to a participating shelter in Louisiana to adopt this dog.

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Environmental Bigotry

Stumps where majestic trees once stood. This is the vision of invasion biology and they hope to do the same to almost half a million trees in the San Francisco Bay Area alone, asking the Obama Administration to foot the bill to the tune of $5.9 million. And while they close libraries and other public services, they are pledging another $1.4 million of taxpayer dollars to the eradication effort.

My latest article in the Huffington Post is called “Biological Xenophobia: The Environmental Movement’s War on Nature.”

I wrote the piece in the hopes of reaching people who mindlessly embrace killing based on the philosophy of invasion biology. I had hoped to make people stop and think about what, exactly, it is they are embracing when they support it. Not surprisingly, my piece didn’t give some of the most ardent supporters pause for thought. It didn’t seem to touch them as it should have because invasion biology walls off the heart.

Indeed, if I could have told some of the commenters however many years ago it was before they were indoctrinated into the philosophy of invasion biology that they would read an article about the willful destruction and poisoning of hundreds of thousands of healthy trees and wildlife and support it, I bet they wouldn’t have believed it. It is not the loving, compassionate, logical or environmentally sound position. But, as Rogers and Hammerstein once wrote, you have to be carefully taught to hate. And it appears they have been.

Migration happens. And there is not a single time or place in the history of life on Earth where the invasion biologist could find the stasis they seek. That is not how life on Earth works. It never has, and it never will. And yet in seeking homeostasis, invasion biologists, those who falsely claim to speak for the Earth, paradoxically embrace horrific means of destruction that they should in fact exist to oppose.

Of course, this view is also selective, based on decidedly unscientific and narrow commercial or aesthetic prejudices. While they call for the slaughter of cats and Eucalyptus trees, while they call for the poisoning of lakes and wildlife corridors, they hypocritically ignore the tomato, the watermelon, the apple, and the person staring back at them in the mirror, all of them as “non-native” by their own arbitrary and selective philosophy as those plants and animals they seek to exterminate. In other words, it only includes those species they do not like. Why?

In their self-serving philosophy, they are given carte blanche to scapegoat, vilify and kill plants and animals for the environmental destruction caused by one species and one species alone: humans. Invasion biologists are environmental bigots, and they give voice to the darkest impulses of human nature – a disdain for the foreign and a reverence for the native. In fact, they elevate it to a core value.

Slaughter and death are not the tools we need to “preserve” life. In fact, by its very terms, it is not only ethically bankrupt, it is an irreconcilable contradiction. Please add your voice to the comments page of the Huffington Post by clicking here. Right now, it seems the inmates are running the asylum and they need to hear that rational people do not share their hate mongering.

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Biological Xenophobia

Owl nesting in Eucalyptus. Both are being threatened, often with the support of “environmental protection” groups.

We’ve come to expect very little from large national animal protection groups like HSUS and the ASPCA. In fact, tragically, we expect them to work against animal protection. But what about environmental groups? What about the Sierra Club? The Nature Conservancy? The Audubon Society? The National Resources Defense Council? Are they any better? In many ways, they are not. All over the U.S., animals are being killed, trees are being cut down, poisons are being used with the support of these organizations. In fact, in some cases, they are the ones doing the killing.

How is it that over 50 years after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the book that launched the modern environmental movement by alerting the public to the danger of using herbicides and pesticides in the effort to control and destroy nature, that very movement is now a proponent of the use of toxic chemicals?

Read “Biological Xenophobia: The Environmental Movement’s War on Nature,” my latest column in the Huffington Post by clicking here.

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And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

The Death of a Half Million Trees

A plan to turn Sutro Forest into stumps is being considered.

Those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area do so because of the natural beauty – to be surrounded by majestic, towering trees. To us and to most people, it does not matter what the species of those trees are. However, a small group of individuals who have an irrational hatred of certain species of trees are threatening to destroy the natural habitat where we live. And they do so by misportraying particular species of trees as “non-native,” an unscientific distinction that scapegoats some species for eradication based on wholly subjective criteria and narrow, personal prejudice. Now, they are asking the Federal Government to pay for clear cutting and poisons, felling trees and exposing the public and wildlife to thousands of gallons of toxic herbicide. And FEMA is listening. FEMA is considering a plan to cut down as many as half a million trees in the Bay Area.

We don’t want to live in an environmental war zone, to watch with sorrow and great heartbreak as decades old trees fall to the chainsaw, to see animals displaced, harmed and poisoned, to watch beautiful, lush forests be reduced to hillsides of barren stumps merely to satisfy the perverse preferences of a tiny but very vocal minority which cleverly cloaks their agenda of destruction in an faux “environmentalism” disguise.

Not only is it wrong to label any species an “alien” on its own planet and to target that species for extermination, but it is also breathtakingly myopic. On a tiny planet surrounded by the infinite emptiness of space, in a universe in which the anomaly of life renders every blade of grass, every insect that crawls and every animal on Earth an exquisite, wondrous rarity, it is quite simply inaccurate to label any living thing found anywhere on the planet which gave it life as “alien” or “non-native.” There is no such thing as an “invasive” species.

We must turn our attention away from the futile and pointless effort to return our environment to the past toward the meaningful goal of ensuring that every life that appears on this Earth is welcomed and respected as the glorious, cosmic miracle it actually is.

Help save the forests of San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland.

Learn more by clicking here.

Send comments in opposition to FEMA by June 17:

• Via the project website: http://ebheis.cdmims.com
• By email: EBH-EIS-FEMA-RIX@fema.dhs.gov
• By mail: P.O. Box 72379, Oakland, CA 94612-8579
• By fax: 510-627-7147

Please also send a copy of your comments in opposition to Senator Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, and to the Mayors of San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.

You can also sign the petition by clicking here.

For further reading:

Death of a Million Trees

There Are No ‘Alien’ Species on Planet Earth

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Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

We Can Do It!

From the No Kill Advocacy Center:

We can be a great generation, too!

The No Kill Advocacy Center proudly announces: We Can Do It! A free guide to adopting your way out of killing.

The 1940s were a unique time in American history. With a boldness and clarity out of step with today’s politically opportunist, poll-driven climate, Americans were unflinchingly called on by their government to do their part by giving more and taking less. Whether by encouraging American men and women to enlist as soldiers or nurses, to save energy by carpooling, to collect scrap metal or to simply do their part through rationing, posters produced by the government at this time encouraged personal sacrifice and a devotion to a higher cause and a shared goal. At the heart of the enduring government images—images that were arresting, graphically stunning, beautiful, emotionally charged and at times even humorous—were two recurring themes: the duty every citizen owes to efforts that seek to overcome a great harm, and the possibilities created by people united in a common cause.

The No Kill movement, which likewise seeks to overcome a great harm—shelter killing—through the power and potential afforded by a community when it collectively volunteers, fosters, adopts, rescues and donates, brings to mind the determination and optimism that in many ways characterized America at the middle of the 20th century. As a nation, we have risen to the call of history before and we can do it again. That is why the aspirational, motivational government posters created at this time are the inspiration behind the No Kill Advocacy Center’s latest free guide, We Can Do It! Adopt Your Way Out of Killing.

A step-by step guide illustrated with iconic mid-century themed posters and images that have been adapted to the No Kill cause, We Can Do It! explains how with a can-do attitude and the determination to harness the overwhelming power of the public’s compassion, every shelter in America can be a No Kill shelter.

To download the guide, click here.

Please note: All attendees of the No Kill Conference will receive a printed copy of We Can Do It! along with many other guides and how-to manuals. We Can Do It! is part of my workshop on “Turbocharging Your Adoption Program.” To learn more about this workshop and the dozens of others, click here.

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PETA Rattles Its Sabers

A police detective in hazmat suit prepares to bury a puppy killed by PETA. PETA is letting loose upon the world individuals who not only maniacally believe that killing is a good thing and that the living want to die, but who are legally armed with lethal drugs which they have already proven—29,426 times in the last 11 years—that they are not adverse to using. (Photo © A.P. All rights reserved.)

PETA has filed a petition in NY Superior Court demanding that the Huffington Post release names of anonymous commenters to an article I wrote about their killing, an article that has already received nearly a quarter of a million “likes,” has been shared roughly 85,000 times and has generated 5,000 comments.

I believe the purpose is to intimidate critics into silence. This is not the first time PETA has tried to do so. Many animal lovers who have publicly condemned PETA for their killing have received a letter from the PETA legal department. However, because a lawsuit would, among other things, allow for: subpoenas of PETA employees past and present; information as to where the PETA mobile van picked up animals, who it picked them up from, what they were told, who put them to death, when they were put to death, and where the bodies were discarded; the names of people and groups they’ve acquired animals from and what was said or not said to them; as well as records for all animals taken in and killed; and because a lawsuit would open PETA up to a counterclaim for chilling speech—a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation designed to silence, intimidate, or punish those who use public forums to right some wrong—I believe it is unlikely that PETA would ever follow-through with these threats.

Their donor-funded attorneys rattle their sabers, but they know they have a lot more to fear from the public disclosure that would result from a lawsuit than the animal activists who are—given PETA’s threats and intimidation—bravely reporting on PETA’s killing in the hope of bringing it to an end. When you donate to PETA, you not only fund the killing of animals, you fund the intimidation of animal lovers.

To read the Huffington Post article, click here.

 

To read the NY Post article, click here.

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Breaking Ranks: The Evolution of Dr. Kate Hurley

And what it means for the future of animal sheltering

If the attitudes and beliefs of Dr. Kate Hurley, the director of the U.C. Davis Shelter Medicine Program, are any indication, the kill-oriented sheltering movement is in trouble. I just finished watching Hurley’s video “New Approaches to Community Cats” where she tells shelter directors to stop taking in and killing cats regardless of whether they are friendly or “feral,” where she tells them that as it relates to scared cats, there is simply no such thing as “humane euthanasia,” where she blasts the viewpoint that “open admission is better,” and where she says that killing is not a necessity; it is, first and foremost, a choice. As a long-time critic of the historically regressive and reactionary views championed by Dr. Hurley, I found myself applauding what appears to be—at least on the issue of cats—a complete turn-around in Dr. Hurley’s message and beliefs.

While she gets some things wrong (starting with the title that these approaches are “new” rather than something she ignored and fought against for well over a decade), the video was a breath of fresh air and an important contribution to the movement because of who she was and is, a key barometer of things to come, and one more nail in the coffin of the “catch and kill” paradigm of animal sheltering she used to epitomize.

To understand just how far Dr. Hurley has come and, more importantly, what it says about the future of animal sheltering, it is important to look at where she started: because this champion of No Kill cat sheltering, this shelter adviser who now speaks to shelter directors and tells them, in no uncertain terms, if you want to stop killing cats, all you have to do is stop killing cats, was once public enemy number four to the No Kill movement nationally, right behind Ingrid Newkirk, Wayne Pacelle and Ed Sayres. But not anymore. Dr. Hurley has broken ranks.

A Rehabilitated “Cereal” Killer

For the past decade and until very recently, Dr. Kate Hurley made a career out of two things: 1. Killing a lot of animals and 2. Encouraging others to kill a lot of animals. In 2008, Dr. Hurley went to Reno, Nevada to derail the No Kill initiative then in its infancy by telling government officials that killing was the right thing to do. She proposed changing the term killing “for space” to “community overpopulation index” in order to take the onus off of the shelter and its then-regressive policies and point the finger of blame elsewhere. That term went over big with the (thankfully now former) director at animal control who had a policy of keeping 75% of cages intentionally empty even while threatening to kill animals “for space.” To Hurley, the killing didn’t have anything to do with the fact that 75% of the cages sat empty; it was the public’s fault because of its “community overpopulation index.” Ignoring her advice, the shelter director was pressured into retirement, the community embraced the No Kill Equation and in 2012, had a 94% rate of lifesaving.

San Francisco did not fare as well. In 2009, Dr. Hurley successfully helped to derail a No Kill campaign in that city, testifying that its achievement wasn’t possible because of “pet overpopulation.” Hurley further claimed that No Kill “lead[s] to overcrowding, poor record-keeping, widespread disease and behavior problems.” As a result, Hurley concluded that a No Kill policy “virtually guarantees they will torture and kill thousands of animals.” To make her point, Dr. Hurley showed San Francisco Animal Welfare Commission members slides of messy cereal box aisles in a supermarket to “show” what happens when you put too many animals/cereal boxes on a shelf while arguing that, we have to “respect our animals just like we respect our cereal.” She also used the analogy to impart the apparent importance of limiting consumer choice. While showing shelves jammed with cereal boxes, she explained why offering people too many choices resulted in no sales at all (although I think Kellogg’s would take umbrage at her point). To Hurley, if you have too many animals/cereal boxes, you should just throw some of them away. Of course, Dr. Hurley’s presentation ignored that throwing away cereal is not the same as throwing away the lives of animals; one is alive, the other isn’t. You don’t have to kill cereal before doing so.

But suggesting that you throw out the animals based on a bizarre analogy is not only unethical, it was predicated on a factually incorrect and incoherent premise: the false belief in pet overpopulation in San Francisco. As Hurley was well aware, San Francisco animal control was impounding less than 6,000 dogs and cats annually. That’s 7.5 dogs and cats for every 1,000 human residents, about half the national average and ten times less than successful No Kill communities. By contrast, Reno was taking in 39 per 1,000—five times the rate of San Francisco. It also took in almost three times the actual total number: 16,000 per year without killing healthy or treatable animals. In fact, communities impounding over 70 animals per 1,000—ten times the rate of San Francisco—had save rates in excess of 90%. In other words, San Francisco could conceivably take in ten times the rate of animals it was impounding animals and still not resort to killing. Even the San Francisco SPCA (which ironically asked Dr. Hurley to testify) admitted this by their very actions. At the same time they claimed they could not save more animals because of pet overpopulation, they were also claiming that they had no choice but to import thousands of animals from outside the City every year to meet adoption demand because of a shortage of animals within San Francisco.

But arguing the necessity of killing despite readily available lifesaving alternatives is not the worst of Dr. Hurley’s past. Not only did she herself round up and kill animals, putting even healthy “feral” cats to death with no holding period of any kind when she was a was an animal control officer, she was also hired by HSUS to “clean up” an overcrowded Las Vegas shelter and to Hurley, that meant killing roughly 1,000 animals and encouraging the shelter to continue to kill them after a paltry 72 hours as a matter of policy, taking the lives of precious animals and turning them into a pile of ash.

In New Jersey, after hearing Kate Hurley speak, the former director of the Animal Welfare Association of New Jersey followed her advice by reducing the number of cages in the cat adoption room by half. When a new director abandoned the approach and began following the No Kill Equation model of sheltering, cat adoptions nearly doubled and the agency became the most successful adoption agency in the entire state of New Jersey.

Finally, Hurley and her team were responsible for an increase in the number of cats killed in Wisconsin’s Dane County Humane Society in 2007, after the shelter eviscerated the foster care program and made the decision to keep every other cat cage empty (thereby cutting capacity in half and resulting in the killing of cats already on the adoption floor)—all at Dr. Hurley’s suggestion. One by one, the cats occupying those cages were taken off the adoption floor and injected with an overdose of poison, their lifeless bodies thrown in the trash like Hurley’s cereal boxes.

Until her recent conversion, Dr. Hurley epitomized everything that is wrong with animal sheltering in America; which explains why shelter directors, national organizations which defended kill shelters, and killing apologists who worship at the altar of these organizations have historically loved Hurley. A darling of HSUS, she ignored alternatives to killing, she ignored data and experience, she betrayed the animals in deference to her killing colleagues, she likened those trying to end killing to those with a mental illness who torture animals, killing animals herself and causing countless others to lose their lives as well. In short, when animals lovers tried to reform their local shelters, Dr. Hurley was the draconian shelter director’s go-to “expert” and she obliged: going from community to community to defend the killing. She could not sink any lower.

But then out of the ashes rose a different Dr. Hurley.

The Phoenix Rises

Today, Dr. Hurley tells shelter directors that the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. More diplomatically, Hurley asks shelter directors to look at their goals, see what they’re doing, and ask themselves, “How is that working out for you?” And the conclusion Hurley says is inescapable: It is not working out—most especially for the cats. In short, she is now telling shelter directors that everything she once told them to do was wrong.

Hurley now tells shelter directors that taking in (and killing) cats does not resolve citizen complaints, it does not reflect the community’s concerns or values, it does not help reunite lost cats with their families, it does not help cats find new homes, it does not end suffering (in fact, it perpetuates and intensifies it), it does not mitigate harm or reduce the number of cats, and it is not cost-effective, all the traditional excuses for why animal shelters do so.” The bottom line,” says Hurley, “[is that] traditional sheltering is not an effective tool to eliminate or protect community cat populations.”

Moreover, she says, “Using a tool [intake and killing at shelters] that’s mismatched to the job is hurting cats, shelters, and communities, and distracting us from finding real solutions.” In short, taking in cats to kill shelters is wrong. Killing cats is wrong. And moreover, it is a choice. According to Hurley, if you take killing off the table, you’ll be forced to find innovative and creative solutions to end the killing. If you want to stop killing, Hurley asks, “How about we just stop?”

Without waiting for an answer, she goes on to debunk the myth that “open admission” shelters are either necessary or better and says, as it relates to cats, the idea should be abandoned. If you cannot take in a cat without killing, she says, “just say no” to taking in the cat. Finally, she says that as it relates to cats who are unsocial to humans (cats we call “feral”), “humane euthanasia” does not exist. It is—she says—nothing less than “torture.”

Instead of killing, Hurley tells shelter directors that at the same time they are embracing offsite adoptions, reducing adoption fees, putting in place comprehensive adoption programs, neutering and releasing, and providing better medical and behavioral care for cats (in other words, the No Kill Equation), they should be leaving stray cats alone, regardless of whether they are friendly or “feral” because life on the streets is more humane than death in the shelter. In fact, Hurley says, the great outdoors is great. The likelihood of being reunited with their families is greater for cats if they are allowed to remain where they are rather than being admitted to the shelter. In one study, explains Hurley, cats were 13 times more likely to be returned home by non-shelter means (such as returning home on their own) than by a call or visit to a shelter. And another study found that people are up to three times more likely to adopt cats as neighborhood strays versus adopting from a shelter. At the same time, the risk of death for street cats in communities has been found to extremely low, with outdoor cats living roughly the same lifespan as indoor pet cats. In other words, the risk of death is lower and the chance of adoption higher for cats on the streets than cats in the shelter. In a study of over 100,000 alley cats, less than one percent of those cats were suffering from debilitating conditions.

While the crowd to which Dr. Hurley made these statements was not large (there were only a handful or two of people in the room), they were the right people: shelter directors. These are the very people who hold the power over life and death; the people who can continue killing cats or choose to stop doing so.

Room to Grow

There’s no question that Dr. Hurley has now become a great advocate for cats facing execution in shelters. Her journey from “catch and kill” defender to No Kill cat advocate is astonishing both in scope and breadth. But there’s still plenty of room for growth; the most important area being that Dr. Hurley has yet to recognize that a shelter can be open admission and No Kill. In other words, it isn’t a question, as Dr. Hurley implies, of a shelter closing its doors to cats or saving their lives by refusing to admit and then kill them (although if that were the choice, I agree with her). When it comes to friendly cats, we can keep the doors open and save their lives. As the head of the shelter medicine program at U.C. Davis, as a person who professes an expertise in sheltering and by her own admission was wrong about so much else, it is disappointing to hear her talk as though she is entirely unaware of the experiences of the now well over 130 open admission shelters posting save rates between 90 and 99% for cats. Their approach and the methodology they employ to achieve these results represent the cutting edge of her field, and there is a moral as well as professional obligation to be informed about their success and how it was achieved, especially since she is putting herself in the position as a professed expert to those looking to her for guidance.

Moreover, she continues to use the word “euthanasia,” the catch and kill crowd’s favorite misnomer and one that allows them to mask the ugly reality of feline genocide from the American public. Her use of the word cannot be logically reconciled with her own admission that it doesn’t exist and that, especially as it relates to “feral” cats, it is nothing less than—in her own word—“torture.” In fact, she acknowledges that, saying that the only reason she still uses the word is to extend respect for the “motivations” of those doing the killing. And it is at this point in the video that we realize that Dr. Hurley has yet to evolve into an understanding or acceptance of the truly tragic state of our national sheltering system, rife as it is with cruelty, neglect and uncaring. To make her point, she asks by a show of hands how many of those in attendance do not love cats. I found myself wincing. (I also found myself wincing when she made a joke of her old beliefs that cost so many animals their lives; the situation called for somber reflection, not levity.)

Of course, no one is going to raise their hand to such a question. Who would dare admit to being uncaring about cats in a room full of people whose job it is to care about cats? But while their lack of a show of hands may say one thing, the facts tell a different story. If you were to ask the same question to staff members at the pound in Davidson County, North Carolina—people who like to put cats and kittens in the gas chamber with raccoons in order to sadistically watch them fight before turning on the gas, laughing while they do it—they would not raise their hands, either. If you were to ask the same question to staff members at the pound in Memphis, Tennessee, where animals are intentionally starved to death and often abused, they would not raise their hands, either. And if you take Hurley’s realizations to their logical conclusion—killing is a choice, killing is not humane, killing is torture—then those who choose to do it cannot be said to love cats by definition as the two are mutually irreconcilable. Killing a cat is not an act of love; it is an act of violence.

Regardless of whether she ever realizes that fact by taking the obvious, irrefutable, and inevitable logical step that flows from her “new” approaches—that people who kill cats do not love cats because killing is a choice—she does not have to take that step in order to come to that same conclusion. The data, the experience, in other words, the truth, is already out there. Although the animal protection movement has long perpetuated the fiction that our nation’s shelters provide a humane and compassionate safety net of care for our nation’s homeless animals, the facts tell a very different, very tragic, story.

In truth, the first time many companion animals experience neglect or abuse is when they enter a shelter. As the movement to end shelter killing has grown in size and sophistication, the networking made possible through the internet and social media has allowed animal lovers to connect the dots between individual cases of animal cruelty and neglect in shelters nationwide. These incidents reveal a distinct pattern. Animal abuse at local shelters is not an isolated anomaly caused by “a few bad apples.” The stunning number and severity of these cases nationwide lead to one disturbing and inescapable conclusion: our shelters are in crisis.

Frequently overseen by ineffective and incompetent directors who fail to hold their staff accountable to the most basic standards of humane care, animal shelters in this country are not the safe havens they should and can be. Instead, they are often poorly managed houses of horror, places where animals are denied basic medical care, food, water, socialization and are then killed, sometimes cruelly.

And not only do people in shelters work at a place that commits this ultimate form of violence, they have, in fact, been hired to do exactly that. Can we really be surprised when they don’t clean thoroughly, don’t feed the animals, handle them too roughly, neglect and abuse them or simply ignore their cries for help while they slowly starve to death or die of dehydration? How does shoddy cleaning or rough handling or failing to feed the animals compare with putting an animal to death? Because shelter workers understand that they have the power to kill shelter animals, and will in fact kill many of them, every interaction they have with those animals is influenced by the perception that the animals do not matter, that their lives are cheap and expendable and that they are destined for the garbage heap. The killing itself leads to abuse, to neglect, and to more killing. Where there is no respect for life, there is no regard for welfare. And where there is neither respect for life nor a regard for welfare, there are no true animal lovers. Why?

Because truly caring people, people who actually do love animals, either do not apply to work at these agencies or if they do, they do not last. They quit when they realize that their efforts to improve conditions and outcomes are not rewarded, that their fellow employees are not held accountable, that neglect isn’t punished, and in fact, they will be for trying to improve things. And they quit because they don’t want to kill. By design, the traditional sheltering paradigm has made our shelters not only deadly and abusive to animals, but hostile and unwelcoming to people who do care, leaving animals at the mercy of those who don’t but who will always claim, as political expediency requires, that they do.

Will Dr. Hurley evolve to realize this truth as she has others? And having that realization, will she then also realize its corollary: that merely asking for change from shelter directors who do not care—something which the No Kill movement has been doing for years only to find our pleas falling on deaf, defiant ears—does not yield the same change as publicly fighting and legally mandating it do? Will she become as vocal a champion of her new, progressive views as she once was for her regressive ones? Will she speak out in favor of legislation requiring shelter directors to stop killing cats in the same way she once publicly spoke out against those very laws? Will she support the efforts of local No Kill activists who are trying to reform their shelters by publicly speaking out against uncaring shelter directors as she once so vocally spoke out in their defense, crisscrossing the nation to derail the brave and tenacious efforts of No Kill advocates? In the end, will she become as powerful a voice in defense of life as she once was in defense of death? Those of us in the No Kill movement will anxiously watch to see whether this video is a harbinger of even greater things to come, and whether the woman who was once one of our fiercest and most stalwart opponents becomes one of our greatest champions.

The Tide Is Turning

In addition to what the evolution of Dr. Kate Hurley says about Dr. Kate Hurley, it also speaks volumes about the animal protection movement as a whole and where it is now headed. As more and more communities reject killing and embrace No Kill alternatives, as the evidence mounts and the success increases, as the data and experience paint a clear and unambiguous picture that we can end the killing and we can do it today, those who champion killing will find themselves on the wrong side of history, joining the losing side that is already on the wrong side of truth, right, ethics, and the hearts and minds of the American people. How long can the others who have walked in lock-step with Dr. Hurley until her recent conversion continue to ignore the truth by clinging to defunct, regressive ideologies that do nothing but fail, and for the animals, that result in nothing but neglect, abuse, killing, and to borrow Dr. Hurley’s phrase, torture? If Dr. Hurley is any indication, and I believe that she is, the answer is, not much longer.

Does Dr. Hurley’s conversion signal that we are near the tipping point—that moment in the history of our movement when the traction and influence we have been gaining tip the balance of power and momentum in favor of No Kill, away from death and toward ever greater lifesaving? Will others follow Dr. Hurley’s lead and begin abandoning the sinking ship of shelter killing and the traditional excuses and rationalizations which have been used to justify it, leaving those who refuse to evolve in lonely and unsympathetic isolation? Absolutely.

Wayne Pacelle and Ingrid Newkirk, are you listening? Evolve.

Watch her presentation by clicking here.

Download her PowerPoint by clicking here.

————–

Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

Shelter Killing Benefits Puppy Mills

The myth of pet overpopulation is the lie at the heart of shelter killing in America. It is the excuse that every shelter director who kills animals uses to rationalize that killing as a necessity, in spite of the fact that it is unsupported by both the data and the experiences of those communities that have achieved what was once regarded as impossible: an end to their killing of animals. And yet as self-evident as this truth is to me today, there was a time when I, too, believed in pet overpopulation and would have been both stunned and confused to learn that I would someday argue against its existence. Indeed, it is not as though I woke up one day and thought “Hey, I think pet overpopulation is a myth!” Nor did I think that someday I would champion the notion that it was. I did not even set out to prove it. It unfolded as part of my journey in the humane movement and the facts began to compel further analysis. In fact, at one time, I too drank of the pet overpopulation Kool Aid. The dedication of my book, Redemption, says it all:

To my wife, Jennifer. Who believed long before I did.

Once, on a date before we were married, we debated the issue. I insisted that, “There were too many animals and not enough homes” and asked her, “What were shelters supposed to do with them?” She correctly argued that even if it were true, killing animals was still unethical and that as animal activists, it was our job to find alternatives, not to blindly accept that the killing was a fait accompli about which we could do nothing to change. She argued that if we took killing off the table, human ingenuity and human compassion would find a way to make it work. But, more importantly, she asked me how I knew it was true that pet overpopulation was real and that killing animals was therefore inevitable.

How did I know? Because I had heard it repeated a thousand times. Because I took the fact of killing in shelters and then rationalized the reason backward. But I was too embarrassed to admit so. Here I was: a Stanford Law student who wore my 4.0 department GPA, my highest honors in Political Science, my Phi Beta Kappa, and my Summa Cum Laude, as a badge of my smarts and I came face to face with my own sloppy logic and slipshod thinking about the issue. “It just is,” I said (lamely).

But therein began a journey that started in San Francisco, then Tompkins County (NY), then visiting hundreds of shelters across the country only to find animals being killed in the face of alternatives, only to find animals being killed despite empty cages, sometimes banks and banks of them. And so I began reviewing data. I reviewed statistics on animal intakes and studies on available homes. I studied the data reported by over 1,000 shelters nationwide. I reviewed the data from the states that mandate shelter reporting. And the conclusion became not just inescapable, but unassailable: pet overpopulation does not exist not only because the number of homes in America vastly exceed the number of shelter animals in need of a home; but also because my experience creating a No Kill community and now the hundreds of cities and towns which have also done so since prove it. In those communities which have ended the killing, they did so through adoptions and the vast majority did so in six months or less. In my case, it was literally overnight.

And since that time, other studies have not only proved I was right, they show I was conservative. To be sure, millions of animals are being killed in our nation’s shelters every year, and that is nothing short of a national tragedy. But they are not being killed because of the reasons we have been historically given to blame. They are not dying because of a lack of homes. They are dying because of a lack of innovation, a failure to embrace of proven methods of lifesaving. As I state at the end of Redemption, animals are dying in shelters for primarily one reason: because the people in shelters choose to kill them in the face of readily-available lifesaving alternatives.

Yet simply because I say pet overpopulation is a myth, I’m continually accused by champions of shelter killing of having nefarious intent: of being in league with puppy mills and commercial breeders. But understanding that the facts do not support the notion of pet overpopulation and saying so publicly has nothing whatsoever to do with supporting breeding or being in league with puppy or kitten mills. In fact, advocacy for animals requires that we expose the lie that is the primary excuse shelters use to kill for the same reason we should oppose puppy and kitten mills: both harm animals. Puppy mills, like poorly performing shelters, provide minimal to no veterinary care, lack of adequate food and shelter, lack of human socialization, and cause neglect, abuse, and the killing of animals when they are no longer profitable.

And that is why my organization, the No Kill Advocacy Center, has held workshops on closing down puppy mills and has supported laws banning the sale of commercially bred animals in pet stores. And it is why I believe that regardless of why animals are being killed, they are being killed, and as long as they are, it is incumbent on everyone seeking to bring an animal into their life to either rescue or adopt from a shelter. Adoption and rescue are ethical imperatives. In short, one does not have to believe in or perpetuate the lie of pet overpopulation to want to close down puppy mills. Nor does recognizing that pet overpopulation is a myth somehow grant a license to commercially or purposely breed animals. Before I ever suggested that pet overpopulation did not exist, the puppy mill industry was alive and thriving. Given the lack of concern those who operate such mills show for animals, what does it matter to them if there is pet overpopulation or not? They couldn’t care less what happens to the animals they sell. But I do. In fact, I am opposed to the commodification of animals, of having the law regard them as property to produce, buy and sell. Animals are not property; they are autonomous individuals, individuals who should be given legal rights, chief among them the right to live.

Acknowledging the truth—that both the data and experience disprove the existence of pet overpopulation—does not mean a person therefore subscribes to a whole host of anti-animal positions. Quite the opposite. It means, simply and thankfully, that we do not have to kill the animals entering our shelters under the disproven notion that there are too few homes. There are not; in fact, there are plenty. To save rather than end the lives of half of all animals who currently enter shelters only to die, we do not have to reform the 310,000,000 Americans apologists for shelter killing consider “irresponsible” and to blame for that killing. We just have to reform those who are truly at fault: the 3,000 irresponsible shelter directors who kill when they don’t have to and the four individuals running the national organizations which defend and protect them: Ingrid Newkirk of PETA, Wayne Pacelle of HSUS, Matt Bershadker of the ASPCA and Robin Ganzert of the American Humane Association. U.S. shelters kill not only because killing is easier, but because, historically, they have enjoyed the political cover of pet overpopulation which allowed them to continue doing so, political cover that comes courtesy of the animal protection movement itself.

To save lives, shelters must begin doing a better job of competing for the market share of the abundantly available homes in America, and, just as important, they must begin keeping animals alive long enough for them to get into those homes. And when I realized this for the first time, rather than bury it, ignore it or downplay it, I did what anyone who truly loves animals would have done. I celebrated it. Why? Because it meant that we had the power to end the killing, today. And that is what I wanted to happen because I love animals.

And yet here’s the irony: the very supporters of the very groups who have made these spurious allegations against me are actually the ones who benefit puppy mills, not me. As my colleague Ryan Clinton recently wrote,

By fighting lifesaving shelter reform, PETA and other regressive animal organizations are effectively aiding and abetting the commercial breeding of animals. By arguing that all pit bulls in shelters should be killed, PETA and others are necessarily driving those who aim to adopt a pit bull to breeders who will gladly meet the demand. By killing nearly every animal that comes in its front door (and lobbying against No Kill reforms throughout the country), PETA is, in reality, aiding and abetting the continuation of the large-scale animal-production industry.

He’s right. But there’s actually more to it than that. By fighting shelter reform and both defending and promoting killing—which groups like HSUS, the ASPCA and PETA do—they discourage the adoption of shelter animals. By embracing draconian adoption policies, they drive good homes to breeders and pet stores. When they fight efforts to increase rescue partnerships, they lessen the supply of available shelter/rescue animals, again, driving people into the arms of breeders. Moreover, traditional kill shelters discourage adopters by the very fact that they kill.

Many people do not want to visit a shelter where they have to meet animals who face possible execution. This hit home for me one day when I answered the telephone at the shelter. The person who called asked me when our next offsite adoption was. After I gave her the information, I told her she should come down to the shelter because we had hundreds of animals, compared to the ten or so who would be at the offsite. Not knowing we were No Kill, she replied she could never do so and explained why: she couldn’t bear to see the hundreds of animals who might be killed if she didn’t choose them.

As No Kill advocates, we may not like the fact that people won’t face such a discomforting scenario to save a life, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is true. Kill shelters are disturbing, unsettling places to visit for those who care about animals, not to mention the fact that the more a shelter kills, the more dirty and neglectful it is likely to be, and the more hostile and poor its customer service—all driving the public away from shelters and into the arms of the commercial pet trade.

On the other hand, when we reform shelters, we not only make them safe for animal lovers to work at, but we make them safe for adopters, too. During the height of the San Francisco SPCA’s lifesaving success in the late-1990s, when we had seven offsite adoption venues every day throughout the city in addition to our main shelter, there was not a single store selling dogs left in the city. We had out-competed them and they all went out of the animal selling business. When I was running the Tompkins County SPCA, potential adopters in our community faced two main choices: they could buy a kitten at a pet store for $50 or they could adopt one from us (in the same mall) for $30.

Unlike the pet store, our adoptions included sterilization, vaccinations, a free bag of cat food, a free visit to the veterinarian of the adopter’s choice, a free identification tag, a discount at the local pet supply, free grooming, a free guide to caring for their new kitten, free behavior advice for life, a discount on their next cup of coffee, the satisfaction of knowing they saved a life, and, during Christmas, Santa would deliver the kitten to their door. The pet store eventually approached us about working together by having us do cat adoptions in their store. Instead of selling animals, they began helping us find homes for ours.

The same thing is beginning to happen in central Texas, where No Kill reform efforts in various shelters are reducing the demand for purposely bred animals, as Ryan Clinton further explains:

If more Americans adopt dogs and cats from shelters rather than acquiring them from alternative sources like pet stores and on-line sellers, demand for commercially bred animals will necessarily decline. In fact, we’ve seen this come true in Central Texas: at least one large-scale breeder gave up in the face of increased competition from progressive area animal shelters and turned over his keys to a shelter to find homes for his animals… By saving shelter pets’ lives, No Kill policies and programs eat into commercial breeders’ profits.

If we reform our shelters, this could also be the story of every American community. Widespread No Kill success in our nation’s shelters would not only save the lives of almost four million animals every year, it—combined with legislative efforts to regulate, reform, close down, and eliminate their markets—would drive a dagger to the heart of the puppy and kitten mill industries. And yet HSUS, the ASPCA and PETA fight our efforts to reform shelters.

Worse, groups like HSUS, the ASPCA, and PETA act like puppy and kitten mills themselves. True animal lovers embrace the No Kill philosophy because they want to prevent harm to animals, such as their systematic slaughter in shelters. True animal lovers also want to shut down the commercial mill trade in animals because they want to prevent harm to these animals, such as their systematic abuse. That is ethically consistent. But PETA, HSUS, the ASPCA and their defenders ignore or fight reform efforts to stop shelter neglect, abuse, and killing which is the same type of harm that animals face in large-scale, commercial breeding operations for the pet store market.

PETA claims to want to stop puppy mill abuse but will defend the exact conduct if it occurs in a shelter. HSUS claims to want to stop puppy mill abuse but will give awards to shelters that sadistically abuse animals. The ASPCA not only fights shelter reform that would eliminate some of the worst abuses of the draconian shelter system we now have, but sends animals to be killed in those shelters. Neglect is neglect, abuse is abuse, killing is killing regardless of by whose hand that neglect, abuse, and killing is done. To look the other way at one because that neglect, abuse, and killing is done by “friends,” “colleagues,” or simply because the perpetrators call themselves a “humane society” is indefensible.

In the final analysis, it is HSUS, the ASPCA, and PETA which benefit puppy and kitten mills and the commercial breeding of animals, not No Kill advocates who refuse to subscribe to the lie of pet overpopulation which enables systematic killing. It is HSUS, the ASPCA, and PETA which benefit commercial breeding when they fight efforts to reform shelters and make them safe for animal lovers to both work at and adopt from. It is HSUS, the ASPCA, and PETA who act like puppy and kitten mills when they defend abuse and killing in shelters. And by extension, the people who defend these actions by HSUS, ASPCA, and PETA also benefit puppy and kitten mills, in spite of whatever disproven dogma—such as the myth of pet overpopulation—they may cling to in order to defend such a deadly and unethical position.

For further reading:

The Lie at the Heart of the Killing

The Enemy of Your Enemy

What’s In a Name?

Ethical Consistency for True Dog Lovers

Adopting Your Way Out of Killing

Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation & The No Kill Revolution in America

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Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

The Company Man

When Ed Sayres resigned from his $550,000 a year job as CEO of the ASPCA, I wrote ASPCA Board Chair Tim Wray and urged him not to hire yet another in a long line of empty suits. Specifically, I wrote,

The outgoing President of the organization you oversee, the ASPCA, leaves in his wake a legacy of controversy and betrayal. His tenure is marked by his heartless killing of Oreo and other animals who rescuers offered to save, his defeat of rescue rights laws in New York while championing laws that eviscerated shelter holding periods, of releasing manuals which sought to educate shelter directors about how to fight No Kill reform efforts (efforts that were characterized as essentially acts of terrorism), of promoting sham shelter “reform” programs which exacerbated rather than lessened shelter killing, of an animal cruelty investigation division which failed to do its job thereby leaving abused and suffering New York City animals to die, of funding operations that raise animals to be slaughtered for food, and of defending the cruel and abusive New York city pound. In short, Ed Sayres lack of philosophical commitment to the cause which he was entrusted to represent is evident in his tragic legacy, and can best be summed up in the statement he made to the most widely read newspaper in America, USA Today. In 2007, he was quoted as having said, “There is no room for No Kill as morally superior,” equating the needless killing of four million animals a year as the ethical equivalent of a movement which actually saves their lives.

After setting out how the ASPCA could truly be a leader in areas ranging from companion animals to wild animals to animal raised for food, I closed with a plea,

The possibilities are breathtaking, so I urge you not to do what the ASPCA Board has always done when choosing the next President of the ASPCA: do not elevate form over function. Do not choose someone who represents the lowest common denominator, but rather embrace a person of commitment and integrity who will rally the nation with the highest of aspirations. Do not take this decision lightly, but give it a consideration that is equal to its vast potential to help those who are now not only so horribly abused, but so misrepresented by those who are supposed to speak on their behalf as well. By making the right choice, the Board of Directors could not only breathe new and authentic life into the ASPCA motto, “We Are Their Voice,” the ASPCA would be given power to transform our country. The tenure of the next President of the ASPCA could be historic, a before-and-after moment in the cause of animal protection.

 

Given the vast, untapped potential that exists to help animals through the ASPCA; given how much the ASPCA could positively affect American society on behalf of animals in truly profound and lasting ways; and given the gravity of what is potentially at stake, I urge you not to pick yet another, in a long line, of empty suits.

 

The animals deserve better.

They won’t get better. Yesterday, the ASPCA put out a press release saying,

The ASPCA … announced that it has named Matthew E. Bershadker President and CEO. Mr. Bershadker is a 12-year veteran of the ASPCA, serving most recently as Senior Vice President of the Anti-Cruelty Group (ACG). Mr. Bershadker will assume the position June 1, succeeding Edwin Sayres, President and CEO since 2003.

 

Under Mr. Bershadker’s leadership, the ASPCA has risen to new heights in its response to cruelty and natural disasters. The Anti-Cruelty Group evolved from a fledgling team of responders to a robust, national program that confronts animal cruelty and suffering on all levels across the country. Mr. Bershadker helped form the Field Investigations & Response team to provide skilled support to state and federal agencies during large-scale puppy mill busts, dog fighting raids, animal hoarding cases, and other instances of animal cruelty as well as natural disasters such as the Joplin, Mo. tornado and Superstorm Sandy. The team has investigated hundreds of cases around the country. Last year, the ASPCA played a leadership role in the removal of 50 dogs from a Bronx dog fighting ring. Most recently, the ASPCA assisted federal and state authorities in the removal of nearly 100 dogs from a multi-state dog fighting ring.

 

Prior to leading the Anti-Cruelty Group, Mr. Bershadker served as Vice President of the ASPCA’s Development department, where he was responsible for creating fundraising strategy and implementing tactics for major gifts, planned giving, special events, capital campaign, and corporate and foundation grants.

In short, they hired a company man. When animal lovers emailed about Sayre’s war on animal lovers throughout his tenure, Wray defended his then-CEO saying that Sayres helped increase fundraising during his leadership to nearly $150,000,000 a year. To Wray, a money manager himself, profits appeared to define success, irrespective of how many animals were sent to the pound to be killed, how many animals were left to starve in the city, how much the ASPCA sided with cruel and abusive shelters.

The new CEO “was responsible for creating fundraising strategy and implementing tactics for major gifts, planned giving, special events, capital campaign, and corporate and foundation grants,” according to Wray, and therefore, he is qualified, period.

The ASPCA Board, however, claims they really hired him for his “success” at overseeing the Anti-Cruelty Group. Of course, to paraphrase Bill Clinton’s famous line, “it all depends upon what your definition of ‘success’ is.” In this case, failure is the new success.

The ASPCA allowed dogs to starve to death all over New York City. According to a Channel 11 expose,

Dogs, cats and other animals are suffering and even dying needlessly all over New York City, and the culprit behind their hurt, according to PIX11 News sources, is the management of an organization that’s supposed to be helping animals.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reported receiving $122 million in donations last year in its cause to prevent animal cruelty, but some whistleblowers told PIX11 News that the ASPCA is preventing its own animal cruelty investigators from doing their jobs.

The incompetence has had fatal consequences:

An HLE case file obtained by PIX11 News features some very disturbing images. They are about a half dozen photographs that a responding HLE investigator was required to take of a pit bull mix that was so severely emaciated and badly neglected that it died. The case file clearly points out in its narrative, “This case is 2 weeks old,” too long after the ASPCA received an anonymous complaint about the starved dog for HLE officers to step in and save the dog’s life…

 

That case is by no means isolated. PIX11 also obtained other case reports in which dogs were dead by the time investigators were finally given the case files for the called-in complaints. In one case, the investigator wasn’t able to respond to the complaint until seven days after it was called in. In another, the complaint wasn’t followed up for two-and-a-half months.

The ASPCA Press Release announcing the promotion said it was Bershadker’s job “to help protect companion animals that are in danger of potential abuse or neglect.” In the case of animals in the ASPCA’s own backyard, they failed to do so. The anti-cruelty department has also been rocked with allegations of perjury. And when the ASPCA itself was accused in a federal lawsuit of abuse claiming an ASPCA employee, with an alleged history of abuse, kicked to death a man’s dog who was being treated at the ASPCA veterinary hospital, the ASPCA did not admit wrongdoing. ASPCA humane law enforcement agents did not swing into action. Instead, the ASPCA covered up the abuse. It is not clear whether he was in charge of that department at the time, but he was in management and there is little reason to believe the results would have been different. Bershadker’s team routinely looked the other way at horrific neglect and abuse at the New York City pound, continuing to send animals to be abused and killed there, while the ASPCA defended the pound to the animals’ detriment.

According to a lawsuit in federal court, the ASPCA abusively killed this man’s dog and then covered it up.

Finally, Wray lauds Bershadker for his oversight of ASPCA rescues around the country, including during Superstorm Sandy. But what happened to many of the animals “rescued” by Bershadker’s group? After the photo-ops and after the fundraising appeals went out, they were sent to kill shelters. Even if these shelters did not kill any of the ASPCA animals, a dubious proposition in itself, they likely killed local animals to make room. Either way, animals needlessly lost their lives because an agency with annual revenues of nearly 150 million dollars, its own shelter in New York City, and access to the single largest adoption market in the nation didn’t care what happened to the animals once the money people donated was safely deposited in the bank.

Of course, Bershadker promises to take the ASPCA to the “next level.” And animal lovers want to believe, want to be wrong about him, want to hold out hope that he was just biding his time until he could take control and lead the ASPCA in a new direction: just like they wanted to believe when another company man, long-time PR spinmaster and HSUS lobbyist Wayne Pacelle was promoted to CEO of that organization. When he took over HSUS after ten years there, Pacelle also promised a new, improved HSUS. Specifically, he stated that HSUS,

[W]ill honor the highest ethical standards in pursuing our mission, working within the system to advance our objectives. At the same time, we will strive to be nimble, hard-hitting, and aggressive, seizing opportunities as they arise and pushing ahead in a determined way with our proactive agenda. We exist to change the status quo and to change social norms. As such, confrontation and controversy are not to be feared; instead, they are logical consequences of meaningful and effective action.

Instead, they got more of the same: more killing, more support of killing, and a defense of neglect and abuse of animals, so long as the neglect and abuse occurred in shelters. In other words, like Pacelle before him, there is little reason to elevate hope above experience with Bershadker. When someone shows you who they are and what they represent over and over again, believe them. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Learn more:

The ASPCA Allows Dogs to Starve to Death

In the Arms of the Angel of Death

No More Empty Suits

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Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

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