AR-News: (NC - US) Yadkin County Animal Control continues to torture animals

Wed Dec 31 19:04:56 EST 2003

Sent: 12/31/2003 5:47:38 PM 
Subject: Yadkin County Commissioners Ignoring Federal Law-animal welfare act 
est.1966

VIOLATIONS OF THE FEDERAL ANIMAL WELFARE ACT EST.1966 REVISED 1988  
YADKIN COUNTY ANIMAL CONTROL

 Yadkin County commissioners are blatantly ignoring the animal welfare act. I 
have tried but to no avail to help improve the conditions at this shelter. I 
have written letters, made phone calls to commissioners, dept.of justice,the 
sheriffs office,talked with Dr.Kirkland who is head of animal protection and 
extremely rude, had a news article published after making many calls the paper 
and don't seem to have made much progress. I have never dealt with such 
disregard from commissioners. Disregard for life, or public feeling and opinion. I 
can quote the commissioners as saying "There aint anything wrong with shootin a 
dog as long as you shoot'em in the head and do it the right way" CC.Baird. To, 
I don't give a rats ass and don't have time for this today. D.C Swain.
 I do not understand nor comprehend this kind of disassociation with life or 
compassion. I have watched the video from yadkin,even showed it to my father 
we both had tears in our eyes.(my father is not one to cry) I am at my wits end 
and am asking for your help in stopping the cruelty of these animals by these 
uncaring men. As you watch the video (at the bottom) you will see no regard 
for the crying and pain of these dogs as they shove them into a homemade gas 
chamber.While they are dying they wait patiently with no emotion as the dogs cry 
from their lungs and eyes being seared by this outdated cruel method of 
killing. I am asking for your help in setting a standard of humane euthanasia in 
your district. The people of the United States should lead by example, in fact 
most of us have pets we adore and call family companions. Please take your time 
to watch this video and consider the only humane way to euthanize is to 
sedate then inject with sodium Phenobarbital and then to check for rigormortis and 
heartbeat to ensure death. We find time and time again these animals are not 
dead and end up being put into freezers alive, only later to be found crying in 
pain, put into crematories alive or found in the city dump. This is flat out 
inhumane, unacceptable and wrong. I want better for the animals that do not 
make it out of these shelters. At least they should die without having to 
suffer. Please open your heart and mind to the suffering and consider helping us put 
an end to their pain.

 God Bless You and Happy New Year,
       Dawn Taylor Bechtold
           Atlanta GA.
       Animal Shelter Reform

 video at bottom:

nothing has changed for the needy animals in Yadkin County. Not only has a 
new shelter not been built, little if any effort is being made to find land to 
build it on, either! And the animals are paying the price, often with their 
lives. 

Animals at the shelter are killed in a crude, windowless metal box pumped 
full of carbon monoxide. Even adequate carbon monoxide equipment can fail, 
subjecting fully conscious animals to the horror of watching and hearing others 
struggle and suffer as they succumb to the fumes. But makeshift chambers, like the 
one used by Yadkin County, are virtually guaranteed to subject animals to 
suffering and to a prolonged, agonizing death. PETA is told—and <A HREF="http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=yadkin_county">video footage </A>
confirms—that animals are crammed into the box one on top of another and that 
live animals are thrown in, layer after layer, on top of dead and dying ones. A 
shelter employee allegedly once bragged about being able to stuff more than 80 
animals into the tiny “kill box” at once.

<A HREF="http://www.peta.org/feat/yadkin/pdf/Yadkin%20County%20stats.pdf">Yadkin County’s Annual Animal Control Report for January 1, 2003, through 
October 11, 2003</A>, shows that out of 1,933 animals killed, only four puppies and 
four kittens were euthanized by a veterinarian. This means that the rest of the 
animals—including the old, young, and sick ones, who are particularly 
susceptible to gas-related trauma because they breathe and circulate oxygen and other 
gases differently than healthy adult animals—were crammed into and died 
inside the chamber that has been used to kill animals at the shelter for years. 
(News reports indicate that Yadkin County commissioners have spent nearly $7,000 
on a new gas chamber, which they refuse to hook up until a new shelter is 
built. So the new chamber sits unused.) 

> 01-02 Annual Budget Report for Yadkin County shows that not one cent was 
> spent on training for the animal control staff or on veterinarian fees. One 
> complainant wrote to PETA to say that on one occasion, an adult dog had “a large 
> flap of skin and muscle [lying] down over his left hip, exposing bone. He 
> lay from Wednesday to Friday on kill day. He had numerous other wounds, and the 
> hip injury was teeming with maggots.”

> 

> The General Statutes of North Carolina, specifically § 130A-192, state that 
> impounded animals who are not reclaimed can only be destroyed by “a procedure 
> approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Humane Society 
> of the United States [HSUS], or … the American Humane Association [AHA].” 
> 
> The AVMA panel states that “inhalant agents [should] not be used alone in 
> animals less than 16 weeks old except to induce loss of consciousness, followed 
> by the use of some other method to kill the animal.” 
> 
> The HSUS states, “It is unacceptable to use [carbon monoxide] for the 
> euthanasia of dogs and cats who are … [o]ld …; [u]nder the age of four months; 
> [s]ick or injured; or ([o]bviously) pregnant.”
> 
> The AHA considers euthanasia by injection of sodium pentobarbital to be “the 
> only acceptable method for euthanasia of dogs and cats in animal shelters” 
> and states, “American Humane considers the use of any other lethal method for 
> dogs and cats in animal shelters unacceptable, including use of carbon 
> monoxide ...” 

> 

> The AVMA also specifies in its panel that when carbon monoxide is used, the 
> “chamber must be of the highest quality construction and should allow for 
> separation of individual animals … [and] the chamber must be well lit and have 
> view ports that allow personnel direct observation of animals …,” neither of 
> which is followed by Yadkin County. 

> 

> Moreover, Yadkin County has a mandatory kill policy, prohibiting adoptions, 
> supposedly because of a fear of rabies. However, the county dedicates no 
> resources to enforcing North Carolina law requiring that animals be vaccinated 
> against rabies. The excuse? Money, which, of course, would be collected if 
> violators of the state rabies law were fined as warranted!

> 

> Conditions for animals before they are destroyed are equally cruel. The 
> rundown structure that animals are housed in offers little to no protection from 
> harsh wind, freezing or scorching temperatures, rain, and snow and more often 
> than not is covered in urine and feces. Small, weak animals are housed in 
> cages with aggressive large animals, who bully the smaller animals and prevent 
> them from eating or drinking. Food bowls are not used at the facility, so 
> food is simply thrown on the ground, contaminated by feces, urine, dirt, and 
> water, creating a disgusting health hazard for the animals. The water buckets 
> provided for the animals appear to be too tall for small dogs to reach, and the 
> water is often foul and black with <A HREF="http://www.peta.org/feat/yadkin/page/ys32-hi.jpg">mold and filth</A>. Cats are forced to sit on 
> <A HREF="http://www.peta.org/feat/yadkin/page/ys20-hi.jpg">wire in small cages</A>.
>  an adult dog had “a large flap of skin and muscle [lying] down over his 
> left hip, exposing bone. He lay from Wednesday until Friday on kill day. He had 
> numerous other wounds, and the hip injury was teeming with maggots.” PETA’s 
> file on Yadkin County is full of similar heartbreaking accounts.

> 

> On November 4, 2003, Yadkin County Humane Society President Alice Singh 
> spoke to the House Interim Committee on the Prevention and Disposition of 
> Unwanted and Abandoned Companion Animals in Raleigh—formed last August by the 
> Honorable Speakers of the North Carolina House of Representatives to address the 
> overpopulation crisis and related issues in the state—about dire conditions at 
> the Yadkin County shelter. Singh shared with committee members 
> heart-wrenching photos of the facility, and graphic video footage of <A HREF="http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ/MGArticle/WSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031771937087&rendermode=preview&path=!localnews!stategov&s=1037645509153">gas killings shot in 
> 1997 (the same gas box is still in use) by a North Carolina School of the Arts 
> student</A>. The following day, County Manager Cecil Wood advised humane society 
> members that they were no longer welcome to use the county planning building 
> for their <A HREF="http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Common/MGArticle/PrintVersion&c=MGArticle&cid=1031771963516&oasDN=journalnow.com&oasPN=!localnews&image=wsj80x60.gif">monthly meetings as they had been doing for nine months</A>. The 
> humane society is the only hope that these animals have. 

> 

> Please help. Commissioners must get their heads out of the sand and 
> immediately improve the deplorable conditions that the animals have and continue to 
> be subjected to right now. Construction of a shelter hasn’t even begun and 
> won’t be completed overnight once it does. There’s a long list of <A HREF="http://www.peta.org/feat/yadkin/change.html">simple things 
> that the county can and must do</A> to make the shelter comply with minimum 
> national standards.

> 

> Please contact Yadkin County commissioners and urge them to stop shirking 
> their legal, moral, and financial responsibilities to their county’s lost, 
> abandoned, and unwanted animals. Ask that they provide these animals with the 
> least they deserve: a painless, peaceful death administered by a licensed 
> veterinarian at least until caring individuals can be trained. Please push for 
> immediate improvements to be made at the current facility. Animals shouldn’t have 
> to wait for fundraising and construction efforts before having their basic 
> needs met. 

>  

>  video of yadkin animal shelter

> <A HREF="http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=yadkin_county"> Select Your Media Preferences</A>  warning graphic-not for the faint of heart
>   
> Despite years of efforts by the local humane society and animal
> advocates throughout the U.S., Yadkin County officials continue to
> ignore the dire living-and dying-conditions for unwanted animals at
> the county "shelter"-a dilapidated collection of wire-and-wood cages
> offering little protection from the elements. Animals at the shelter
> are killed in a crude box pumped full of carbon monoxide. Please
> contact Yadkin County commissioners and ask them to make immediate
> improvements and-at least-provide animals with a painless death.
> Despite years of efforts by the local humane society and animal
> advocates throughout the U.S., Yadkin County officials continue to
> ignore the dire living-and dying-conditions for unwanted animals at
> the county "shelter"-a dilapidated collection of wire-and-wood cages
> offering little protection from the elements. Animals at the shelter
> are killed in a crude box pumped full of carbon monoxide. Please
> contact Yadkin County commissioners and ask them to make immediate
> improvements and-at least-provide animals with a painless death.
>  
>  <A HREF="http://www.peta.org/feat/yadkin/photos.html">Photos From the Yadkin County "Shelter"</A>
> 
> <A HREF="http://www.peta.org/feat/yadkin/change.html">Simple things that the county can and must do to make the shelter comply 
> with minimum national standards.</A>
> ____________
> 
> <A HREF="http://www.peta.org/feat/yadkin/co2.html">Facts on Carbon Monoxide Poisoning</A>
> 
> <A HREF="http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=yadkin">Video Footage</A>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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