It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again
The ASPCA is lobbying for animals to die. The ink is not yet dry on New York State shelter reform legislation, the bill doesn’t even have a number yet, and Matt Bershadker, the ASPCA’s CEO, is already spending donor funds to kill it, saying it isn’t needed because the New York City pound is a model of compassionate sheltering. Not only does this ignore the care of animals in other shelters throughout the state, but it is a lie. The City pound is not what it pretends to be. It kills healthy animals, it allows them to languish, in pain, without veterinary care, and it kills them after neutering. In fact, dog placement rates have declined two years in a row. And not only does their reported “save rate” exclude whole categories of animals when reporting statistics, new evidence is emerging that those statistics may have been deliberately and fraudulently changed.
To protect animals who enter the City pound and other pounds throughout the state, the Companion Animal Protection Act would set reasonable minimum standards for the care of animals and would ensure that alternatives to killing are implemented. For example, it requires shelters to work with qualified rescue groups, to embrace sterilization for community cats, and makes it illegal for shelters to kill owner relinquished animals without making them available for adoption. Currently, many are marched from the front counter directly to the kill room.
We know how to end the killing. And in communities where shelters embrace, rather than fight, reform, more lives are saved, wasteful taxpayer expenditures are reduced, revenues for municipal and private shelters increase, and economic and social benefits ensue to the community. Delaware passed CAPA in 2010, resulting in placement rates of over 90% of animals. Indeed, the Delaware Office of Animal Welfare, the state agency that oversees Delaware’s shelters, writes that the law “has saved thousands of animals that would have otherwise been euthanized due to outdated policies and practices.” Austin, TX, did the same and places 98% of dogs and 96% of cats. Muncie, IN, passed it and places 99% of animals. And more recently, it passed in Pueblo, CO, and the shelter has been running a 95% placement rate since.
The ASPCA is working to ensure that the animals of New York State do not enjoy the same protections, the same care, the same outcomes. If the ASPCA succeeds, it will not be the first time. The ASPCA has previously killed legislation of this kind in New York States several times going back to 2010. In that time, over 225,000 animals who could have been saved were killed instead. Instead of enjoying the loving new homes that was their birthright, they are dead, their bodies rotting in New York State landfills.
To learn why groups like the ASPCA lobby against lifesaving legislation, click here.
To learn more about the ASPCA’s corruption, click here.
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