(Just incase... I also believe in and support Jack Kevorkian.... so dont ask me; if it was a human? etc...) Euthanasia an integral requirement for any TRAP, NEUTER AND RELEASE PROGRAM Kim Rogers Bartlett is one of the most known animal welfare advocates in the world . She has helped hundreds of animal welfare organizations S.P.A.R.E is one of them , she did a lot for us morally and financially she supported us and taught us a lot about ANIMAL WELFARE , she has more than 20 animals in her home many of her animals are handicapped . SHE IS AN ANGEL FOR THE ANIMALS AND FOR THE PEOPLE WHO CARE FOR ANIMALS.PLEASE READ CAREFULLY HER STATEMENT ABOUT TNR . THINK ABOUT IT AND THEN WE WILL DISCUSS IT TOGETHER. Trap-Neuter-Return and Euthanasia Policy Animal People was instrumental in introducing Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) to the United States, beginning in 1991 with a seven-month trial of the method on feral cat colonies in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut. What we learned from working with feral cats is applicable to free-roaming dog populations. From the beginning, our goal was to reduce the feral cat population at the target sites to zero as rapidly as possible. There are two preconditions for zeroing out a population of feral animals through TNR: 1) At least 70% of the animals and preferably 100% must be sterilized; before the 70% figure is reached, there will be no net reduction. In addition, every effort must be made to trap and sterilize 100% of the cats or dogs at each site as rapidly as they can be identified. 2) Sites must be monitored on an ongoing basis to ensure that all newcomers are identified, caught, and sterilized before they begin breeding. Animal People stipulates as fundamental humane considerations that all puppies and kittens who can be socialized for adoption should be; that no ill, elderly, disabled, or debilitated animals should ever be released; and, as the prime directive for practicing TNR successfully without rousing community or politically problematic opposition, no animal should be released into or returned to hostile or otherwise unsuitable habitat. Hostile habitat is anywhere the animals will be at high risk of being injured or killed (accidentally or deliberately) and most especially places where the community is intolerant of the presence of free-roaming dogs and cats, which puts the animals at high risk of being poisoned, beaten, shot, or subject to capture and extermination at the discretion of residents, municipal agencies, or other governmental authorities. Highly visible habitat, where feeding animals may encourage people to abandon their pets, should also be considered unsuitable. Also, when people see animals clustered near feeding sites in highly visible habitat, the effect is to magnify the presence of animals in the area, so that there seem to be more animals than there really are. In addition, left-over food will attract insects, rodents, and other creatures deemed even more undesirable than dogs and cats. Unsightly trash and food scraps left at the site lead to legitimate complaints. Many of the situations in which maintained colonies of vaccinated and sterilized animals have been subsequently rounded up for extermination by local officials seem to have resulted from disregard of the prime directive of never releasing or returning an animal to hostile or unsuitable habitat. The outcome of trying to save animals by keeping them in unsuitable locations is not only an enormous waste of resources (including time and money spent on sterilization and vaccination), but often leads to great suffering of the animals at the hands of people who have no compassion for them. Up to the point at which captured animals are either anesthetized for sterilization or overdosed with an anesthetic for euthanasia, the experience of the captured animals is exactly the same: they are caught using a trap, net, or some other device; they are held for a period of time in a pen, cage, or in the trap in which they were caught; they are given an intravenous or intramuscular injection of sedative, followed by anesthetic. If the animal is euthanized with the anesthetic, there is no further sensation. If the animal is surgically sterilized, then there is confusion upon awakening, followed by the sensation of pain from the surgical site. Ideally the animal would be administered at least one injection of analgesic before waking, but even then, the pain of abdominal surgery such as an ovario-hysterectomy is not negligible. Moreover, the fear and stress involved in being forcibly captured, handled for medical procedures, caged post-operatively for a period of time that may be hours or days, and finally returned to the streets or other habitat should not be under-estimated. If an animal is being returned to friendly habitat with the prospect of a relatively typical life subject to normal risks, the pain and stress involved in surgical sterilization would certainly seem to be justified -- particularly since surgical sterilization has the effect of improving the quality of life for dogs and cats by (arguably) reducing aggression in males, eliminating fighting by males over females in estrus, and in improving mortality in females by eliminating the health risks attendant on pregnancy, birthing, and lactation. But if, after sterilization, the animal is released into or returned to a site where the animal is unwanted, it should be expected that the animal may be run off by people throwing rocks (or worse), or eventually injured or killed by those who don’t want him. If the animal is released into or returned to a site where care is not provided, or where food, water, and/or shelter are not readily available, then the animal will die a slow death, probably out of sight of the “rescuers” who thought they were doing him a favor by subjecting him to the stresses of capture, surgery, and post-op pain, and then abandoning him somewhere to either scratch out a living or to die. Either way, it will be a poor and pitiable quality of life. The humane community long ago began misusing the term euthanasia as a synonym for all killing done within animal shelters. Now “euthanasia” has been adopted as the word of choice by animal control agencies and government officials who wish to kill free-roaming dogs and cats under any pretext and by any method, regardless of how painful it may be. “Euthanasia” is even being used by animal industries of all kinds to describe killing of animals; for example, the killing of experimental animals in laboratories. Probably the meat industry will soon be referring to slaughtering as “euthanasia.” The word euthanasia -- literally meaning good death -- is most properly used to describe “mercy killing,” or putting to death hopelessly suffering creatures in order to relieve their misery. There is much contention among the animal protection community over whether or not the word euthanasia may accurately be applied to painlessly ending the lives of animals who are not suffering at present, but who are in clear and present danger of experiencing a more miserable death. Either way, true “euthanasia” is administered for the presumed benefit of the one being euthanized (animal or human). It is my belief that the “clear and present danger” status of an animal justifies euthanasia, but others will disagree. Even so, it is crucially important that an animal protection organization establishes a clear policy on euthanasia before seriously considering a TNR program.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 19:57:46 +0000
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