How Are Shelter Animals Killed In Lauderdale County Alabama

Cathy Oakley, director of Peace, Love and Animals in Tanner, rescued a Labrador retriever named Mandy who was about to be put to slumber in a gas sleeping accommodation at the Florence Animal Shelter because the dog was

meaning.

The dog delivered 7 good for you puppies in March and was a surrogate mother to a litter of puppies that had lost their female parent a few days later on the deadly April 27 tornadoes tore through n Alabama.

Oakley, who runs a no-kill shelter, said it's a approving state lawmakers voted unanimously in a contempo 27-0 decision to pass Beckham'south Act, which bans all Alabama shelters from using gas chambers to euthanize elderly, sick, vicious or homeless animals.

"To think (Mandy) could have been gassed in one of those horrible gas chambers," she said. "I hate gassing. It is i of the almost fell and inhumane means to euthanize a canis familiaris. I do sympathise there are times when a dog is ill, terminally sick and needs to be euthanized, but gassing is totally incorrect."

Florence, Colbert County, Cullman and Russellville are the four remaining beast shelters in Alabama that use gas chambers to euthanize cats and dogs. The legislative act requires all shelters to switch to using lethal injections by the end of the year.

Colbert County Animal Control euthanized 3,166 animals in 2010, with up to 80 percent of them through lethal injection. The shelter notwithstanding relies on gas chambers to put downward sometime, sick, unsafe or unwanted animals.

Tommy Morson, the shelter's managing director, worries performing euthanasia past injection on all animals may identify an emotional toll on shelter workers. All of Colbert County'due south shelter workers are already certified euthanization technicians, Morson said.

"Nosotros get fastened to pretty much every animal that comes through here, and it'southward emotional to accept to put one down," he said. "To put an beast downward, one person has to be at that place to concord it, while the other person injects and has the animal dice in his arms."

Phil Stevenson, Florence city spokesman, said Florence Metropolis Animal Shelter, which euthanizes 20 percent of 2,500 animals through lethal injection each twelvemonth, is concerned near employee retention, safety and higher costs later making the switch.

"Safe is a concern for us," he said. "You will take larger animals and on occasion some wild animals that the workers will have to come in personal contact with to inject. This is going to increment the number of employees that beast control will demand to handle the volume of animals that come through."

The American Humane Association recently published a report that stated euthanasia through the gas chamber is a 25- to 30-minute wheel for animals, whereas injection takes up to 5 minutes for an animal to reach clinical death. The study also reported several nationwide incidents of explosions, asphyxiations and injuries to shelter workers as a result of gas bedroom mishaps.

In a commissioned study on a North Carolina shelter, the AHA establish it costs shelters $iv.98 per animal to use carbon monoxide gas with a tranquilizer, while euthanasia by injection costs $2.29 per animal.

Officials say shelter facilities at Florence and Colbert Canton are upwardly-to-appointment and won't require whatsoever new additions, but that both departments will rely on appropriations to cover the costs of switching to injections.

Rhonda Parker, state chairwoman for Alabama Voters for Responsible Animal Legislation, said it is gratifying to see Alabama legislators laissez passer Beckham's Act, which was named afterward a dog that survived a gas chamber.

"At that place are people who will cast animal shelters and the people who piece of work there every bit villains," she said. "They volition demonize them for killing animals. The real question isn't if shelter workers are bad people, because the answer is no. In conversations I've had with shelter workers, they are often dismayed past the attitude the public has for them, but the reality is they have a job to do and the merely reason they have that job is because you have people in the community who aren't responsible pet owners."

Beckham'due south Human action will require all shelters to show proof they have dismantled their gas chambers by Jan. 31, 2012. The nib is awaiting a final signature from Gov. Robert Bentley.

Kristi Mitchell, a volunteer with Pets Are Worth Saving in Florence, said Alabama needs to accost the growing population of homeless animals to cut dorsum on euthanizations.

"We demand to open up our eyes to the problem of pet overpopulation and stop ignoring it," she said. "The shelter workers have a tough job, no doubt. AVRAL'due south ultimate goal would be to keep shelters from being overcrowded so that no adoptable animal would be euthanized."

Lucy Berry can be reached at 256-765-5747 or lucy.drupe@TimesDaily.com.

Source: https://www.timesdaily.com/archives/local-animal-shelters-can-only-euthanize-by-injection/article_03a2100d-6d82-5387-b749-ddc1a123ab1c.html

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