by [email protected]
Has your dog or cat ever “gotten out”? Did you ever have
to post “Lost Dog” signs on your street? Maybe you should add “medical
testing facility” to the list of places you search for your dog.
Now if you are a resident of Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey,
Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, South Carolina, or
Hawaii, you may have nothing to fear with regard to pound seizure,
because pound seizure is illegal in your state. But if you live
elsewhere, you should be aware that animals that are turned into your
local shelters for whatever reason could very well end up on the
business end of a vivisectionists blade. And if you live in Iowa,
Minnesota, Oklahoma, South Dakota or Utah, you can bet they do, because
pound seizure is not only legal, but absolutely required for all
government-run animal control facilities. All other states have no law
one way or the other on pound seizure and leave it up to local
governments to choose whether or not county-run facilities can engage in
this very disturbing and blatantly unethical practice. Although there
have been several anti-pound seizure bills before Congress, animal
activists have thus far failed to have one enacted.
Worldwide, pound seizure is strictly forbidden in The
United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, and Holland.
What is pound seizure? Well, when an animal is turned
over to a county pound or ASPCA they are held for a period of time,
usually five days. If they are not claimed or adopted within that time
period they are required by law to be relinquished to laboratories for
experimentation.
It’s true that in the United States, millions of animals
are humanely euthanized in our nations’ pounds every year, and the
animals that are sent to testing facilities surely die as well. But
their death is not swift and painless, and is far from humane. There is
evidence that these animals endure horrible pain at the hands of
vivisectors and other experimenters. According to a report from a PeTA
undercover investigator, “One example is at Wright State University in
Dayton, Ohio, where ……dogs seized from the local pound were being used
in hideously painful scabies experiments. In the experiments, dogs were
infected with scabies, a skin disease caused by microscopic mites that
spread over their entire bodies, causing intense, prolonged itching,
open wounds, and, eventually, death. One dog named Genesee was infected
so severely, she turned circles constantly, unable to rest because of
the intense itching. She cried out when handled, wouldn't eat or drink,
and lost her balance; her anguished howls could be heard through closed
doors. She finally died, without veterinary treatment, because that
would have 'interfered'; with the experiment. WSU was later charged with
violating the Animal Welfare Act and fined $20,000; but the local pound
continues to release animals to the university.”
Who are these victims? These are the same animals who
are presented to shelters by guardians who must give them up for a
variety of reasons such as allergies, moving, etc. These misguided and
often desperate people have a fervent but usually unrealistic hope that
the animals will be adopted into loving homes. Or these are the animals
rescued by good Samaritans, helpful individuals, police or animal
control officers. These are the very same animals that have been
abandoned by their families, have run away from home, or have simply
gotten lost. Almost all of them had an earlier life as a beloved
companion or are the litters of unspayed cats and dogs.
All animal welfare, animal rights and animal advocacy
organizations, without exception, are opposed to pound seizure. On this
issue, we present a united front for the animals, yet federal
legislation outlawing pound seizure is not forthcoming. The official
statement of the Humane Society of the United States is clear and
unequivocal:
The HSUS Policy Statement:
Pound Seizure
The Humane Society of the United States is convinced that the surrender
of impounded animals from public and private shelters to biomedical
research laboratories, training institutions, pharmaceutical houses, and
other facilities that use animals for experimental teaching or testing
purposes contributes to a breakdown of effective animal-control programs
through abandonment of animals by owners who rightfully fear such
animals may be subjected to painful use. The Society believes that
animal shelters should not be a cheap source of supply for laboratories
or pursue, voluntarily or otherwise, a practice that will inevitably
destroy public confidence in its operation and thereby lessen public
support.
It is, therefore, the policy of The HSUS to oppose the
release of impounded animals from public and private animal shelters to
biomedical research laboratories or related animal-using facilities and
to oppose any measure, administrative or legislative, that would make
this practice mandatory. Further, the Society condemns any organization,
calling itself a humane society or a society for the prevention of
cruelty to animals, that voluntarily sells or gives animals in its
custody to biomedical research laboratories.
This is very strong opposition indeed. Not only does the
practice of pound seizure destroy the public trust in the organization
that is engaging in it, but the lives of the animals that are condemned
to die in research laboratories are pure misery. This is especially true
of those once-beloved family companions, the ones who slept in the beds
of small boys, absorbed the tears of teenaged girls and supported the
wife who suffered through a violent marriage. These are the dogs and
cats of America’s families, and once again, we have broken our covenant
with them.
But wait, it isn’t just the benefactors of these
agencies or the animals themselves who get the shaft in this deal! It is
the American public who listen to the results of medical experimentation
that takes place under such a lack of control that the variables of
these animals cannot possibly produce fair and unbiased medical results.
So the money spent on animal testing for medical purposes, while never
money well spent, is especially spent in a manner most unwise because
the results cannot help humankind after all! (How’s that for poetic
justice?) The medical and personal histories of these animals, are, for
the most part, an unknown factor. These animals, random as they are,
yield random and debatable results. How then, do we benefit at all from
this experimentation? Well, there is one way, money. These animals are
purchased “on the cheap” so experimenters use pound animals instead of
switching to humane alternatives to animal testing. It may seem cheap at
first glance, but these animals are required to undergo a period of
"conditioning"; before becoming part of an experiment and have a higher
mortality rate in laboratories than dogs and cats that are bred
purposely for experimentation. Little wonder since they once knew the
love and friendship of a human and were then betrayed. Depression must
surely follow on the heels of such abandonment and this may play a part
in their high mortality rate.
And what about those animals bred purposely for
experimentation? These poor souls are raised from birth specifically to
be used in laboratories. Our old arch enemy, the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) has a policy against using animals from pounds or shelters,
because of the unrealistic expectation of true and verifiable results
from random animals. However, they don’t really go to too much trouble
to actually demand verification of the source of animals it buys from
dealers, according to the Humane Society of the United States. The NIH
has estimated that, of the 201,931 dogs experimented on in the United
States in l984, only about 55,000 were "purpose bred." This means well
over 100,000 animals were quite possibly that sweet Fifi who lived down
the street with the little old lady who died, or the happy-go-lucky
Rover who slept over with your kid’s friend.
So all you intelligent Iowans, mighty Minnesotans,
optimistic Oklahomans, stellar South Dakotans and unified Utahites, (Utahites?)
get busy and get the laws changed. Educate yourself on the issue and
talk to local leaders and commission people to find out how they
personally stand on the issue. Work with them to get the law repealed by
starting a petition, letter-writing campaign, letters to the editor or
get a sympathetic television reporter to do a “did you know” story on
the nightly news. They can use a video of animals in laboratories
available at any of the major animal-rights organizations, tv reporters
love animal videos!
And if you live in a state that stands mute on the
subject of pound seizure, write a letter to your local animal control
director and ask him or her to write you back and tell you where they
stand on pound seizure, then decide for yourself what, if any, action
needs to be taken. You may want to work for a ban in your community if
you find local authorities have no problems engaging in pound seizure.
You can also campaign for a state law.
If your state already forbids pound seizure, be ever
vigilant for efforts to change it. No matter what state we live in we
should all be working towards federal legislation against pound seizure
because every animal in every state is at risk due to interstate traffic
in animals. So even if you live in the very enlightened states of Maine,
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New
York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, South
Carolina, or Hawaii, your animals could still end up in pounds in states
that do allow, indeed require pound seizure, and until the laws are
federally and uniformly enforced against pound seizure, no unwanted or
lost animal is safe from the vivisectionist's knife.
Go on to On Animals
Return to 29 July 2001 Issue
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