On September 13, 2019, Yahoo News posted an article entitled, "Julian Castro's Plan To Save the Animals." The article asserts that hunters and kill animal shelters are two of the threats that wildlife and domestic animals face, and that Julian Castro wants more no kill animal shelters and laws to protect animals.
There is an enormous amount of animal abuse and dog fighting in the United States and elsewhere in the world. The problem in the U.S. is not the lack of laws in regards to domestic animals, but the lack of enforcement of existing laws. It is more important for a number of animal organizations to keep the public believing that they are the answer to animal cruelty, instead of fighting for a widespread, meaningful police response to these crimes. Minimal enforcement of existing laws by token police forces and by ineffective humane investigators fielded by animal organizations have done nothing but help animal abusers and dog fighters.
A number of so called animal activists and animal organizations, and now Yahoo in this article, do not seem to understand the difference between animal cruelty and humane euthanasia. Licensed animal shelters that euthanize animals are not committing crimes. Humane euthanasia is not the same as what dog fighters do to dogs, and what many animal abusers do to animals. Lumping it all together has done nothing but trivialize animal cruelty. Euthanizing is an unfortunate reality, but that is far different than actual animal cruelty.
Lowering euthanasia rates may make people feel good, but it masks the true reality of what lower euthanasia rates entails. In one major city, for example, city euthanasia rates are lowered by ensuring that the number of animal control officers are kept low, and that fewer dogs and cats are removed from the streets. Dogs and cats die out of sight, out of mind, often slowly and painfully. In this way, the city and its so called animal activists can claim victory by a lowered euthanasia rate, when in fact far more animals died painfully out on the streets.
The childish thinking that every dog and cat adopted from a shelter is a rescue, as opposed to actually taking dogs and cats from arrested animal abusers- which rarely happens because of the lack of a widespread police response and from the exploitation of animal cruelty by certain animal organizations and animal activists - has ensured real animal cruelty and dog fighting continue to flourish.
The no kill movement has ensured the trivialization of real animal cruelty. It has contributed to overcrowding in many animal shelters, exposing dogs and cats to inhumane, filthy conditions. It has benefited animal hoarders, who often are at the forefront of do not kill anything (and instead let animals rot away in their often filthy beyond belief premises). No kill has ensured a minimal animal control response in many places, thus allowing dogs and cats to live and die painfully out on the streets.
There is no such thing as no kill. Cows, pigs, chickens, goats, lambs and more must be killed in order to feed dogs and cats. No kill has contributed to the lack of a serious response to real animal cruelty. No kill has contributed to weakened animal control efforts.
And this is to say nothing about where some of these so called no kill shelters get their animals, and how that has contributed to an abusive overseas puppy mill industry.
This world faces serious environmental problems that threaten our very survival. Whether dogs and cats in shelters get adopted or not have nothing to do with many of these serious environmental problems. If anything, American dogs and cats, huge consumers of meat, contribute to the mass slaughter of cows, pigs, and so forth, and to the environmental problems caused by the meat industry. The fecal matter of dogs and cats, often collected in plastic, certainly does not help the environment. No kill has nothing to do with helping the environment and wildlife.
There are not millions of capable people lining up to adopt more dogs and cats from shelters. The number of dogs and cats needing homes far exceeds the number of good homes. Many people that adopt dogs and cats from shelters should not own an animal. The no kill movement often puts emphasis on high adoption rates and too little emphasis on quality of adoptions and ensuring each adoption ends up in good hands.
In a world with mass poverty and serious environmental degradation, it is reasonable to ask if the billions of dollars spent on mass warehousing and sheltering dogs and cats in order to accommodate the no kill movement and in order to prevent euthanasia, could not be put to better use.
Are hunters one of the threats, as Yahoo asserts in its article? There are many people that hunt that are conservationists. Even if someone has a strong aversion to hunting, the fact is that legal hunting is legal. It is not poaching. Many hunters do everything they can to protect wild places. It is possible to oppose hunting, or not want anything to do with it, and still recognize that many wild places and their wildlife would not exist if not for the efforts of hunters and their organizations to preserve those places.
Every single day, millions of pounds of plastic pour into the oceans. Every day, millions of pounds of sewage, pesticides, fertilizer run off, heavy metals and more pour into rivers, lakes and oceans.The oceans are acidifying. This can mean the end of humanity as we know it. The world's rain forests are burning and being destroyed. We are losing the Amazon. The second biggest rain forest, the Congo, is also being lost, even though this is sadly ignored. The world has already lost most of the rain forests in Southeast Asia and elsewhere - with few at best fighting to preserve what little is left.
Yahoo; kill shelters and hunters are not the problem. The continued trivialization and exploitation of real cruelty and wildlife and environmental destruction are part of the problem.
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