Dogs 'euthanized' by shooting in a New South Wales pound

NEWS AND COMMENT: It appears to me that shooting dogs in publicly funded pounds in New South Wales is quietly accepted. They are shot as a form of euthanasia. The news is shocking and yet unsurprising because Australians do like to shoot 'things' particularly feral cats and kangaroos!

Dogs in a pound. Images: PA.

On this occasion several dogs were impounded within a publicly funded facility but they were due to be transferred to a rescue shelter but before that happened, they were shot by officials of Bourke Shire Council. The excuse given is that they didn't want to expose volunteers who are coming to pick up the dogs to the Covid-19 virus.

The incident is being investigated because it may be a criminal act. It should be a criminal act because you can't euthanised a dog with a bullet in my honest opinion and therefore it's animal cruelty and it falls under the animal cruelty laws of that state. But no doubt nothing will happen.

Volunteers who were asked to pick up the dogs are obviously distressed. The Minister for Local Government, Shelley Hancock, has not commented. Lisa Ryan an animal liberation campaigner has asked for an urgent investigation. She was deeply distressed and appalled by the incident. She rejects the justification for the shooting.

Hancock claimed that she wasn't aware of the euthanasia of pound animals by shooting. She said that if was a practice she'd been concerned. 

Apparently, councils are not required to reveal how they euthanise animals in their care. It also encourages me to believe that shooting dogs and cats in pounds happens. We don't know how often. I hope rarely but I have a feeling that it is not that rare.

Abigail Boyd, a Greens MP and animal welfare spokeswoman said that the government had still not taken any action despite the issue being raised in Parliament. She said: "Council pounds are paid for by local communities, and it is clear that shooting lost and unclaimed dogs housed in these publicly-funded facilities falls far short of community expectations."

That too implies that shooting dogs in pounds is not uncommon. A spokesperson for the office of local government said that they'd issued new guidance during the pandemic about keeping staff and volunteers safe through altered procedures while ensuring that their services continued. Perhaps it is this directive which is being utilised to justify the shooting of these dogs. If so, it's a feeble reason. It is a cruel act. I hope someone pays for it.

But the fact that the matter is that there seems to be a disconnect among a large segment of Australian society between their desire to eradicate feral cats by shooting or in any other way (poisoning) and the morality of that act. And I think that when you engage in mass slaughter of any animal as is the case with feral cats in Australia, you blunt your sensitivity towards animal sentience and this leads to the sort of event described in this article.

Source: Unilad.co.uk.

Northern Rivers citizens are ambivalent about laws confining and supervising cats

NEWS ANALYSIS-NORTHERN RIVERS, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA: I am unable to read this news item because I have to subscribe to the newspaper and I don't want to. But I can work out what it is about by reading an extract which is available to me on Microsoft Bing. I also know that Australia, in general, leads the way in attempts to regulate cat ownership with the objective of minimising domestic cat predation on native species. The Australian authorities are incredibly sensitive about the conservation of native species and they are very worried about feral and stray cats killing their small marsupials and mammals.

 Northern Rivers citizens are ambivalent about laws confining and supervising cats. Photo: Daily Telegraph (Australia).

One strategy is to confine all domestic cats to the home and enclosures attached to the home and if they go outside, it would have to be on a leash. In short, to prevent domestic cats going out into nature unsupervised and killing these endangered species. 

And the news tells me that the local government of Northern Rivers is considering a law which makes it mandatory to keep cats do these things. The problem is that the residents are ambivalent about it. No doubt there are some who are for it but a substantial percentage (and I don't have the numbers) are against it. 

There is a mixed reaction to the proposal to enact this legislation and under these circumstances I would expect it to fail as a proposal. Laws don't work well if the citizens to whom it applies disagree with it. There'll be enforcement difficulties.

Other potential methods of controlling cat ownership and encouraging cat owners to be more responsible vis-à-vis wildlife is to introduce obligatory licensing like dogs or obligatory micro-chipping. These sorts of ideas have been mooted before in Australia and in other countries. In general, the pressure to take action is gradually mounting as the population of domestic cats is growing in line with the population of humans.

As humans put more pressure on nature, more pressure is put on the authorities to do something about protecting the animals that live in nature. It's a straightforward equation: more people, more cats, more predation on wildlife and more angst among the politicians and administrators who feel they have a duty to conserve and protect precious native species in Australia. 

And you can't control human procreation. Look at China. Their one child policy has left them with a shrinking workforce. There has to be economic growth. This by the way is a failed idea in my view but that's another story.

Ironically and sadly more native species are lost through Australia's huge wildfires which occurred last year which have been put down to global warming which in turn can be put down to human activity. If it's not global warming it's increased commercial activity as businesses expand resulting in the destruction of nature through deforestation and therefore the loss of habitat for these precious species.

No matter how you slice it and dice it, it boils down to human activity as the cause of the consistent decrease in population sizes of these wild animals.