Ranting about Cruelty to Animals (Again)
May. 11th, 2010 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unavoidedcrisis
Some of you may have heard about the ordered euthanasia of almost 350 animals at the Newmarket animal shelter because of a massive ringworm infection and also have met me and therefore can probably predict everything I'm about to write.
NDLKHIASL;JSAGLBNDSFAHLGK;A RAGE. That should be your warning that the rest of this entry might be a little incoherent and disjointed.
There is no way in hell or earth that any illness/infection/virus/anything should be allowed to get so bad that the entire shelter population needs to be destroyed. Someone fucked up so badly with this, I would not hesitate to say it is probably criminal.
Ringworm is transmittable between animals and humans -- your dog gets ringworm and can give it to your cat, your cat gives it to you, you take it to a friend's house and give it to their dog, &c&c. So clearly, it can be a little tricky to deal with, but that is why shelters (and hospitals or LTC if we're talking humans) have quarantine procedures in place.
Some sources say this problem has been ongoing since March. Can you imagine? That's more than two months. If you work with these animals day after day and they're suffering (ringworm is not pleasant!), you would freakin' notice that! And if an animal is suffering for any period of time, shouldn't you be more concerned? This is like that incomprehensible bullshit with THS all over again. Is this less worse? Maybe a little. Same principle though.
And now almost all of those 350 animals need to be put down.
That's another thing that has a lot of people upset -- ringworm is technically treatable. That's where things get fuzzy, I guess. Yeah, it's treatable, but it's not at all easy on a large scale and it's damn expensive and little baby ringworms can survive for up to two years outside of a host. Citizens are up in arms about all the animals having to be destroyed because it's sad when cute kittens get put down, but I dare you to tell them how much each one of them owes to pay for the testing and the anti-fungal medications or how many hours it's going to take to bathe/shave/groom each animal and then disinfect everything the animal touches. Every day. For a time line that includes the word 'months' instead of 'this weekend.' Yep, that would go over well.
I think what upsets me the most
-- other than the fact that this could have been prevent or controlled weeks ago and with a much lower casualty count
-- the fact that I doubt anyone will be charged very severely
-- and the fact that people are going to bitch and complain and call me a monster when I say that it's honestly for the best that these animals get euthanized because, holy shit, if this is the way they're treated at the shelter then they are absolutely better off
Is the fact that something just like this will happen again in an Ontario shelter. And soon, probably before we hit 2011. And everyone is going to be just as disgusted and outraged then. So much for being the change you want to see, people.
In conclusion: DSKJFGKSLFJHSK RAGE. And this is what I want to do with my life. Sometimes I regret every decision I ever made that led me here. I don't know whether I want to cry or punch someone right now. I could do both. The tears might mess with my depth perception, but I could wangle it, I think.
Extra Credit Reading!
Warning, second article contains a link to a photo slide show that could seriously upset you. I mean, it had a warning too, but I was all 'how bad could it be'? Dudes, it's bad.
Article about Newmarket 'incident'
Article about THS 'incident'
NDLKHIASL;JSAGLBNDSFAHLGK;A RAGE. That should be your warning that the rest of this entry might be a little incoherent and disjointed.
There is no way in hell or earth that any illness/infection/virus/anything should be allowed to get so bad that the entire shelter population needs to be destroyed. Someone fucked up so badly with this, I would not hesitate to say it is probably criminal.
Ringworm is transmittable between animals and humans -- your dog gets ringworm and can give it to your cat, your cat gives it to you, you take it to a friend's house and give it to their dog, &c&c. So clearly, it can be a little tricky to deal with, but that is why shelters (and hospitals or LTC if we're talking humans) have quarantine procedures in place.
Some sources say this problem has been ongoing since March. Can you imagine? That's more than two months. If you work with these animals day after day and they're suffering (ringworm is not pleasant!), you would freakin' notice that! And if an animal is suffering for any period of time, shouldn't you be more concerned? This is like that incomprehensible bullshit with THS all over again. Is this less worse? Maybe a little. Same principle though.
And now almost all of those 350 animals need to be put down.
That's another thing that has a lot of people upset -- ringworm is technically treatable. That's where things get fuzzy, I guess. Yeah, it's treatable, but it's not at all easy on a large scale and it's damn expensive and little baby ringworms can survive for up to two years outside of a host. Citizens are up in arms about all the animals having to be destroyed because it's sad when cute kittens get put down, but I dare you to tell them how much each one of them owes to pay for the testing and the anti-fungal medications or how many hours it's going to take to bathe/shave/groom each animal and then disinfect everything the animal touches. Every day. For a time line that includes the word 'months' instead of 'this weekend.' Yep, that would go over well.
I think what upsets me the most
-- other than the fact that this could have been prevent or controlled weeks ago and with a much lower casualty count
-- the fact that I doubt anyone will be charged very severely
-- and the fact that people are going to bitch and complain and call me a monster when I say that it's honestly for the best that these animals get euthanized because, holy shit, if this is the way they're treated at the shelter then they are absolutely better off
Is the fact that something just like this will happen again in an Ontario shelter. And soon, probably before we hit 2011. And everyone is going to be just as disgusted and outraged then. So much for being the change you want to see, people.
In conclusion: DSKJFGKSLFJHSK RAGE. And this is what I want to do with my life. Sometimes I regret every decision I ever made that led me here. I don't know whether I want to cry or punch someone right now. I could do both. The tears might mess with my depth perception, but I could wangle it, I think.
Extra Credit Reading!
Warning, second article contains a link to a photo slide show that could seriously upset you. I mean, it had a warning too, but I was all 'how bad could it be'? Dudes, it's bad.
Article about Newmarket 'incident'
Article about THS 'incident'
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-12 04:19 am (UTC)I wish I could disagree with you.
Unfortunately, you make a very valid point. It's a horrible waste of life -- innocent lives, at that, because no one could ever say that these animals contracted ringworm on their own.
Reading the article you linked to, with the statement of “This is such an extraordinary strain of ringworm that we can’t say that even following those protocols would have prevented this altogether,” it makes me practically froth at the mouth because obviously, implicit is that these protocols were obviously not being followed. It's the sheer negligence of the workers that led to the widespread disease, and leaving all those animals untreated for months is in and of itself puke-worthy behaviour.
I'm so fucking sorry. I feel the need to apologise to these animals on behalf of my species. And worse yet is the fact that animal-rights activists are most likely going to fume at the mouth, but not one of them would devote their own time and/or money to treating the ringworm for a single one of those animals, nevermind three hundred and fifty of them. Costly and time-consuming is not something that humans are great fans of, especially when we have no personal benefit.
So, I apologise on behalf of my species. I only hope that eventually I can be forgiven.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-12 04:24 am (UTC)It's a damn good thing too, because the amount of stupidity we've unloaded onto these animals should make them want to tear us apart.
I don't even want to consider it. It makes me feel sick.
*excepting sharks, who want to kill you all the time -- but that's a separate story.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-12 04:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-12 05:19 am (UTC)We got it from cows. That we then treated, by shaving the spot, cleaning it with the drugs, and separated them from the other cows. Not hard. If they had done that for the first case - which you'd think they'd have noticed when the animals came in in the first place - then none of the others would have been sick, right?
Aren't protocols in place for a damn REASON?!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-12 07:50 am (UTC)</3 to those people, but definitely to you, my raging friend treeson
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-12 11:19 am (UTC)