Good riddance to the Sampson County gas chamber

The Sampson County gas chamber is gone at long last.

Photo: Sampson County Animal Shelter. See the whole series on Facebook.

Gas chambers remain in the following NC counties: Alamance (Burlington), Ashe, Beaufort, Cabarrus, Cleveland, Davidson, Gaston, Granville, Iredell, Martin, Nash, Randolph, Rowan, Union, Vance (not in use, but may be put back into use at any time), Wilkes, Wilson.

Animal advocates need to keep the pressure on until all gas chambers are removed from NC animal shelters. Contact information for gas chamber counties can be found here. A sample letter for inspiration is here.

Abolish the Granville County gas chamber!

Animal advocates in Granville County are hoping county officials will consider a recent grant offer by HSUS NC director Kim Alboum to get rid of the animal shelter’s gas chamber. Members of the North Carolina Responsible Animal Owners’ Alliance, a group that supports the use of the gas chamber to kill shelter pets, are arguing for Granville County to refuse the grant and keep its gas chamber in operation.

It’s important that county leaders understand that the barbaric gas chamber is a throwback to our less-civilized past and has no place in a modern, humane animal shelter. Animal advocates need to contact the Granville County manager and commissioners (see contact info below) and urge them to end the use of and remove the gas chamber from the county animal shelter.  A sample letter can be used as a template for your own letters to these officials. More points to use in a letter can be found in the American Humane Association gas chamber fact sheet. 

Granville County officials’ contact information:

County Manager: Brian Alligood, brian.alligood@granvillecounty.org, P.O. Box 906 Oxford,  NC  27565, 919-693-5240

Commissioners:

• Edgar Smoak: edgar.smoak@granvillecounty.org, 407 East F Street, Butner, NC 27509
• David T. Smith: david.smith@granvillecounty.org, 207 Holly Drive,  Oxford, NC 27565
• Zelodis Jay:  zelodis.jay@granvillecounty.org, 8009 Highway 96 North, Oxford, NC 27565
• R. David Currin, Jr.: dave.currin@granvillecounty.org, 2578 Joe Pruitt Road, Oxford, NC 27565
• Tony W. Cozart: tony.cozart@granvillecounty.org, 4056 Peace’s Chapel Road, Oxford, NC 27565
• Ed Mims:  ed.mims@granvillecounty.org, 2204 Regent Court,Creedmoor, NC 27522
• Timothy Karan:  timothy.karan@granvillecounty.org, 2763 Garland Court, Creedmoor, NC 27522

Davidson County pound killed almost 10 times more pets than were adopted out in 2012

According to this article, the Davidson County pound adopted out 669 animals last year, “which is up from the past two years.” Yes, it’s 42 more pets than the 627 they adopted out in 2011. (The 2011 number is 132 pets more than the 495 they adopted out in 2010).

The Davidson pound killed  6,591 animals in 2012, which is 417 fewer than they killed in 2011. It’s also 9.85 times more animals than they adopted out in 2012. Without knowing the total intake for 2012, we cannot calculate if the actual kill rate went up or down from the 87.12 percent killed at the Davidson County pound in 2011.

One small tiptoe toward progress is that fewer of these animals died in the barbaric gas chamber (2,341) than by relatively more humane lethal injection (4,250). However, given that more than 90 percent of the killing at shelters is unnecessary and completely preventable, it’s very small consolation.

Johnston County may be getting rid of gas chamber for real

Forwarded emails aren’t always the best source of information. But I got one the other day that a knowledgeable source says is true. It originated from someone who had spoken to Ernie Wilkinson, the director of the Johnston County pound and said:

He was happy to share the following news — use of the gas chamber to euthanize was discontinued last week.  The chamber is still on site, temporarily, but is no longer in use and all gas canisters have been disposed of.  The chamber will be dismantled and removed in the near future.  The shelter was waiting for issuance of its drug license, which came, and now all euthanasia will be done by injection.

Wilkinson had announced in December that he was planning to reduce gas chamber use but retain the contraption for use on “vicious”animals.

While getting rid of the gas chamber altogether will represent progress, there is no reason to be killing healthy, treatable and rehabilitatable animals at all in the face of lifesaving alternatives. The next step for Johnston County should be to implement ALL of the proven lifesaving steps of the “No Kill Equation“:

• Feral Cat TNR Program Trap-Neuter Release (TNR) programs allow shelters to reduce death rates of free-living cats. Traditional methods of managing the feral cat populations have involved removing cats from their home territories and euthanizing them. Modern community cat management strategies involve neutering the cats and returning them to their capture site (TNR). As a neutered community cat population ages, the number of cats will decrease by natural attrition and will not be replaced by subsequent generations. Numerous studies have shown that trap/neuter/return is the most effective way to reduce community cat populations over time, and it is the only successful method to keep feral cats from being euthanized.
• High Volume, Low Cost Spay and Neuter Services No-and low-cost, high-volume spay and neuter reduces the number of animals entering the shelter system, allowing more resources to be allocated toward saving lives. These services should be readily available to targeted populations of people unable to afford the surgery at the normal rate and/or specific jurisdictions within a community known for having a large number of unaltered animals. These services have been proven to reduce shelter intake, making spay and neuter incredibly cost effective.
• Rescue Partnerships Rescue groups provide a valuable resource to shelters. An adoption or transfer to a rescue group free up kennel space, reduce expenses, and will improve a community’s rate of lifesaving. Partnerships between shelters and rescue groups are vital, and rare is the circumstance in which a licensed rescue group would be denied an animal.
• Foster Care Volunteer foster care is a low-cost and often no-cost way of increasing a shelter’s capacity, caring for sick and injured or behaviorally challenged animals, and thus saving more lives. Providing temporary foster care to litters of puppies or kittens that are too young for adoption, animals who are shy, those that need some extra TLC, or animals who need special medical attention can dramatically increase the lifesaving capacity.
• Comprehensive Adoption Adoptions are vital to the lifesaving mission. The quantity and quality of shelter adoptions is in shelter management’s hands, making lifesaving a direct function of shelter policies and practice. If shelters better promoted their animals and had adoption programs responsive to community needs, including public access hours for working people, providing a welcoming atmosphere and excellent customer service, offsite adoptions, adoption incentives, and effective marketing, contrary to conventional wisdom, shelters can adopt their way out of killing.
• Pet Retention While some surrender of animals to shelters are unavoidable, others can be prevented-but only if shelters work with people to help them solve their problems. Saving animals requires shelters to develop innovative strategies for keeping people and their companion animals together. And the more a community sees its shelters as a place to turn for advice and assistance, the easier this job will be.
• Medical and Behavioral Programs To meet its commitment to a lifesaving guarantee for all savable animals, shelters need to keep animals happy and healthy and keep animals moving efficiently through the system. To do this, shelters must put in place comprehensive vaccination, handling, cleaning, socialization, and care policies before animals get sick and rehabilitative efforts for those who come in sick, injured, un-weaned, or traumatized.
• Public Relations/Community Involvement Increasing adoptions, maximizing donations, recruiting volunteers and partnering with community agencies comes down to increasing the shelter’s public exposure. And that means consistent marketing and public relations. Public relations and marketing are the foundation of a shelter’s activities and success.
• Volunteers Volunteers are a dedicated “army of compassion” and the backbone of a No Kill effort. There is never enough staff, never enough dollars to hire more staff, and always more needs than paid human resources. That is where volunteers make the difference between success and failure and, for the animals, life and death.
• Proactive Redemptions One of the most overlooked areas for reducing killing in animal control shelters are lost animal reclaims. Shifting from a passive to a more proactive approach has allowed shelters to return a large percentage of lost animals to their families.
• Compassionate Director The final element of the No Kill Equation is the most important of all, without which all other elements are thwarted–a hard working, compassionate animal shelter director who is willing to be accountable to results by implementing these programs. Get the right people on the team who bring strong, knowledgeable, flexible, and inspired leadership!

Demolish the gas chambers!

Iredell County, NC, gas chamber. Photo by Flickr member NCCHE.

A “relatively painless” death can only occur in an environment where sensitivity, compassion and skill combine with efforts to minimize distress and anxiety. By contrast, gas systems take time to kill— during which animals experience distress and anxiety, and can struggle to survive. They can result in animals surviving the gassing, only to suffer even more. And they take longer to kill if animals are young, old, or have respiratory infections, which is common in some shelters. They are designed for the ease of shelter workers, not care and compassion for the animals.–A Call To Ban The Gas Chamber

The good news: Several NC counties, including Person, Johnston and Sampson, have recently announced plans to discontinue or restrict the use  of gas chambers and/or remove them completely. Other NC counties that recently joined the march toward civilized treatment of shelter pets include Brunswick County, where the CO chamber was last used in November 2011, according to inspection reports, and Craven-Pamlico, which ended the use of its chamber on Feb.1, 2012.

But bad news remains: There are still far too many North Carolina counties killing shelter pets in the barbaric contraptions. Fourteen counties still use gas chambers as their primary means of killing shelter pets. Several others have switched primarily to lethal injection but retain the CO chambers for use with wildlife and “dangerous” animals. (Often, feral cats are considered to be in the “dangerous” category, which means the gas chamber still gets used quite a lot in those places.)

The gas chamber has been banned in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.

As long as the inhumane contraptions, throwbacks to our less-civilized past, remain in use in North Carolina, we will never be able to move forward to a humane future in which shelters will be places where animals’ lives are protected. The gas chambers in NC must be demolished. Even in counties where gas chamber use has ended, having a working chamber onsite means that it can be put back into full-time use again at any time, as it was in Sampson County.

Below is a county-by-county listing of the the places that still use gas chambers and links to contact information for county officials who can change that. I have written a sample letter that can be used as a template for your own letters to these officials. More points to use in a letter can be found in the American Humane Association gas chamber fact sheet.

Ashe County: If there were a “Worst Place in NC for Animals” award, Ashe County would be a nominee. Not only does their pound gas an incredibly high number of animals each year, but their pound director doesn’t care for adoptions, shooting is a standard animal control technique and animal cruelty is considered just one of those things. Ask Ashe County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county! Contact information for Ashe County Officials is here. The Ashe County CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in May 2012.

Alamance County/City of Burlington: Lethal injection is the primary means of killing pets at Burlington Animal Services, but the gas chamber is still used for wildlife and “dangerous” animals. Ask Alamance County/City of Burlington officials to completely end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber! Find contact information here. It appears that the BAS gas chamber has not been inspected by the NCDA&CS Animal Welfare Service since 2009.

Beaufort County: The gas chamber is the primary means of killing animals in Beaufort County. Ask Beaufort County officials to end the use of  and demolish the barbaric gas chamber.  Find contact information here. The Beaufort County pound CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in March 2012.

Cabarrus County: The gas chamber is the primary means of killing animals in Cabarrus County. Ask Cabarrus County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The CO chamber in Cabarrus County does not appear to have been inspected by NCDA&CS AWS since 2009.

Cleveland County: The gas chamber is the primary means of killing animals in Cleveland County. Ask Cleveland County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Cleveland County pound CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in January 2012.

Davidson County: Davidson County’s gas chamber is one of the most infamous in North Carolina. In 2011, a shelter volunteer told the Davidson County commissioners that he saw “Davidson County Animal Shelter employees laugh as they put a mother cat, her kitten and a raccoon into the same compartment of the shelter’s gas chamber in 2009 and let them fight before they were euthanized.” Then over Thanksgiving weekend in 2011, two Thomasville police officers who were not trained or certified took a dog they had shot and wounded to the closed Davidson pound and killed it in the gas chamber. Despite massive opposition to the gas chamber by Davidson County residents, most county commissioners voted to continue using the barbaric contraption in August 2011. Ask Davidson County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Davidson County pound CO chamber does not appear to have been inspected by NCDA&CS AWS since 2009.

Gaston County: According to a June 2012 AWS inspection report,  the gas chamber is only used for about 1 percent of the animals killed in the Gaston County pound. Nonetheless, as long as the chamber remains operable and in the facility, it can be put into more frequent use at any time. Ask Gaston County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Gaston County pound CO chamber  was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS since in June 2012.

Granville County: The gas chamber is the primary means of killing pets in the Granville County pound. Ask Granville County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Granville County pound CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in  2011.

Iredell County: Iredell County is famous for being the site of one of several gas chamber explosions in North Carolina. In 2008, Iredell’s almost-brand-new gas chamber exploded with 10 dogs inside as a result of an electrical malfunction. Nonetheless, the county repaired the unit and had it back in service a year later. Ask Iredell County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Iredell County pound CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in  May 2012.

Johnston County: UPDATE: Reportedly, the Johnston gas chamber is now NOT in use, all gas canisters have been disposed of and the chamber is to be dismantled and removed in the near future. In response to years of pressure by animal advocates, Johnston County pound manager Ed Wilkinson announced in December 2012 that he planned to decrease the use of the gas chamber to only “vicious” animals. Wilkinson gave no definition of what constitutes a “vicious” animal, so it’s possible that category could include feral cats, which are killed by the tens of thousands every year in NC pounds. Gas chamber use needs to end completely in Johnston County. As long as the chamber remains operable and in the facility, it can be put into more frequent use at any time. Please tell Johnston County officials and pound director Ernie Wilkinson that ending the use of the gas chamber represents progress, and ask them to begin implementing the programs proven to end the killing of healthy and treatable pets in their facility. Find contact information here. The Johnston County pound CO chamber does not appear to have been inspected by NCDA&CS AWS since 2009.

Martin County: The gas chamber is currently the primary means of killing pets in Martin County. Ask Martin County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Martin County pound CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in 2011.

Nash County: The gas chamber is the primary means of killing animals in Nash County. Ask Nash County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The CO chamber in Nash  County does not appear to have been inspected by NCDA&CS AWS since 2009.

Randolph County:  The gas chamber is the primary means of killing animals in Randolph County. Ask Randolph County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The CO chamber in Randolph County does not appear to have ever been inspected by  NCDA&CS AWS.

Rowan County: The gas chamber is currently the primary means of killing pets in Rowan County. Ask Rowan County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Rowan County pound CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in January 2012.

Union County: The gas chamber is currently the primary means of killing pets in Union County. Ask Union County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Union County pound CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in September 2012.

Vance County: Vance County is reportedly eliminating or reducing use of its gas chamber. According to a Facebook post by the Vance County SPCA, the county has already ended the gas chamber use. But as long as the chamber remains operable and in the facility, it can be put back into frequent use at any time. Ask Vance County officials to demolish the gas chamber and remove it completely. Find contact information here. The Vance County pound CO chamber was last  inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in July 2011.

Wilkes County: The gas chamber is currently the primary means of killing pets in Wilkes County. Ask Wilkes County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Wilkes  County pound CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in May 2012.

Wilson County: The gas chamber is currently the primary means of killing pets in Wilson County. Ask Wilson County officials to end the use of and demolish the barbaric gas chamber in their county. Find contact information here. The Wilson County pound CO chamber was last inspected by NCDA&CS AWS in 2011.

Sampson pound gets grant to stop using gas chamber

The Sampson County commission voted to accept $16,000 in grant money for its animal shelter this week , including $7,000 from the Humane Society of the United States to “phase out” the use of its gas chamber. The rest of the grant money is from the Petfinder Foundation to fund kennel cough  and FVRCP (Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis, Calicivirus, Panleukopenia) vaccine programs.

The terms of the HSUS grant stipulate that the county must “phase out the use of the gas chamber in six months from receipt of the $7,000.” Any surplus funds are to be used for shelter repair or upgrades or “animal enrichment.” Previous Interim Director Lori Baxter had announced last June on the pound’s Facebook page that she was applying for a grant to “bury” the gas chamber, but there doesn’t appear to be any stipulation in the HSUS grant about dismantling or removing the gas chamber so that it can’t be used again at some future time.

This is an important step because the Sampson gas chamber had been taken out of service previously after many problems with faulty seals and leakage. The issues became widely known in 2004 following an incident in which four puppies who did not die after being put into the leaky gas chamber were  adopted by Teresa Stewart of  Roseboro, who had no idea they had been gassed. All four puppies subsequently died, and the truth came out after Stewart complained publicly.

The gas chamber was taken out of service, but after a new pound was built, the gas chamber was moved there and put back into service by Assistant County Manager Susan Holder, who was then serving as interim shelter director.

There have been several recent announcements regarding county pound gas chambers in NC. The Johnston County pound announced in December that they will reduce gas chamber use, reserving it for “vicious” animals.

The Vance County pound is reportedly eliminating the use of their gas chamber. According to an email newsletter sent to certain rescue groups by HSUS NC director Kim Alboum, Vance County “made the commitment to eliminate the use of the gas chamber as a form of euthanasia.” She doesn’t mention that they received a grant, but a Facebook post by the Vance County SPCA reports that they did. (Commenters on that post claim that the chamber will be retained for use on wildlife.)

The Person County pound, which had stopped most use of its gas chamber in October, removed it from the premises last week, according to a news article cited by the NC Shelter Rescue Blog. Person County Manager Heidi York said the unit was removed “to assure the public that it is no longer in use.”

The demise of the Person County Gas chamber came about partly because of public pressure. Person pound director Ron Shaw was quoted on CNN as saying “The gas chamber’s not cruel, but animal activists don’t agree with it. And I’m fed up with dealing with it.”

The pressure needs to continue until the other gas chambers are dismantled and removed. Advocates can email Johnston County Manager Rick Hester, Sampson County Manager Ed Causey and Vance County Manager Jerry L. Ayscue and ask them to completely remove the gas chambers from their pounds.

Advocates can also email Person County Manager Heidi York to thank her for getting rid of the gas chamber and ask her to continue the path toward progress and civilized treatment of animals by encouraging shelter staff to implement the  lifesaving programs of the No Kill Equation.

In other Sampson County news, new pound director Alan Canady started work this week. One change he may consider is actually opening the facility during hours that are favorable to increasing adoptions.  ”There are certain processes that we can do where we can possibly open earlier and maybe stay open a little bit later,” he said. The shelter’s current hours, established by Canady’s predecessor Lori Baxter, are 1-4 pm weekdays.

Sampson County hires new pound director

Lori Baxter announced on the Sampson County pound Facebook page (screenshot here in case the post gets deleted) last week that she was not offered the permanent director position and that her last day would be Friday, Dec. 21. According to an article in the Sampson Independent, the new pound director will be Alan W. Canady, currently the lead officer with Cumberland County Animal Control.

It’s not clear what this means as far as the demise of the Sampson County gas chamber. In a comment on her farewell Facebook post, Baxter said the county is waiting for “the second part” of the license required to possess the drugs required to kill by injection.

Johnston County to sort of maybe kind of end use of gas chamber

The Raleigh News and Observer reported today that Johnston County pound employees will begin using lethal injection instead of the gas chamber for most of the killing they do beginning in 2013. However, pound director Ernie Wilkinson insists on keeping the gas chamber active for use on “vicious” animals. The article did not say who will decide which animals are “vicious” or what criteria they will use to make that determination.

According to the article, Wilkinson doesn’t get why people care how he kills animals and “wishes people would focus instead on helping shelters fight pet overpopulation through spaying and neutering education.” Johnston County does not participate in the state’s spay/neuter program.

The Johnston County pound killed 4,850, or 75.36 percent, of the dogs and cats that came in during 2011.

Johnston County residents beg to be allowed to volunteer at pound

A group of Johnston County residents are begging the county commission to make pound director Ernie Wilkinson let them volunteer. But “county officials” claim that there are “bureaucratic hurdles” in the way.

For example, the pound manager said, his previous volunteer program was badly managed. And then there are all the feral animals that might attack volunteers. And he would have to train all those volunteers in the very difficult art of walking dogs.

Amanda Walrad, community relations manager at the Wake County pound, which has about 800 volunteers, has offered a consultation, but Wilkinson hasn’t accepted the offer.

Wilkinson was the recipient of a Humane Society of the United States/NC Voters for Animal Welfare “Shelters We Love” award in 2011, because he “has worked to create  robust volunteer and community outreach programs.  Ernie is always willing to reach out to other agencies to share knowledge and build coalitions to benefit the animals in NC.”

In 2011, 75 percent of the dogs and cats who entered Ernie Wilkinson’s pound were killed in its gas chamber (which doesn’t appear to have been inspected since 2009.)

Person County announces early end to gas chamber

Person County sent out a news release announcing that they have officially ended the use of the gas chamber at the county pound, nine months ahead of their projected “phase out” date of July 2013.

Person County Manager Heidi York had said previously that they would still be using the gas chamber for “very sick wildlife and overly vicious animals.”

Ending the barbaric use of the gas chamber is a laudable step, but the fact remains that Person County pound staff are still killing healthy and treatable pets. So when you contact County Manager Heidi York or pound Director Ron Shaw to thank them for making shelter pets’ deaths less brutal, please be sure to let them know that the No Kill Equation is a cost-effective way to end the needless killing.

Person County has also changed the department’s name from Animal Control to Animal Services, and will soon be participating in a spay/neuter matching grant program.

PCAS has taken another positive step by now posting its outcome statistics online. Although the 2012 ones are rather depressing, especially the part where they killed 115 kittens and 21 puppies simply because they were unweaned, and killed 104 cats and dogs just because they were picked up in a “rabies alert area.”

I have put these stats into a spreadsheet and calculated the rates: cat kill rate so far in 2012 is a horrible 91.8 percent, which is worse than last year’s 89.4 percent; dog kill rate is 38.14 percent, down slightly from last year’s 46.84%; overall kill rate is 67.43 percent, which is almost exactly the same as 2011 (67.71 percent.).

I pulled out two particular numbers because I find them rather revealing: the dog adoption rate is almost 13 percent, while the transfer-to-rescue rate is almost 37 percent. Most of the dogs who are getting out alive can thank rescue groups, who used to have to fight for access. Rhonda Beach of  Chance’s Angel Rescue & Education told Kim Kavin, author of Little Boy Blue: A Puppy’s Rescue from Death Row and His Owner’s Journey for Truth that when she first tried to save dogs from the Person County pound’s gas chamber she was unceremoniously turned away. “I had to fight for two years to get the right to go in and save a lot of dogs who were very adoptable,” Beach said.

But PCAS has begun making efforts toward increasing adoptions as well, using its Facebook page to promote adoptable pets and to post newly arrived animals in hopes of increasing owner reclaims. They have also started holding offsite adoption events at Tractor Supply.

I’m not sure what pastry carries the message “Thanks for becoming less crappy,” (cinnamon rolls, perhaps?) but if you decide to take some to PCAS, please remember to include copies of “No Kill 101,” “Dollars and Sense” and the Cliff Notes version of Redemption. They have moved forward because of pressure from the animal loving public. Why not keep them going in the right direction?