Population control

The media jumped all over the crisis, its jaws clamped on the story until the shelter reopened one week later, on February 16, airing in the process sound bites from distraught little children and quoting at length several irate animal lovers. Advocacy groups rallied together on the night of February 12 to hold a vigil for the fallen animals. Citizens wrote in letters to the editor rebuking Lied and its administrators (the shelter chairwoman is Janie Greenspun Gale, a member of the family that owns Las Vegas Weekly), and at an emergency meeting between politicians and animal activists on February 13, the director of the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals summed it up like this:

"Right now we have a very confused, frustrated public."

In other words, people responded as if the crisis had been 1,000 human deaths.

Which is only natural, for dogs and felines have long been domesticated into the human family unit, and their anthropomorphization appears readily in their names, sweaters and, at times, preferential treatment. But then, in contradiction, the proposed remedy to the disaster (which everyone agreed was caused by overcrowding) was one that we Americans would never suggest for human beings: to reduce the population, by means of compelled birth control and euthanization.

At the February 13 meeting, the animal advocates demanded criminal punishments for those who allow their pets to multiply untrammeled. They requested legislation that would force pet store owners to spay and neuter their animals. And they asked Lied to kill the old, the sick and the unadoptable as soon as they entered the shelter, all in the name of population control.

"Too many dogs and cats is the problem," said one citizen at the meeting, an old woman whose statement was applauded by her fellow audience members. One advocate then proclaimed what her peers would later reinforce: "The irresponsible pet owners are the culprits here."

Karen Layne, president of the Las Vegas Humane Society, said that Lied, an indiscriminate shelter that was slow (if at all willing) to kill animals, gave pet owners the false impression that it was okay for their animals to breed, believing the vagrant litters would have a home at Lied if nowhere else.

"It's time to bring an end to the no-kill policy," Layne said.

And that's exactly what Lied did. The Animal Foundation, the private nonprofit organization that operates the 11-year-old shelter, instituted a new policy last week by which animals that are too old, too sick or otherwise unadoptable will be euthanized 72 hours after arriving at the shelter. No longer will Lied care for them until they meet their natural deaths.

It was as if the animal lovers wanted it both ways—to treat the dogs and cats like humans when they died tragically, but like the animals they are while old and sick and undesirable.

(Although no doubt there are many activists today who chalk up the myriad social problems we humans face to overpopulation as well, and who would try to cure them through identical measures. But compelling birth control and putting down people just because they are old, or sick or unwanted happens to be illegal in this country.)

In an attempt to explain the tragedy, Mark Fierro, spokesperson for Lied, pointed to the prior low, slow-kill policy: "In trying to be too humane we were inhumane."

Which of course is a fallacy of thought, as there is no such thing as immoderate humaneness: You either are or you aren't. Unless, that is, you're dealing with something that's not on the same level as humans. But in that case there wouldn't have been quite a commotion over this crisis at Lied Animal Shelter two weeks ago.