Leading No Kill Advocate Nathan Winograd suggests to his followers around the globe that Janice Hahn and the entire Los Angeles Board of Supervisors knows the killing of Bowie was no accident. Their animal kill pounds kill tens of thousands every year. Janice's only regret is that Director Marcia Mayeda made her look like the killer she is. Read what Nathan has to say about the killings authorized by Supervisor Janice Hahn and them join his newsletter by following this link.
Newsletter with Bowie's mention below...
P-22, California’s beloved mountain lion, has died. In addition to kidney disease, he was recently hit by a car. He was put down after he was found in a residential backyard near the Santa Monica Mountains that were his home. P-22 was celebrated in Los Angeles and inspired children’s books, clothing, and music. But he was most celebrated as the poster child for a new land bridge across U.S. 101. P-22 was lonely, but he couldn’t find a mate because his habitat was cut off by the 101. In 2019, residents were asked if they would help P-22 find a mate by building the largest land bridge in the world, stretching 200 feet across 10 lanes of traffic, for $87 million. Over 99% said yes! Today, construction for the bridge is underway, with a scheduled completion date of 2025, but P-22 will not be around to cross it. Thanks to P-22, however, countless other animals will.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
“The director of a Utah County animal shelter said Wednesday that the facility is now using injection as its sole mode of euthanasia… [T]he shelter’s two gas chambers have been disconnected, and the carbon monoxide cylinders have been removed.”
While that is good news and should be celebrated, it is not enough. “At the North Utah Valley Animal Shelter [NUVAS], failing a ‘temperament test’ is essentially a death sentence for cats. A cat can ‘fail’ the shelter’s temperament test by… hiding in the corner of its kennel.” Many are killed the same day they come in.
All of these cats are scared, not “aggressive.” And aggressive is a misnomer. After allowing them time to calm down or overcome their fear, cats who are not social with people should be sterilized and released, not killed.
The Utah pound’s policy of killing cats is not only obscene, it should be illegal. It is also not surprising. The shelter kills animals, despite rescue groups ready, willing, and able to save them, including Penguin (pictured here) who staff described as “very friendly” who “loves attention” and “loves to be pet!”
While the method of killing is important, and in eliminating the gas chamber, NUVAS went from the 19th century to the 20th century, it must now be forced to embrace the No Kill Equation and join us in the 21st.
Likewise, legislation to ban the gas chamber has been passed in Ohio. The Governor is expected to sign it.
Although no Ohio “shelters” use gas to kill animals, the legislation ensures “that gas chambers will never again be used in the state.”
Webster’s dictionary defines euthanasia as “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.” Unfortunately, in many animal shelters across the nation, animals are not being killed because they are hopelessly sick or injured, but rather out of convenience. In fact, millions of healthy and treatable animals needlessly lose their lives in our nation’s shelters every year, and for many of them, their lives are taken not in a “relatively painless” way, but in one of the most prolonged and excruciating ways possible: the gas chamber.
But not in Ohio, not anymore.
For those who live in a county or state where the gas chamber is still used, The No Kill Advocacy Center, my organization, has model legislation to ban it, a step-by-step guide to getting it passed, and No Kill Advocacy Center attorneys stand ready to help
“Following outrage from residents, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is looking into the events that led to a 3-month-old puppy being accidentally euthanized earlier this month.”
The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care & Control calls it a mistake, but it isn't. “Accidental” killings of beloved pets happen every day in shelters in this country. It’s not a “mistake” when it happens over and over again. While nothing can bring the dog back, we must work to ensure that this kind of tragedy never happens again. And we do that by firing those involved and making the killing of healthy and treatable animals illegal.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently signed S6870B into law. The law creates a new justification for killing animals in New York pounds — “mental suffering.” The Governor signed the bill, despite rescuers, shelter reform advocates, and others urging her to veto it. The No Kill Advocacy Center also wrote and asked her to reject it.
Ignoring animal lovers, she not only consigned shy animals, scared animals, feral cats, and any other animals shelters want to claim are in psychological pain to death. She also introduced a first-of-its-kind, dangerous precedent into the animal control laws of our nation. Other jurisdictions and individual shelters will emulate the practice, and it will kill animals for years to come.
Last week was my dog Oswald’s Gotcha Day. We adopted him eight years ago. It was Oswald’s best day ever. Of course, for a dog who is loved, every day is the best day ever.
But there are a few that are especially great: that day, the day he was pulled from the pound, and September 22, 1998, a day he didn’t even exist yet.
On September 22, 1998, California Governor Pete Wilson signed Senate Bill 1785 — a law I worked on — making it illegal for shelters to kill animals if rescue groups offer to save them.
In the county where Oswald was sitting in the pound, not a single animal was sent to rescue before the law because of a “No Rescue” policy. It now has no choice but to do so and 4,000 animals are saved each and every year by rescue groups from this one shelter alone. Oswald was one of them.
Picked up as a stray, he was skinny, traumatized, had kennel cough, and a cherry eye. He was on his last day before his scheduled killing when a rescue group pulled him, nursed him back to health, and eight years ago, adopted him to us. Thanks to SB 1785 and the rescuer who pulled him, Oswald — and 85,000 other animals like him every year — will have the best day ever for years to come.
To give animals in other states the same protection, we must pass Rescue Rights legislation. Once again, the No Kill Advocacy Center has a model law, a step-by-step guide, and stands ready to help.
U.S. spending on animal companions continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments of the retail economy, proving to be “inflation-proof.” Indeed, Morgan Stanley projects that by 2030, Americans will “spend more than $275 billion to feed, harness, groom and play” with animal companions. “Consumers may trade down for themselves in tighter economic times, but not when it comes to their pets.”
There were “only” six recalls of pet foods in 2022, down from 15 the year before. Freshpet, Primal Pet Food, Stormberg Foods, Spot and Tango, and HEB Texas Pets were recalled for either Salmonella or Listeria contamination. Nestle Purina recalled dog food for a labeling error.
The largest cultured meat factory in the world is under construction near Raleigh, North Carolina. The 200,000-foot facility will have a production capacity of 10,000 metric tons of meat. That’s over 70 million hamburgers yearly without a single animal losing his life. Cultured meat is made from a one-time draw of stem cells. The stem cells are then replicated in a laboratory and grown in an animal-free medium to produce real meat from animals without killing.
The facility’s groundbreaking comes on the heels of the Food and Drug Administration concluding it is safe to eat. “This removes a key regulatory hurdle” and brings cultivated meat closer to being sold in the U.S. “The next steps are to work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on labeling and inspection.”
This imminent sale of cultured meat follows an executive order by President Biden requiring the Secretary of Agriculture, who oversees the country’s food supply, to “expand market opportunities for bioenergy and biobased products and services.”
A Kentucky animal shelter said it “hopes to curb shelter overpopulation through power of prayer.” If it truly wants to succeed, it must also embrace the No Kill Equation.
Animals enter shelters for various reasons and with various needs, but for over 100 years, the “solution” has been the same: adopt a few and kill the rest. The No Kill Equation provides a humane, life-affirming means of responding to every type of animal entering a shelter, and every type of need those animals might have. Some animals entering shelters are community cats. At traditional shelters, they are killed, but at a No Kill shelter, they are sterilized and released back to their habitats. Some animals entering shelters are orphaned puppies and kittens. At traditional shelters, these animals are killed as well. At a No Kill shelter, they are sent to a foster home to provide around-the-clock care until they eat on their own and are old enough to be adopted. Some animals have medical or behavioral issues. At a traditional shelter, they are killed. At a No Kill shelter, they are provided with rehabilitative care and then adopted. Whatever the situation, the No Kill Equation provides a readily-available and cost-effective alternative that replaces killing. As the data nationally and hundreds of communities that have embraced the No Kill Equation conclusively prove, shelter killing is a choice.
MeliBio, a technology company, “has created the world’s first vegan honey — molecularly identical to the bee-made version.” This is indeed good news, as honey production and commercial use of bees to pollinate crops is akin to factory farming, in which stress, neglect, abuse, and killing are common.
This abuse occurs despite the fact that bees play for the joy of it. Bees can count. Bees communicate by dance. Bees take shortcuts. Bees make choices. Bees learn from trial and error, and they learn from watching other bees. Bees can figure out puzzles. Bees can recognize patterns. Bees exercise self-control. They learn spatial conceptions — like above and below and do so even faster than nonhuman primates. And they try to be efficient. In other words, when they watch other bees, they don’t just copy the behavior: they form an “understanding of the desired outcome of the task, and tailored their actions accordingly.”
In short, “Bees display a remarkable range of talents — abilities that in a mammal such as a dog we would associate with consciousness.”
“New York became the tenth state to ban the sale of cosmetics tested on animals.” The New York Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Acttakes effect in January 2023. It is similar to laws in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, and Virginia.
Moreover, the Humane Cosmetics Act — introduced in the House of Representatives last year — would also ban the sale and manufacturing of animal-tested cosmetics throughout the U.S. Unfortunately, Congress has so far failed to act on it. In the absence of federal legislation, more states are expected to take up similar measures.
While a vegan diet’s health and environmental benefits are undeniable, a new survey found that almost half — 44% — of people who go vegan are motivated by compassion towards animals. The biggest challenges to staying vegan were “dining out and lack of support from family.”
With the pending sale of cultured meat, the meteoric rise of plant-based foods, and the availability of those foods at traditional and fast food restaurants, this will become less of an issue going forward. And that is good news for animals because in terms of sheer numbers and brutal conditions, raising and killing animals for food represents the greatest cause of human-induced suffering on the planet.
The No Kill Advocacy Center released a new issue of No Kill Sheltering. Among other things, the current issue covers:
Ending housing discrimination for renters with pets;
Why veterinarians should not be allowed to kill healthy and treatable animals;
Implementing a community cat sterilization program;
Why “compassion fatigue” is a misnomer and how to prevent it; and,
Finding homes for the holidays.
And finally, P-22, California’s beloved mountain lion, has died.
P-22 was suffering from,
Stage two kidney failure, a weight of 90 pounds (he normally weighs about 125), head and eye trauma, a hernia causing abdominal organs to fill his chest cavity, an extensive case of demodex gatoi (a parasitic skin infection…), heart disease, and more.
The physical trauma indicated he was recently hit by a car. He was put down after he was found in a residential backyard near the Santa Monica Mountains that were his home.
P-22 was celebrated in Los Angeles and inspired children’s books, clothing, and music. But he was most celebrated as the poster child for a new land bridge across U.S. 101. P-22 was lonely, but he couldn’t find a mate because his habitat was cut off by the 101, one of the busiest freeways on earth (300,000 cars pass each day). In 2019, residents were asked if they would help P-22 find a mate by building the largest land bridge in the world, stretching 200 feet across 10 lanes of traffic, for $87 million.
Of the nine thousand comments received, 8,985 of them said Yes! (Only 15 curmudgeons said No.) That’s an approval rating of 99.8%. In addition to helping P-22 find his true love, the bridge was designed to give “cougars, coyotes, deer, lizards, snakes and other creatures a safe route to open space … and potential mates.”
Today, construction for the bridge is underway, with a scheduled completion date of 2025, but P-22 will not be around to cross it. Thanks to P-22, however, countless other animals will. Out there, somewhere on opposite sides of US 101, are animals looking for a mate. Once the bridge is complete, they will safely find each other. And they will find each other thanks to people who opened up their hearts and their wallets so they can do so.
P-22 was believed to be about 12 years old — an unusually long life for a puma. May he rest in peace.
Wishing you and your fuzzy and furry loved ones good health, happiness, and prosperity in the new year. Together, not only will we save lives, we will create a future where every animal will be respected and cherished and where every individual life will be protected and revered.
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