New Online Social Network Hopes to Make Minnesota No Kill State
    Its Like MySpace or Twitter for Dogs and Cats
    Published 06/08/2009 08:52:15 AM

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    Increasingly, social change movements are using the Internet to help them with their efforts. A new generation of social networking sites, including Ning, MySpace and Twitter are helping like-minded people to communicate, share and coordinate in ways they have never been able to do before, using a new set of tools, including computers, laptops and mobile devices and, thereby, changing the current idea of "community".

    A great example of a new kind of community is a web site launched by Animal Ark just a few weeks ago. The stated mission of the site is to help Minnesota to become a no kill state, by ending the killing of animals in animal shelters that are either healthy, or that have treatable medical or behavior issues. In just a little over a week, the new site had nearly 150 subscribed members and thousands of daily unsubscribed web surfers.

    Mike Fry, the sites founder, says that two key factors are contributing to the sites success: A growing need for a sense of community, and increasing sensitivity to animal welfare.

    "People crave a connection to others who share common feelings and beliefs," said Fry, who is also the executive director of Animal Ark. "This fact, combined with the reality that animal welfare, and no kill movement specifically, is a growing movement in the United States, made launching the new Animal Ark Online Community a natural and timely thing to do."

    Members of the new Animal Ark Online Community can write and post their own blogs, share picture and videos and link to their MySpace and Twitter accounts. There are forums, specialty groups and discussions. Members can form friendships, write comments, or get Internet feeds sent to their email or cell phones.

    Additionally, the site hosts important features, like profiling homeless pets in need of new families. There is also a lost and found area, where anyone, even if they are not a member, can post descriptions and photos of animals they have lost or found.

    The new site comes as new research is proving that the no kill goal is not only possible, it is likely to occur nation-wide within the next fifteen years.

    "For generations, people have been told that we cannot achieve no kill because there are simply too many animals and not enough homes," said Fry. "In fact, a study conducted by Maddie's Fund and others concluded that there are many more homes looking to acquire a new pet than the total number of animals entering animal shelters annually."

    Fry says this new research proves that shelter deaths are not so much a measure of "pet overpopulation" as they are a failure to engage the animal loving American public in the noble task of animal rescue.

    Animal lovers can join this new movement by logging onto animalark.ning.com.
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