April 27, 2009 - As Minnesotans head off to Washington DC to attend and present at the No Kill Conference, being sponsored by the No Kill Advocacy Center and others, other national experts are asking questions about the goings on at animal shelters in Minnesota. A controversy is brewing. For at least a couple of decades animal welfare advocates in Minnesota have been questioning the policies and practices at the Animal Humane Society, an organization that, by most measures, has one of the highest kill rates for dogs and cats in the state, in spite of having one of the largest animal welfare budgets in the nation. Controversies surrounding AHS have included a variety of events, ranging from poorly managed disease outbreaks, use of inhumane methods for dispatching animals, and failure to implement programs that would reduce unnecessary killing at their shelters. For example, in 2001, City Pages broke a story titled Out of Gas about Animal Humane Society using a gas chamber to kill animals en-mass. This method of killing had been outlawed in some states, because it is widely regarded to be inhumane. Yet, as late as 2001, AHS was still killing animals this way. For many years, animal welfare advocates in the state had lobbied AHS to, at least, switch to lethal injection, which is considered far more humane. AHS said they could not afford to do so, in spite of having millions of dollars in reserves. Following much public outcry, they finally changed to lethal injection. But the controversy did not stop. As a wave of no kill success stories have spread across the nation, in which entire communities have achieved save rates for dogs and cats in excess of 90%, Minnesota's wealthiest shelters have refused to implement the programs that achieve that success. The result is a large, very wealthy animal welfare organization that has been referred to as "an assembly line of death" by leading animal welfare advocates in the country. The high kill rates at AHS became very public earlier this year when AHS reportedly "rescued" about 130 cats from a mobile home in St. Anthony, Minnesota. News media were called in to get pictures of the cats. The organization asked for money to help with the "rescue". AHS told the press they would keep the cats for weeks to evaluate their heath and temperament. Early the following week Eyewitness News uncovered an troubling timeline. AHS began killing the cats not weeks later, not days later, but later that same day. By the following day, all 130 cats were dead. Links on web sites asking for donations to help with the rescue of the cats were alive longer than the felines themselves. Minnesota animal lovers went wild, flooding AHS with complaints. In response to these complaints, AHS stated they needed to kill the felines because they posed a significant public health concern. There is only one problem with that response: leading experts in veterinary medicine and shelter management are stating there is no veterinary basis for that conclusion. On April 16, Dr. Michael Fox, veterinarian, syndicated columnist and author and Dr. Linda Wolf, consulting veterinarian, lecturer and trainer, sent a letter to the board at AHS expressing concern about the killing of these cats, and the lack of response to complaints by the organization. They also offered free veterinary consulting to assist AHS in reviewing their veterinary protocols in order to prevent these kinds of unnecessary deaths in the future. Also on April 16 another leading expert on animal welfare, Nathan Winograd who has actually led several communities to achieving the no kill goal, sent another letter to the AHS board offering free consulting services to help them eliminate unnecessary killing of animals at their shelters. To-date, there has been no response to either of these offers. Next week is Be Kind to Animals Week. The start of this annual event will be kicked off, ironically, by two contrasting events. In Washington DC the first national No Kill Conference will take place. Featuring expert animal welfare advocates who have successfully led their communities to ending the killing of savable animals, the excitement about this conference is unprecedented. It sold out more than two months in advance. The conference will also feature several Minnesota speakers, working to accomplish the same thing here. The other event is the Animal Humane Society Walk for Animals, at which several animal welfare advocates are reportedly planning to protest the organization's high kill rates. The walk for animals is being sponsored by FOX 9 News.

Related Links: Public Letter from Drs. Fox and Wolf Letter to AHS Board from Nathan Winograd The Animal Rights Coalition

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On 04/30/2009 Animal Advocate said: Restructure AHS The petition is asking for the resignation of the top directors at AHS in Minnesota. Please sign and send on to others to change this facility and bring awareness to 14,500 animals that have died in their care. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/14500-unnecessary-deaths-by-ahs-in-minnesota PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL OF YOUR CONTACTS

On 04/28/2009 Ellen Weinstock said: come protest the AHS slaughter! Dear friends: Please join me and many others in protesting at the Animal Humane Society's Walk for Animals on Saturday morning, May 2 from 8:15 to 11 a.m.. (Registration for the walk starts at 8:30 and the walk starts at 11, so this is the time the most people will be coming through. If you can't make it the whole time, please come anyway!) The nearly 50% slaughter rate at the richest Humane Society in the Midwest has gone on too long. I'm pasting my press release below to give you more background. Please share with anyone who may be interested. If you can, please come and dress comfortably (wear sunscreen!) and bring a sign. I would like signs to focus on the kill rate generally, but some of you may want to have signs about the St. Anthony cats who were killed in February. Hope to see you all there!!! The animals depend on us! With gratitude, Ellen For IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 4/28/09: FFI: Ellen Weinstock (651) 324-2779 ellenweinstock@comcast.net This Saturday (May 2), Twin Cities animal lovers will be protesting at the Animal Humane Society (AHS) Walk for Animals[1], asking AHS to start working to make the Twin Cities a no-kill community. Many other places around the country have achieved save rates for homeless dogs and cats of over 90%, including: Reno, NV[2]; Charlottesville, VA[3]; and Tompkins County, NY[4]. Rescue groups, animal control agencies, and other shelters in the Cities are already working together through the Homes for All Pets Initiative[5], but the Animal Humane Society still kills almost half the animals it takes in every year[6] and refuses to do the serious work necessary to bring that number down, even though AHS is one of the richest humane societies in the US, with assets of over $17M at the end of 2007.[7] One recent example of AHS's high-kill policies was the questionable killing of over 120 cats seized from a trailer home in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Anthony. The Animal Humane Society seized the cats on 2/10/09, invited the media to cover the story. The AHS initially stated that it would assess the cats for 2-3 weeks and treat their treatable illnesses. Myriad local and national rescue groups started calling AHS to offer help, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. Many of these volunteers and organizations had helped save animals from similar or worse hoarding operations, such as a hoarder operation of 800 cats in the desert of Pahrump, Nevada last year. The AHS admitted on 2/15 that it had already killed ALL of the cats within 48 hours of taking them in.[8] (The speeded-up timeline makes it unlikely that the cats were actually tested for the illnesses they allegedly had.) Animal lovers, including dog and cat mascots in costume, will protest outside AHS in Golden Valley from 8:15 to 11 a.m. THIS SATURDAY, May 2 (Highway 55 and Meadow Lane N., one exit west of Theodore Wirth Parkway). "Years of polite requests and offers of help to AHS and its Board of Directors have not stopped the AHS slaughter," said Ellen Weinstock of St. Paul, a lawyer who volunteers with homeless dogs. "All we can do now is tell their donors how few animals AHS saves." ------------------------------------------------------ [1] http://www.animalhumanesociety.org/walk [2] http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/success.html [3] http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/success.html [4] http://www.spcaonline.com/nokill.htm [5]http://www.animalarkshelter.org/animal/ArkArticles.nsf/AllArticles/EC595B73E54B3D5686257204006BE606?OpenDocument [6] AHS gives its last year statistics as placing or transferring 18,255 animals (http://www.animalhumanesociety.org/aboutus/whatwedo). It "serves" 36,000 animals per year. (http://www.animalhumanesociety.org/services/surrendering) [7] http://www.animalhumanesociety.org/webfm_send/22 [8]http://animalarkshelter.org/animal/ArkArticles.nsf/EmailArticle/3590DF9CAA8644C686257560005A1D26 (has links to television and newspaper stories)