Montcalm County Commissioners approve gassing animal shelter pets in a 55-gallon drum

Chris Hyzer

Montcalm County Controller

Administration Building, 3rd Floor

211 W. Main Street

P.O. Box 368

Stanton, MI  48884

989-831-7300

chyzer@co.montcalm.mi.us

Dear Chris Hyzer and other Commissioners of Montcalm County:

It has come to my attention that the Montcalm County Animal Shelter doesn't operate as much of a "shelter" to animals at all.  Instead this shelter, which is under your jurisdiction and operates according to policies and procedures as decided by the Montcalm County Commissioners - not the "shelter" staff - gives stray and surrendered pets to Jim Woudenberg of R&R Research who then sells them to research facilities and keeps the profits of these sales .  Animals he doesn't sell he euthanizes himself, with no oversight or monitoring by any animal welfare group or shelter professional.  In the past there have been complaints about his ability to euthanasia properly, complaints that he is neither humane nor particularly good at this task.  His facilities have also repeatedly been fined for failure to comply with USDA standards.  Animals at his facility clearly suffer from cold and filth.

Furthermore, I have also learned that Montcalm pets who are not given to Woudenberg but who fail to find adoptive home are gassed in a 55-gallon drum by animal shelter staff.  Gassed in a drum.  Not injected, gassed.  The shelter's new director, Patricia Lentz, stated when she took over that she would apply for a license so that pets would not be gassed, but injected instead, but the proposed 2009 budget Montcalm County budget does not allocate money for this.  It instead allocates a raise for Lentz.

As a former resident and employee in Montcalm County I find this information horrifying.  This contract with R&R Research has been ongoing over time; it is not a new agreement.  But do the good people of Montcalm County know about it?  Do they know when they surrender their pets to the shelter there is almost no chance that they will be adopted by someone else?  Do they know they will either be gassed or given to the ghoulish Mr. Woudenberg who deals in death and suffering?  These are not wild animals.  Humans have domesticated cats and dogs and required them to be companions, no longer free to hunt or organize in the wild.  Dogs and cats give us their loyalty and affection.  They keep us company, humor our moods, love us whether we are young or old, poor or rich, clean or smelly.  And in return for creating this dependency, we round up and euthanize any animals who we aren't willing to care for.  It seems that, given this already grossly unfair "understanding" between humans and pets, that the least we can do, the very least, is to give them a good death, a humane death, when they encroach on our convenience or pocketbooks.  Gassing can under no circumstances be considered humane.  They gassed people in Auschwitz, and we are still shuddering at the thought of it more than 60 years later - the pain, and the fear those people suffered, choking on the fumes and knowing they would die.  I cannot imagine being shoved into a 55-gallon drum, closed up in the dark and forced to breathe poison.  Well, I can imagine it, and it makes me cry.  Those poor pets.  Alone and unwanted, suffering unto death.  

Barbaric.

Is this what Montcalm County wants on its conscience - Auschwitz-style death sentences for its homeless or (might-be) transitory cats and dogs?  I certainly hope not.

Please, Commissioners of Montcalm County, do not renew Jim Woudenberg's contract when it expires in January of 2009.  Apply for the license to inject unwanted animals humanely rather than gassing them.  And while I'm asking, put pressure on the shelter itself to try harder to place these animals with families or even other shelters before resorting to gas or injection.   These are tough economic times, but even dire poverty does not excuse this kind of moral and ethic laxity.  

Until you make these changes, I am locking my car doors if ever I have to drive with my dog through Montcalm County.

Sincerely yours,

Rachel Potter 

tags: animal shelters  euthanasia