I have a tremendous appreciation for animal welfare organizations and little appreciation for animal rights organizations. It recently dawned on me as to how I can distinguish between the two. I am quite surprised as to how it took me so long. Much of it has to do with the evolution of an organization.
Most of us start out wanting to help animals; it is a noble task. We become so effective at helping animals that we are motivated to want to change society to help animals. When we take on this task, we have to assure ourselves that the task is noble and the cause is righteous.
Today, we frequently see folks taking on causes that are not accepted as righteous. All of the bullying in the world will not make a cause righteous; if anything, it makes it worse.
We frequently see this in the animal welfare movement when other organizations or people want to force their ideology upon us. Oddly, if forced upon us long enough the cause actually might shift to righteousness. No-Kill was shoved down our throats long enough that we began to see the benefits of drinking that in. It still becomes problematic when the goal of becoming No-Kill is just a statistical issue and not a moral issue.
I can remember back when the board of a major humane society would call me at night telling me that I was doing a disservice to my community by not killing 90% of the animals that came into my care. Now, we are assaulted if we are forced to kill over 10% of our animals. The humane society lost its contract with the county due to its large euthanasia numbers and it felt that its cause was righteous because the board members were convinced that 90% of the animals were too dangerous to put on the streets of the community. Well, looking back at that, we see that they caved to stupidity.
But, is the 10% that we deal with today also an effort in stupidity? It’s just a number! It is just a statistic! Well, it is not. That number represents everything to animal rights organizations. It is the difference between calling shelter staff saviors or killers. It has become a number that keeps the bad guys bad and the good guys good.
How important is that number? Are we willing to adopt out dangerous animals just to meet our statistical goal, so that we can look like the good guys on paper? Are we willing to turn domestic cats out into a cold winter, so that we can call ourselves no-kill? What is it worth to us? Are we willing to be inhumane so as to meet a statistical number? If the answer is yes, then you might want to look again at your mission statement.
It is possible to reduce euthanasia to zero. Is that helping or hurting your community? What about the animals?
I recently watched one of my favorite organizations move from animal welfare to animal rights. I grieve for them and for the rest of us.