Animal Welfare Movement

Traumatic times occur in our lives that we forever remember where we were and what we were doing. I’m old enough to remember I was on the school grounds when I learned that Kennedy was assassinated, and I was a few blocks away from the Pentagon on 9/11. You might have attended the same American Humane Conference as I did. Of course, the conference shut down and the smell of burning fuel filled the air. Most of the attendees watched, as all America did, the footage of the airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. A few of us walked the few blocks to see what was happening at the Pentagon.

As the day progressed, the events hit home: what should we do? Flying home was not an immediate solution. I attended the conference with my co-workers from the ASPCA. One of our group managed to rent a van, I think the last one available. It was nuts.

On the way back to Illinois, I invented the Adventures of the Roadkill Hunter. It was a long drive. I proceeded to entertain my fellow riders with episodes of The Roadkill Hunter using my Aussie voice. As our hunter carefully approached the roadkill waiting to see if the flattened piece of fur was either dead or playing possum. After a few hundred miles, my fellow riders gave me an option to either shut up or be left on the side of the road.

When we approached the Champaign Airport, we were stopped by a police car. Clearly, an early morning encounter had not prepared the office for a van full of tire conference goers. It became obvious that the officer didn’t know what to do. Clearly, airport security was stepped up after 9/11, but the plan didn’t include how the police would handle would-be terrorists. The officer didn’t let us approach the airport, nor would he allow us to leave.

The stress in the van was high. I was smart enough not to regale my comrades with another episode of The Roadkill Hunter.

Eventually, the officer allowed us to approach the airport. I suspect that his need for a coffee break outweighed his need to hold us hostage.

Today, our State announced that they may not be able to perform the killing of an inmate due to a drug shortage.  We don’t do a lot of lethal injections, so experiencing a drug shortage seems silly.  The drug, or drugs of choice are ketamine, fentanyl, and potassium chloride.  We all like our special cocktails.

I bring up this issue because animal shelters experienced a shortage of sodium pentobarbital many years ago.  The shortage lasted over six months.  I have always required that we have a six-month supply on hand at all times.  After the storage, I changed that requirement to a year’s supply.

Although animal shelters are euthanizing fewer animals now, you can imagine the problem of shelter overcrowding should you stop euthanizing altogether.  I was trained early in the Boy Scouts to be prepared.  You should take inventory of your supplies and ensure you can meet a supply shortage.  Carrying a six-month supply might seem excessive until you are hit with a supply shortage.  Be prepared.

UPDATE

It seems that the guy’s attorneys sued the State against their cocktail Du Jour claiming that it was an untested concoction.  That is the problem with fad concoctions.  I’ve seen plenty in our business for remote chemical capture.  They are asking the State to kill their client using the tried and true sodium pentobarbital that we have used in our business for years.  I suspect the one downside of sodium pentobarbital is that it might burn upon administration, but I can’t say for sure because I’ve never used it on myself.  But to be clear, I always anesthetized animals first before administering sodium pentobarbital.

Although, personally, since people are killing themselves every day with fentanyl, I think the State could find someone on the street to test drive this new cocktail.  In the animal welfare business we seem to have a thing for using Acepromazine.  With the fast reversal when using Acepromazine, I always thought that you get the same results using water in the cocktail.  And who would be stupid enough to do that? That’s a hint for the State to not consider adding Acepromazine to their new fancy kill juice.  And using Ketamine… whose idea was that?  It’s like they got this recipe from their local drug pusher.  But to be honest, I used Ketamine in my anesthesia cocktail.

7/26/24 Update:

Prison officials are reporting that the cost of obtaining sodium pentobarbital is going to cost our prison system $200k for the upcoming execution.   Having overseen animal shelter budgets for years,  someone desperately needs to audit our prison system.  It is no wonder that government has become so expensive.  A $20 bottle of sodium pentobarbital is enough to execute a dozen inmates; where is the rest of the money going?

8/23/24 Update:

According to the news, the total cost of the execution is over $288k.  As mentioned above, the prison system is claiming that it costs $200k for sodium pentobarbital.  It would be so much cheaper if we just farmed out the euthanasia to our local veterinarians.  I just couldn’t let this drop, so I suggested to our State Officials that maybe an audit was in order.  I didn’t hear back from either of my State representatives.  Maybe this is just normal business in my State.