A report from the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office alleges that two Douglas animal control officers dumped feral cats in the desert. Due to insufficient evidence, they will not face prosecution. The officers claimed they were rescuing the animals from euthanasia, yet allegations suggest they were aware the cats would not survive. The available information strongly suggests the cats were abandoned to perish in the desert, and no alternative conclusion seems plausible from the data presented.
One of the men involved was a consultant to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona, advising “on animal care best practices” and offering “guidance regarding the humane treatment of animals.” It is not the first time HSSA has been in the news based on the actions of questionable practices.
Nathan Winograd in his newsletter to me writes:
Animal control officers from Douglas County, AZ, and an employee of the Cochise County Humane Society dumped shelter cats in the desert, knowing they could die; they did.
Winograd
The officers concerned are on paid leave which must be of limited duration. New training is going to take place. This indicates that the officers involved in this animal cruelty did what they did out of a lack of training! It is pretty obvious that what they did was animal cruelty.
Clearly the prosecution services of this county of Arizona don’t want to prosecute two animal control officers as it would be prosecuting their own. They are protecting their own it seems to me.
But the upshot would seem to be that the practice of dumping feral cats in the desert as a method of “euthanasia” is now recognised as unacceptable. It makes me shake my head in disbelief but at least something good might come out of this story.
The only reports are in videos. There are no articles on this except for this one it seems to me. Here is one of the videos. It may disappear eventually as it is embedded here from YouTube.
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