Alabama Animal Shelters Still Kill Impounded Animals in Gas Chambers

Mobile Animal Welfare and Protection Examiner

Sandra Nathan 
February 21, 2010

Alabama shelter animals still killed in gas chambers

Millions of homeless animals are killed in shelters each year. This harsh reality is made even more unbearable by the knowledge that inhumane methods like gas chambers are still being used to put animals to death in many of the nation's shelters. Alabama is among the states where killing abandoned animals who are impounded in public animal facilities is legal, and is still practiced in a few facilities in the state.

The inhumane method of killing animals in a gas chamber is universally condemned by humane advocates and progressive shelters. And yet, only nine states have officially banned the gassing of shelter animals: Delaware, Illinois, Maine, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming.
In February, Georgia legislators voted unanimously in favor of Grace's Law, a bill that would close the loopholes in Georgia's Humane Euthanasia Act that still allow some counties and cities to use carbon monoxide gas chambers to kill shelter animals. The bill would also make it illegal by statute to use heartstick unless the animal is heavily sedated, unconscious or comatose. It's now on to a vote by the full Georgia House of Representatives!

Loopholes and ill defined language in NC, SC and WV bills that were intended to ban the use of gas chambers provided facilities an option, under certain circumstances, to continue the use of gas chambers, for example: a grandfather clause. The failures in poorly written bills are a hard lesson for animal advocates, who glimpsed a spark of hope for our nation's discarded animals who are condemned to death in the current system of animal control - but well noted.

Animal advocates throughout the USA have become more schooled and savy to the legalities and process of having a bill passed that would benefit animals impounded in animal facilities, paying close attention to additional critical issues such as: conditions of the facility in which they are housed, the environment, the manner in which they cared for and for proper training of animal facility personnel. At the forefront, is the immediate call for applying the most humane methods of euthanasia, with the absolute elimination of gas chambers.

In many cases, state and local government representatives whose municipalities allow gas chambers as an euthanasia method, are experiencing embarrassment, and are being forced to look head-on into the documented evidence, through videos, testimony of witnesses and photographic depictions of the suffering and terror inflicted upon animals suffocating in a gas chamber.
Rescue organizations and individuals spend an insurmountable amount of time and personal resources in "pulling" animals from shelters, paying for veterinary care for "unadoptables", fostering, searching for homes and transporting homeless animals to distant points in order to save them from certain death. For every animal who enters an animal facility, the clock starts winding down - fast; counting in days, hours or minutes before they are killed.

Some say gas chambers are cheaper to operate for shelters struggling with limited funding, though studies show that is not the case. Still others say there are valid reasons to use gas chambers over lethal injection, such as feral animals, animals with collapsed veins, diseased rats, or a rabid fox or raccoon. Critics argue that even in those exceptions, special techniques and equipment, such as pre-sedation for aggressive animals, could be handled by a veterinarian.

It is another common myth that death takes place quickly in a gas chamber. It takes time to kill, up to 25 minutes to end a dog's life, during which time the animals experience unimaginable stress and anxiety as they struggle to survive. Some animals even survive the gassing, only to suffer even more. Case in point: gas chambers are designed for ease of the shelter workers, not care and compassion for the animals. A quick search on Google or YouTube will yield haunting images of the horror of these death chambers as animals scream, cry, and gasp for air.

In Alabama an escalating outcry from the public is raising ethical questions directed at the government officials who allow citizen's tax dollars to fund what is considered a torturous death. Citizens are becoming more involved, educated in the animal control system, the euthanasia laws and regulations written by Alabama legislators and local municipal officials. In addition to digesting the huge numbers of innocent animals killed in animal facilities by the most recognized humane method of euthanasia by injection (EBI), citizens tend to express their shock in learning that gas chambers are still in existence in Alabama.

On February 23, Alabama Humane Federation, through The Humane Society of the United States has invited all Alabama citizens who care about animals to participate in the Alabama Humane Lobby Day at the Alabama State Capitol Building in Montgomery. Citizens will have the opportunity to meet directly with elected officials or their staff about legislation that will impact animals.

You can bet Alabama animal advocates will advocate for the complete elimination of gas chambers in Alabama, as well as urging their state representatives to take a close look at spay-neuter legislation and to take a stand for Alabama's homeless animals.