At their national sheltering conference this year, HSUS’ Vice-President for Companion Animals admits that pet overpopulation is a myth; that there is a huge market for shelter animals that vastly exceeds the number of animals killed for lack of a home (17 million homes vs. 3 million killed); that we can adopt our way out of killing; and we should.
Though the supply-demand imbalance is actually even more pronounced in favor of the animals (they are using old data), nonetheless, HSUS says that it isn’t a question of ‘too many animals, not enough homes,’ but the need for increasing market share. Coming from HSUS, this is a revolutionary change, striking as it does, to the heart of the killing.
- Watch the above 1 minute video excerpt where HSUS is finally making public the statistics revealed by the study, done on their behalf five years ago, showing how demand for animals exceeds the numbers killed in shelters (supply).
- The whole 1 hour 10 minute video is available by clicking here.
- A review of the data is available from the No Kill Advocacy Center by clicking here.
Though No Kill advocates have endured years of ridicule and abuse for exposing the lie of pet overpopulation, one of its primary proponents is finally admitting that, in fact, it simply does not exist. The questions now become:
- Will HSUS begin to address the true causes of shelter killing?
- Will it force shelters to change the way they operate so that animals are kept alive long enough to get into those homes?
- Will they stop promoting and defending the practice of shelters killing animals when there are empty cages?
- Will they stop working to defeat laws that mandate all the programs and procedures that allow shelters to replace killing with alternatives?
- Will they stop telling shelters that they are free to keep killing, rather than implement those alternatives to killing?
So far, the answer to all those questions has been “No.”
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