Centralia dog dragging no more inhumane than poisoning wildlife

As a civilized society, we get shocked and outraged when we hear of a dog being dragged to its death in a Centralia, Washington Goodwill parking lot, back in April, 2009. This was a grisly incident orchestrated by sadistic people, who have no regard for life and no respect for the law.

But there is little outrage, when poison is used on “nuisance” animals like rats, coyotes, armadillos, possums, or prairie dogs. Regardless of the fact that death by poison is a slow, torturous process, that can take days for the animal to die. The fact is, there is very little public conscience about it. In addition, society is not mindful of secondary poisoning of innocent wildlife and predators, who happen to eat carcasses of animals that are riddled with poison. Even the most infinitesimal amount of some poisons consumed by a second or third animal can kill or disable it to the point of being defenseless and doomed to die from starvation or predator activity.

There are numerous ways that poison and dangerous contaminates, such as lead, can get into wildlife food chains and each can be attributed to human activity. Whether it is spreading rodent poison, shooting animals with lead bullets, or failure to dispose of livestock bodies that have been euthanized: most people do not think of the consequences to other living creatures. They don’t consider “pest” animals to be functionally sentient beings, who are just living their lives trying to survive, without malice or evil intent to man kind.

Rats and mice are greatly looked down upon as disease ridden, useless animals, without any acceptable merit in the fabric of nature, but it isn’t necessarily true. They are a prolific food source for wild carnivores and birds of prey. The fact is, rats and mice are very clean animals and groom themselves constantly. Arbitrary to popular belief, rats don’t spread disease such as bubonic plague, but they can carry fleas, which are often vectors for plague. However, the same fleas can also be carried by domestic pets. Rats and mice are intelligent and opportunistic creatures. They will always be drawn to shelter and food sources that may conflict with the best interest of people, but there are many alternatives to poison for controlling rodent populations.

Secondary poison of wildlife is more persistent than reported, and there is no way of knowing how many carnivores and raptors die or become disabled from eating poisoned rodents every year. In February, 2009, a rare barred owl was observed in the back yard of an Auburn, Washington home, displaying unusual behavior, which included diving to the ground several times, as if hitting on prey. But it was found to be snoozing, instead. Experts who saw the photographs of the fluffed up bird, with lethargic eyes, said the most likely cause was the ingestion of a poisoned rodent. However, the owl disappeared, leaving only a single feather, and there was no way to determine its fate.

One of the most shameful and stunning examples of cold-hearted wild life extermination that has been going on for over a century, is the wholesale poisoning and mindless slaughter of the five remaining species of prairie dogs, whom ranchers consider to be “pests”. They claim prairie dogs ruin their land and compete with their cattle for food.

Biologists see prairie dogs as a keystone species, upon which numerous invertebrates and predators depend for food and the use of their burrows for shelter. Scientific studies suggest that competing with cattle for food has been largely exaggerated (Derner et al. 2006). Prairie dogs coexisted with herbivores, like bison and prong horns, on the Great American Plains for 100’s of years. Regardless of efforts by environmental groups to get protection for prairie dogs under the Endangered Species Act, thousands of them continue to be poisoned and shot every year for crop land conversion, development, and the simple fact the some people consider them to be an imposition to their standard of life. The potential for secondary poisoning of predators, like hawks, foxes, coyotes, and eagles; is astronomical, if fastidious care is not taken to properly dispose of dead prairie dogs. Many recreational hunters have been known to shoot them for sport and leave large piles of dead, lead contaminated bodies exposed to the elements and predation.

Most recently, the black-poison-posse prize has got to go to the commissioners in Logan County, Kansas, who were using a century old law first enacted in 1901, to actually force people to poison prairie dogs on their own land, then send them a bill for the poison. Not everyone wants to kill prairie dogs, but if you live in Logan County, you will have to file a law suit to protect your rights not to do so.

There are countless examples in the history of man, that would suggest we are not as enlightened about the enforcement of humane treatment of all animals, as we profess to be. If baby seals are being clubbed to death, or puppies are being abused in kennels, or weighted-bags of kittens are thrown into a lake; then we are out raged. But not so much for animals that society finds “offensive”. It doesn’t matter if there are more humane ways of dealing with them, the path of least resistance seems to prevail. In the case of prairie dogs, professional reloctors often cost less than the fee for poisoning them. Far too many people don’t want to bother.

Dead bodies that are out of sight, are also out of mind.

Shortly after the Centralia incident, the Humane Society of the United States announced that they were offering a $2,500 reward for information that would lead to an arrest of the cruel offender, but the case was not solved. Dan Paul, the HSUS Washington state Director said, “Americans have no tolerance for violence against the creatures who share our world.”

Unfortunately, in most cases, that is only true if the "creatures" are cute and cuddly.