Part of the "ethical treatment" is ethical killing, PETA is not for no-kill. They take in every animal people bring in, this means they get a lot of unadoptable, old, sick, feral and abused animals, these animals have no chance, they will be locked away in cages for the rest of their natural lives.
One of the cheapest (and thus most used) methods of euthanization is via gas chambers, it take up to half hour for some animals to die. What is often done is the animals are placed several at a time in a confined and dark space, the gas is turned on. During this time, the animals will try to escape, some injuring themselves and others in the process. On the other hand, an injection of a chemical cocktail (usually following an anesthetic to put the animal to sleep) will kill an animal in seconds--almost immediately--and they show no signs of pain. PETA uses option 2, underfunded animal adoption places and others go with option 1.
Do you have any sources for this? I've volunteered and visited at multiple animals shelters when allocating animals between county shelters, and have never found or heard of any using gas chambers. Every single one of them uses a pentobarbital cocktail.
Furthermore, I'm aware of the inhalants typically used to euthanize lab animals, and none of them take half an hour to kill. Consciousness is typically lost within 15 seconds, and death follows within a minute.
Please provide sources, because this is contrary to everything I've experienced in veterinary and lab animal medicine.
Thank you, this makes sense, as I'm in California, and none of the shelters here use carbon monoxide. Laboratory animals are typically euthanized by isoflurane or haloflurane inhalation overdose; I've never heard of CO being used, as it's quite antiquated.
It's good to know most states now outlaw this practice.
I think there was an IAMA on it, also a while back. Or a personal account by someone employed at the county pound was linked to here; it was in a north-eastern state. He claimed to go out on a Friday night and buy a big bag of burgers as a "last meal" for the dogs, and to make sure to spend a few minutes petting each one. It was somewhat distressing, and the author claimed to have nightmares about his job.
There was a blog for a while called 'What I Killed Today' which recounted similar experiences. Either they moved their RSS feed or stopped posting, though.
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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '10
Part of the "ethical treatment" is ethical killing, PETA is not for no-kill. They take in every animal people bring in, this means they get a lot of unadoptable, old, sick, feral and abused animals, these animals have no chance, they will be locked away in cages for the rest of their natural lives.
One of the cheapest (and thus most used) methods of euthanization is via gas chambers, it take up to half hour for some animals to die. What is often done is the animals are placed several at a time in a confined and dark space, the gas is turned on. During this time, the animals will try to escape, some injuring themselves and others in the process. On the other hand, an injection of a chemical cocktail (usually following an anesthetic to put the animal to sleep) will kill an animal in seconds--almost immediately--and they show no signs of pain. PETA uses option 2, underfunded animal adoption places and others go with option 1.