Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Oh, please....

PETA asks Attorney General to charge LSU with animal abandonment in Katrina aftermath

PETA asks Attorney General to charge LSU with animal abandonment in Katrina aftermath

01:48 PM CDT on Tuesday, September 20, 2005

WWLTV.com

BATON ROUGE -- Animal rights group PETA has written to state Attorney General Charles Foti asking that LSU officials be charged with cruelty for abandoning 8,000 animals in the university’s labs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to a spokesperson for the group.

State law defines cruelty for abandoning as "completely forsaking and deserting an animal previously under the custody or possession of a person without making reasonable arrangements for its proper care, sustenance, and shelter."

PETA alleges Larry Hollier, the dean of LSU Health Sciences Center School of Medicine, and Joseph Morschbaecher, the Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center, admitted that they euthanized only a small number of animals before staff fled from the buildings, leaving the rest of the animals to face death while they were trapped in their cages.

PETA said it fired off a second letter to the USDA, asking the agency to charge LSU with failure to abide by the minimal requirements as set forth under the federal Animal Welfare Act. PETA said it first wrote to the USDA two days after the levees broke to ask that emergency teams in the affected areas ensure that animals were not dying in laboratories.

According to PETA, additional letters were sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, asking that LSU not be given federal funds to rebuild animal laboratories in high-risk areas, and to LSU Chancellor Sean O'Keefe, asking for the dismissal of both Hollier and Morschbaecher.

"We're not going to rest until LSU is punished for leaving these terrified animals in cages as the waters rose," said Mary Beth Sweetland, director of PETA's Research and Investigations department. "It's clear that LSU's attitude was 'they're just animals,' as the only lamenting we've heard is over lost research data."

PETA attorneys said they will file a more detailed formal criminal complaint within the next ten days. PETA's letters in behalf of the 8,000 animals that died at LSU are available upon request.


------
So if I understand PETA correctly, the staff should have put themselves in harm's way to stay to euthanize 8,000 animals? Don't get me wrong, I do love animals, and I was sorry to hear that so many had lost their lives. I had pets all my life, and it broke my heart when one had to be put down. But this, to my mind, is why PETA and other similar groups get branded in many instances as a bunch of nuts. They're apparently suggesting that it was criminal for the staff of the Health Sciences Center to heed the mandatory evacuation warnings. How long would it take to euthanize 8,000 animals? Should all the staff have stayed? If they'd done that, how many people might have died? Yes, animals can be companions and friends, and in many cases a pet is another family member. But it just seems ridiculous for PETA to ask for the Health Science Center staff to be charged with and convicted of a crime for evacuating. I say this knowing that animals other than rats are used for lab research. But if it were you, would you stay in the path of a Category 4/5 hurricane to take time to put the rats to sleep?

2 comments:

SRH said...

The biggest issue I have with PETA is that humans are still suffereing. Once we focus on human plights for a bit, then we should focus on the animals. When all people have food in their bellies, clothes on their back, and a roof over their head then the people associated with PETA should focus on the animals.

Weird bit of prioritization there PETA. Make sure the animals are okay while poor folk starve on rooftops.

Lisa @ The Plain-Spoken Pen said...

Exactly. It's not that I disagree with PETA's efforts to help animals. But they seem to forget that there were and are still people suffering from this. To focus on people leaving in the face of a hurricane and not taking 8000 animals with them (because, honestly, where could they have found shelter for the animals? Nowhere close by, that's for sure) or taking the time to put them down first, and to want to charge them criminally for it, is just absurd to me. How come no one is complaining about people who left other people behind?