This should be the title of the blog, not just this post. In the animal rescue community, we all want basically the same thing - the end of killing of adoptable animals. However, the way to get there and the way to measure success differ widely from person to person. Add those differing opinions to the highly emotional subject matter and you get a ridiculously politicized environment with extreme reactions to certain people and organizations. When I first became involved, I assumed that because we all wanted the same thing, we were all working together. In fact, the opposite is true. I think that this is one reason that Austin's no-kill millenium plan hasn't worked and why we seem to just be spinning our wheels here. I suspect that the situation exists in most communities.
There are many different "sides" to the struggle going on in Austin. In particular, there are two strong sides and they seem to be particularly pitted against each other. The first is the "establishment", which are the groups involved in Mission: Orange. (TLAC, ASPCA, Humane Society, Animal Trustees of Austin, and Emancipet). The other are a group of disciples of Nathan Winograd.
This blog posting describes our situation better than I can. Read it. It's great.
What I cannot understand is why some of these groups are so vehemently opposed to Nathan Winograd's plan. The no-kill millenium resolution, passed in 1997, has failed, with 50% of animals entering TLAC being killed currently. He is the only person in the United States to turn communities around and stop killing 90% of animals that come into the shelters. AND he's replicated his success to other communities.
Why not try his methods? The volunteers at TLAC are dying to to do more. Why not let us foster and take animals out to adoption events in the community? We were actually told recently that we are not allowed to post any video of our animals on the internet. We can post pictures, yet for some reason video is off-limits. Why? Why? Why?
In a progressive, animal-loving city like Austin, it is shocking that we're doing so badly.
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This is an easy one. ASPCA & HSUS put the responsibility & accountability for the killing on the public. Nathan Winograd puts it on the shelter. So if the shelter tries his methods and they work, they have to own the responsibility for all the animals they killed, which will never happen with the current administration.
I'm not sure it is as easy as "differing opinions", you know? Pro life and pro choice people have differing opinions, but you can't build a bridge across that divide. It is either one way or the other way. There's not a compromise.
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