PETS HURLED OFF BRIDGE IN PUERTO RICO
By Kat • Oct 12th, 2007 • Category: ArticlesBy OMAR MARRERO, Associated Press Writer 20 minutes ago
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them from a bridge to their deaths, authorities and witnesses said Friday. Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter. “This is an irresponsible, inhumane and shameful act,” he told The Associated Press.
Fontanez said the city hired Animal Control Solution to clear three housing projects of pets after warning residents about a no-pet policy. He said the city paid $60 for every animal recovered and another $100 for each trip to a shelter in the San Juan suburb of Carolina.
Raids were conducted on Monday and Wednesday, and residents told TV reporters they saw the animal control workers inject the animals. When they asked what they were giving them, they said they were told it was a sedative for the drive to the shelter.
“They came as if it were a drug raid,” said Alma Febus, an animal welfare activist. “They took away dogs, cats and whatever animal they could find. Some pets were taken away in front of children.”
But instead of being taken to a shelter, the pets and strays were thrown 50 feet from a bridge in the neighboring town of Vega Baja, according to Fontanez, witnesses and activists, apparently before dawn Tuesday.
“Many were already dead when they threw them, but others were alive,” said Jose Manuel Rivera, who lives next to the bridge. “Some of the animals managed to climb to the highway even though they were all battered, but about 50 animals remained there, dead.”
Rivera said he alerted officials, who spread lime over the animals’ corpses to control the stench.
Animal Control Solution owner Julio Diaz said he went to the bridge when he heard of the allegations, but remains unconvinced that the dead animals are the same ones his company collected.
“We have never thrown animals off any place. We always take them to our local shelter and euthanize them,” he said. “They can’t prove that they are the same dogs that we picked up.”
Fontanez said he would cancel the city’s contract with Animal Control Solution and said city lawyers were considering a lawsuit.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has a rule allowing locally owned and operated housing authorities to set pet rules, but it does not grant authority for a blanket ban or mass confiscation, said Brian Sullivan, an HUD spokesman in Washington.
Asked to comment on the reported pet massacre, Sullivan said: “This sickens me if true.”
Animal rights activists have long criticized the treatment of pets in Puerto Rico, where there is no pet registration law and little spaying or neutering. Animal shelters are overwhelmed and must kill many of the dogs they receive, according to Victor Collazo, president of the island’s Association of Medical Veterinarians.
One organization recruits volunteers to take dogs home with them on commercial flights, and sends between 1,500 and 2,000 dogs a year from Puerto Rico to American shelters.
At least 175 dogs have been rescued in the last couple of years from Yabucoa Beach, which activists nicknamed “Dead Dog Beach” because of the strays that roam the coast and are sometimes found dead of disease, starvation or gunshots. Similar rescue efforts have been undertaken in the Bahamas and elsewhere in the Caribbean.
October 15th, 2007 at 10:16 am
6.5billion people and alot of reporters means that there is somebody doing about anything at any given time, not the 1st or the last time fer this even.
October 15th, 2007 at 10:23 am
They could have eaten them in china what a waste LOL; I have a sign in my kitchen someone gave me that says “I like cats too, lets exchange recipies” but I would never eat a cat yuk.
October 15th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
This is just a test to see how well you know the current
and historical dictators. The answers are at the bottom
of the page but try not to peak.
A little history lesson: If you don’t know the answer make your best guess. Answer all the questions before looking at the answers. Who said it? Answers are at the end.
1) “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
A. Karl Marx
B. Adolph Hitler
C. Joseph Stalin
D. None of the above
2) “It’s time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few…and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity.”
A. Lenin
B. Mussolini
C. Idi Amin
D. None of the Above
3) “(We)…can’t just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people.”
A. Nikita Khrushev
B. Jose f Goebbels
C. Boris Yeltsin
D. None of the above
4) “We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own…in order to create this common ground.”
A. Mao Tse Dung
B. Hugo Chavez
C. Kim Jong Il
D. None of the above
5) “I certainly think the free-market has failed.”
A. Karl Marx
B. Lenin
C. Molotov
D. None of the above
6) “I think it’s time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched.”
A. Pinochet
B. Milosevic
C. Saddam Hussein
D. None of the above
Answers:
(1) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/29/2004
(2) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 5/29/2007
(3) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(4) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(5) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(6) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 9/2/2005
October 15th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Good. In regards to the dogs being thrown off a bridge—(required voluntary compliance) replied that he wouldn’t eat a cat. That’s good to know as I wouldn’t eat a hog or dog.
LOL
August 10th, 2008 at 10:29 am
At least one soldier could have joined in the fun here
as that cell phone video showed from a while back
but we should support our troops no matter what the
perpetual war is doing to their psyches and bring them
home to be police with tazers and guns and a dehumanized
lack of reluctance to kill.