While we race to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, we are in danger of forgetting what started it: our own species' blatant disrespect and disregard for the other species who try to share our world but often aren't permitted to. The novel coronavirus originated in one of the world's many live-animal markets _ violent, filthy places where animals, terrified and trembling, are crammed into cages stacked on top of each other. Excrement, pus and blood from animals in the top tiers drip down onto the animals below, spreading disease, until it is time for them to be butchered in full view of the others.
Now, in the midst of this human-created crisis, other animals that depend on humans for almost everything, from drinking water to their very lives, are also being treated as expendable. Many animal shelters are closing their doors, refusing to accept dogs and cats from people who sometimes have no other recourse. As a result, animals are being abandoned on the streets and essential, lifesaving services like spaying and neutering, which prevent the births of more homeless animals, have ground to a halt. This is inhumane and irresponsible and will cause more animals to suffer and die. It needs to be rethought.
Animal sheltering services are more essential and critical now than ever before, and that's saying a lot. Millions of people are out of work and scrambling to pay their bills, putting animals at risk of going without necessary food and veterinary care. Animals whose owners are hospitalized can be left with no one to care for them. What do those people do?
Shelters are the last resort for many, and when even taxpayer-funded facilities won't help, some people take matters into their own hands. For example, a Pennsylvania man admitted to strangling his own ailing dog to death after being turned away from his local shelter. In Virginia, a Georgia woman, who testified that she had contacted two shelters and was refused help by both, admitted to shooting and killing a litter of puppies and dumping their bodies over an embankment.
Horrifying cases like these are reported nearly constantly in communities across the country where shelters have made it difficult or impossible for people to surrender animals. Others who are refused help by shelters simply dump animals in the woods or on the streets to die of starvation, be hit by a car or succumb to the elements.
So while debates continue over what constitutes "essential" work during the pandemic, there is no question that lifesaving animal sterilization surgeries should continue. Every sterilization saves countless lives, by preventing millions more unwanted dogs and cats from being born into a world with too few acceptable homes, a world in which many will suffer and die on the streets or at the hands of cruel or neglectful people or end up being euthanized in shelters that must make room for an endless flood of animals in need.
Suspending spay/neuter clinics' vital services will exacerbate a crisis that was raging long before anyone had heard of COVID-19 and set back the progress that the humane community has painstakingly made to reduce animal overpopulation. Not only will it result in more homeless animals, it's also likely to cause a spike in cruelty cases and in diseases contagious to humans, including rabies.
Humans have created the dog and cat homelessness crisis by domesticating animals and then failing to take responsibility for them. Animals depend on shelters to stand strong and do what is right. That means keeping their doors and clinics open when animals need them the most.
