Antisemitism comes to animal rights

News and headlines for August 24 - 30, 2024

A local Illinois community is set to vote on a proposed ordinance prohibiting landlords “from denying housing to renters just because they have a dog, including a pit bull.” The law was unanimously approved by the city’s Human Services Committee. Legislation of this kind is sorely needed, as landlord-imposed pet restrictions in the United States are widespread. This negatively impacts adoptions, increases relinquishment, causes homelessness (for people and animals), and results in wasteful expenditures as renters must pay a premium for housing that allows their animal companions. 

In other news: No more excuses, no more compromises, no more killing. What is a dog worth? California to ban octopus farming. California to also ban rodenticides. Antisemitism in the animal rights movement. Happy birthday to the “Great Meddler.” 

These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:

No more excuses, no more compromises, no more killing

Last week, after I posted about neglect and abuse at New York City Animal Care & Control (NYCACC), I received criticism from apologists of the pound. Citing the applicable animal cruelty code sections, I wrote that,

New York City taxpayers spent $75 million on a new shelter in Queens. And yet the animals are still neglected by staff, languishing in bloody cages with open sores, caked in fecal matter, with no access to fresh water. It is not only a disgrace; it is a crime.

In response, a few critics wrote to excuse the neglect by arguing that NYCACC needed more money, more volunteers, or fewer people to surrender animals. It isn’t true. New York City is the largest metropolis in the U.S., with 8,486,000 residents. The per capita intake rate is only 0.3 dogs and 0.5 cats per 1,000 people, a fraction of the national average. The U.S. average is about ten dogs and cats per 1,000 people — 20 times the New York City rate — and shelters with even higher intake rates have 99% placement rates.

New York City also has the largest adoption market in the nation, is located in the center of our nation’s wealth (along with California and Texas), has higher per capita revenues than every city in the U.S. except San Francisco, and partners with the ASPCA, one of the wealthiest animal charities in the world. In 2021, the ASPCA had $390 million in revenue and $575 million in assets, including $310 million in investments and $105 million in savings. When it comes to paying for programs to find adoptive homes, the sky’s the limit in New York City.

The problem isn’t volunteers, money, or anything else. It is that the city refuses to run the pound competently and compassionately. But even if it needed greater resources, that would not excuse staff neglect, abuse, and killing of animals.

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What is a dog worth?

A court case in Brooklyn is aiming to change New York State law’s view on whether pets, including dogs, should be considered more than just property…

Although many may consider dogs to be beloved members of their family, under New York State law, pets are considered personal property. Lawyers… battled it out in the Kings County Supreme Court as to whether the law should be updated.

The case stems from an allegedly negligent driver striking and killing a family’s dog. But the same is true of pets killed by veterinary malpractice, tainted pet food, or because of uncaring and dysfunction at a regressive pound. In all these circumstances, defendants have argued that the courts should rely on 19th-century case law that held animals were mere property, “analogous, in law, to a… table or lamp.”