The 2016 session of the General Assembly promises an explosion of bills and focus on animal welfare issues in our state. This is a reflection of the struggle that has been going on in recent years over progress. The struggle is between the worn out, brutal, old style approach of massive intake and massive killing of homeless animals, with little effort put into proactive programs to help keep pets in homes, and the progressive organizations whose groundbreaking work in recent years has produced remarkable strides statewide in reducing the killing of innocent healthy and treatable animals. The side of the traditionalists who cannot stop clinging to the tragic ways of the past is lead by PETA and their mouthpiece Virginia Alliance of Animal Shelters (“VAAS”), a loose association whose membership is undisclosed. Many people are surprised that PETA is the linchpin of the effort to retard progress in the life-saving of companion animals and an aggressive advocate of euthanasia of dogs and cats. The reasons for that betrayal of their mission must be saved for another post but the fact remains that they are spending massive amounts of time, money and effort this year seeking to reverse the successes that have been achieved in our state for companion animals.
PETA is an extreme outlier among Virginia private shelters. While PETA’s killing rate of dogs and cats is nearly 90 percent year after year, the combined rate of loss of companion animal life for all other private shelters in Virginia is 2 percent. Even when you combine the rate for all shelters and rescue groups of every sort in Virginia, it is still only 23 percent. This reflects the enormous progress that has been made in recent year in reducing loss of life of dogs and cats through progressive approaches and programming of which PETA and VAAS have not been a part. They continue to fight the progress and mislead the public into thinking that progress is not possible.
Delegate Bobby Orrock has introduced three bills seeking to protect PETA’s way of operating and reversing the transparency that last year’s passage of SB 1381 would achieve for the state’s neediest animals were it allowed to be enforced.
HB 156 and HB 340 would eviscerate SB 1381 by allowing private shelters to be operated solely for the purpose of killing animals with no requirement that they have even a partial purpose of finding adoptive homes. HB 156 goes even further by also removing any requirement that a private shelter even house or contain companion animals. Yep, you might want to read that last sentence again it is so shocking.
Orrock’s bills benefit no private organization in our state but PETA since it is the only private organization in the state that is not already fully in compliance with the adoption purpose standard of SB 1381 and because nearly all the others have made clear their strong support for SB 1381. The way HB 156 and 340 benefit PETA is that, if it can meet this revised and very loose definition of a private animal shelter, then it can have non-veterinarians use controlled drugs to kill animals. These bills are a cynical attempt to grant PETA the right to continue killing thousands of animals every year without any brake that the required involvement of a professional veterinarian would provide.
HB 157 is an effort to prevent the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs from being able to enforce the law that has resulted from the passage last year of SB 1381 through the creation and use of a guidance document for enforcement. It would again benefit a sole organization, PETA, which is the only one previously called a private animal shelter that does not have the purpose to adopt, and the fact that they have no such purpose is confirmed by their extreme efforts to fight enforcement of this law. HB 157 would have grave unintended consequences impacting the 3,204 guidance documents in various state agencies just to keep PETA happy.
PETA’s power, wealth and influence at work are frightening to watch, and we will be seeing them displayed in the General Assembly this session. They are pulling out all the stops to ensure that they continue to be able to take the lives of innocent animals without any restraint. We need your help to keep them from doing this and to retain and move forward our immense strides in life saving we have achieved together. Please call or email your delegate to the General Assembly now and let him or her know that you want him or her to oppose HB 156, 157 and 340 and ask that he or she convey this opposition to Delegate Orrock. The animals’ lives depend on it.
Taking Action
It is best that you write to your delegate in your own words, and you can find his or her email and phone number at http://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/ by entering your home address. Should you wish to use the message below as a template, please personalize it and include the address at which you are registered to vote.
Dear Delegate [NAME],
I am writing as a resident of your district to ask that you oppose three pieces of legislation that will be detrimental to the welfare of homeless animals in the Commonwealth. House bills 156, 157 and 340 would undo the progress made in the 2015 session when SB 1381 became law. Now the Commonwealth’s definition matches the common-sense expectation that animal shelters would operate with the purpose of finding permanent adoptive homes for animals.
Only one private animal shelter in the state does not operate with that purpose, and undermining SB 1381 is solely of benefit to PETA. While the law was created last year with overwhelming bipartisan support, HB 157 aims to stop VDACS from using a guidance document to enforce it. HB 156 and HB 340 would allow a private shelter to operate only for the purpose of killing animals, which defies the very concept of a shelter as a safe place for the homeless.
I respectfully ask that you oppose HB 156, 157, and 340 and that you convey to Del. Orrock your opposition to the bills he has patroned.
Sincerely,
[Your name and home address]
Robin Robertson Starr is the chief executive officer of the Richmond SPCA. To read her biography or that of our other bloggers, please click here. Before posting a comment, please review our comment guidelines. Please note that our comment policy requires both your first and last name to be used as your screen name.
It appears this bill has not yet made it out of committe and I do not see the Agriculture committee's agenda posted on the legislative website as of yet. I will be contacting my Delegate to oppose this, but it would be wonderful if we could keep this from leaving committee. Has anyone seen a statement from Delegate Orrock on his intentions with these bills? I could not find any mention from him on his thoughts in sponsoring them.
Posted by: Bonny Moore | January 13, 2016 at 12:50 PM
Well said Robin. Private shelters should be required to make legitimate attempts to find homes for animals, not to simply be a factory for euthanizing animals. I emailed my delegate (Mr. Lee Ware) on this topic - we unfortunately had opposing views last go around and he voted nay to SB1381. I am hoping that both he and some of the other delegates that did not support SB1381 initially will reject these bills from Mr. Orrock.
Posted by: Rich Terrell | January 13, 2016 at 01:21 PM
Hi Bonny,
This is the opening day of the General Assembly, so there has been no action from committees at this stage. Please continue expressing your views to Del. Ware, regardless of his past positions, he should hear from his constituents on this.
We have not seen a statement from Del. Orrock, but you might consider posing that to him on his Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/delegateorrock/?fref=ts
Thank you for your comment and your advocacy on this issue.
Tabitha Treloar
Director of Advancement
Posted by: Tabitha Treloar | January 13, 2016 at 01:42 PM