Editor, News-Register:

The Marshall County Animal Shelter’s decision to eliminate essential safeguards — such as background and veterinary checks — puts animals at grave risk.

This change was apparently made at the behest of Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS), a multimillion-dollar Utah-based group that pressures shelters nationwide to adopt reckless policies aimed at meeting arbitrary “no-kill” targets.

In Indianapolis, a BFAS partner shelter fired two employees for trying to prevent convicted abusers from adopting animals. The facility had started conducting criminal background checks after adopters hanged, stabbed, and tortured a dog named Deron to death just days after adopting him.

But BFAS urged the shelter to stop screening adopters, and management agreed. According to a former employee, “They argued that going to any home, no matter who it’s with … is better than being in the shelter.” The employee resumed background checks after discovering that a dog named Champagne had been adopted by a couple with five prior cruelty or abandonment violations. But when shelter management found out, they fired her.

Rushing animals out of shelters, into unvetted situations, doesn’t save them–it betrays them. The humane way to address animal homelessness is by preventing more births, through passing and enforcing comprehensive spay/neuter legislation and offering low- and no-cost sterilization services.

Teresa Chagrin       

Animal Care and Control Issues Manager,       

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals        

Norfolk, Virginia