Carbon Monoxide gassing was officially banned in Athens County yesterday.
It was a long six months but because of all the hard work people put into the campaign, the commissioners finally listened to us.
They hesitantly agreed to dismantle the chamber, but whether or not that will actually happen may still be up to debate. Big thanks to Les Cornwell for offering to pay out of his own pocket for the dismantling of the chamber.
We did it!
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Some shelters still use gas chambers to euthanize animals. My animal advocates group at my school is trying to ban gassing at the dog shelter here. We want the dog shelter to switch to euthanasia by injection with sodium pentobarbital. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians thinks that euthanasia by carbon monoxide is inhumane. There are many instances where the American Veterinary Medical Association deems CO gas inhumane, such as in sick, elderly, animals under 16 weeks of age, and pregnant animals. Shelter workers may not always be able to accurately evaluate an animal’s health or age making an inhumane euthanasia likely to occur.
Also, a certain concentration of CO must be reached to be effective, and if multiple animals are in a gas chamber it can take longer for loss of consciousness to occur causing animals to become anxious or agitated. According to the AVMA, any method of euthanasia that causes anxiety or agitation is inhumane.
It has also not been proven that the vocalizations and convulsions caused by carbon monoxide occur before loss of consciousness.
Here is a photo campaign that I did:
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