Campbelltown update – it’s still YOUR fault we kill

“Learn about pet care” Mayor Anoulack Chanthivong feels the community is to blame for Campbelltown pound’s enormously high kill rate.

Campbelltown pound is failing pets. A staggering 2,366 of their 2,593 unclaimed pets at its pound ended up dead last year. They have limited opening hours, refuse to work with rescue and release undesexed pets to the public.

But they have a solution; get the ‘irresponsible owners’!

The council, RSPCA NSW and the University of Sydney veterinary science faculty will launch the Community Animal Welfare Scheme tomorrow.

The scheme gives pensioners and low-income residents from selected suburbs a chance to learn about animal welfare and have their pets desexed at a reduced cost.

Participants will learn about their responsibilities as pet owners, humane treatment of animals and safety.

In fact, Campbelltown feels it has the big one-two; their community aren’t only irresponsible, they’re also stupid.

“They not only learn skills but also gain an understanding of the importance that pet desexing plays for animal and community welfare,” the university’s program co-ordinator, Christina Dart, said.

Of course, outreach desexing programs are a good idea and targeting these desexing programs to reach those pets most at risk is especially important. But here’s a tip – when your pound is killing 9 out of 10 unclaimed pets, the problem isn’t your community. This over-reliance on desexing as the magic bullet, ignores the real problems at Campbelltown – there’s something rotten at the pound.

The kicker is the mayor still doesn’t ‘get it’;

Mayor Anoulack Chanthivong said he hoped the program would decrease the number of strays that ended up in the council’s pound.

That *may* be a laudable aim – certainly the less pets going into the pound, the less the pound will be able to kill. However, with just 227 of the unclaimed pets leaving the facility alive last year, even with significant reductions in the number of strays, there will still be plenty of pets left at the mercy of those running this pet slaughterhouse. Hundreds – if not thousands – in fact.

Without strong action to revolutionise the long-term culture of killing – the recognition that the community is a resource, not just ‘the problem’ – and a declaration to lifesaving that includes details on how they will actually achieve their goals, pets will continue to be slaughtered en-mass at Campbelltown.