Lifesaver

A Conversation with Nathan Winograd

Nathan J. Winograd, a graduate of Stanford Law School, has spoken nationally and internationally on animal sheltering issues, has written animal protection legislation at the state and national level, and has turned urban and rural communities into “no kill” zones. Nathan‘s book, Redemption, has won five national book awards.

Friends of Animals sponsored a workshop led by Winograd in Montcalm County, Michigan on June 6, 2009. This interview was conducted in July.

FoA: Nathan, youcurrently run the national No Kill Advocacy Center, a national organization dedicated to ending the systematic killing of animals in shelters. How did you get into this work?

I have been involved in animal rescue my whole life. My mother was an avid cat rescuer. And so when I went off to college and then law school, it grew from there. The really big defining moment for me occurred when I was a first-year law student living on campus. One morning, I heard a woman calling to cats in that high-pitched baby voice we often use when talking to animals. I looked out my window and saw all these cats coming out of the bushes, and I went downstairs to find out what she was doing. She told me about the work faculty, staff, and students were doing to protect the campus cats and the history of how they fought the university’s plans to have the cats killed. They turned to the local humane society, naively thinking that saving these cats was within their humane mission. But the Humane Society of Santa Clara Valley sided with the university.

Their argument? The cats were “wild” or “unsocialized,” and better off dead -- even though they lived in a largely wooded campus, in a good climate, with plenty of shelter, and people willing to care for them. So the group turned to the Humane Society of the United States, the nation’s largest animal-welfare group, for support. And this organization also concluded that the cats should be killed.

So the concerned people banded together. They began trapping, sterilizing and releasing the cats back to their habitats on campus. They set up feeding stations around the university. They built make-shift shelters. The Stanford Cat Network was born.

From a population of 1,500 (estimated by the university), there are now less than 50 cats remaining -- and none were killed.

“Euthanasia” is a word that’s misused frequently—when, for instance, a healthy animal is killed to make room for other animals. What are your thoughts?

Webster’s dictionary defines euthanasia as “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.” Using the term “euthanasia” when a shelter is killing for population control -- because it has run out of cages, because a community has not budgeted adequate funding for the local shelter, or because the shelter is opposed to progressive programs -- is misleading and incorrect.

The killing in these cases has nothing to do with the animals being “hopelessly sick or injured.” Euphemisms like euthanasia or “putting them to sleep” obscure the gravity of what we are doing to cats and dogs as a society, and make the task of killing easier.

But even using the term to describe the killing of hopelessly ill or injured animals is ethically problematic. The reality is that while fewer than 10 percent of shelter animals may not be healthy or treatable, the vast majority of those are not suffering. Not only are some “unadoptable” animals living without pain, they enjoy a good quality of life and can continue to do so.

Thus, No Kill advocates work to ensure that healthy animals, animals with treatable medical conditions, and feral animals are no longer killed in shelters.

The ethical quandaries surrounding killing dogs who are aggressive but can lead happy lives in sanctuaries where they cannot harm the public, or whether we’re carrying out true euthanasia for hopelessly ill animals in shelters rather than giving them hospice care, will become paramount. The idea of killing at all is being challenged by a small but growing movement of sanctuaries and hospice care groups. That these issues have not yet been rigorously debated within the movement does not mean they shouldn’t be.

I’ve struggled with this very recently. Two members of our family died recently of cancer. We lost our cat, Gina, to squamous cell carcinoma. And we lost an uncle, Stephen, to lung cancer. Both were surrounded by people committed to minimizing any pain or discomfort during the last weeks of their life. Both were surrounded by the people they loved and who loved them when they died. But their deaths could not have been more different. Only Steve was allowed to die naturally. I faced a new dilemma which we haven’t really fully debated as a society or as a movement, although more and more compassionate people are asking those questions. And some of them have been asking them for a very long time.

I was lucky enough to attend your No Kill Conference held in May 2009. I left with one heavy question: Why isn’t every shelter No Kill? What’s standing in the way?

A couple of years ago, the Humane Society of the United States conference held a workshop on shelter killing, where the so-called expert giving the seminar stated:

We’re not, we’re not killing them… “kill” is such a negative connotation. It’s… we’re not KILLING them. We are taking their life, we are ending their life, we are giving them a good death, we’re humanely destroying — whatever. But we’re NOT KILLING.

After a century of having humane societies perform the pound work for their municipalities, we live in a nation where the organizations founded to save animals are instead killing them. We live in a nation where the very institutions that should be attacking the lethal paradigm are instead defending it. We live in a nation where the very institutions that should be challenging anti-animal laws are enforcing them. And we live in a nation where the SPCAs and humane societies, which should be unequivocal advocates for lifesaving, are instead fighting those who are.

How did we come to be a movement that embraces the Orwellian logic that killing is not killing, that killing is kindness? The short answer is a failure of leadership among the national animal welfare groups such as the ASPCA and HSUS, a crisis of uncaring among shelter managers, unfettered discretion to avoid putting in place the programs and services that save lives, and the built-in excuse of pet overpopulation.

You’ve challenged the claim that No Kill is pie-in-the-sky idealism. Why haven’t more people done so?

Too many people think the groups they turn to for guidance – those with the word “humane” or “ethical” in their names - are staffed by committed animal lovers who would leave no stone unturned if it held out the promise than an animal could be saved, rather than killed. And sadly, for groups like the Humane Society of the United States and PETA, nothing could be further from the truth. For them, death is often the first choice, not the last.

The average American is far more progressive about dogs and cats than every animal welfare and animal rights organization in the United States, with rare exception. Friends of Animals is one of those rare exceptions.

Collectively, we spend over 45 billion dollars annually on our animals; giving to animal-related charities is the fastest growing segment of American philanthropy; and No Kill is on the agenda of local governments nationwide because people are demanding it. But at the end of the day, it is not about how much we spend, how many animals share our homes, or even about what we seek.

The achievement of No Kill requires forcing shelters to reflect our values. Until recently, the large, wealthy, and entrenched animal-welfare organizations have successfully dominated the national discussion, and they have misused their power to falsely claim that animals are being killed because of the public demand for this, despite shelters trying their very best

PETA frames the killing they do in a sheltering context, but this is about an agency which seeks out animals to kill. This is about the creation of death squads that actively go into communities with the specific purpose of finding dogs and cats to kill. And this is about a movement that has utterly failed to defend the innocent animals being slaughtered. Since 1998, PETA has killed over 20,000 animals, over 90 percent of the animals they take in yearly. That an agency which purports to promote the rights of animals is instead seeking animals to kill is not only shocking and cruel; it makes no logical sense.

To believe the calculus they offer as an excuse for their nefarious actions, we have to believe that there are too many animals and not enough homes; we have to believe that there are animals too unlovable to be adopted. And these claims are ugly and false.

From poor customer service, to filthy facilities, from a lack of the programs which help save lives to rampant uncaring, shelters are needlessly killing animals. And, in the case of PETA, they aren’t even really trying to find homes despite a $30 million annual budget and millions of members.

What can ordinary people—those of us who don’t work in sheltering—do to help advance the message of No Kill? How can we be effective advocates?

Most shelters have failed animals almost completely. And worse, these shelters are doing what they are doing in our name: they are doing it with our taxes, with our donations, as agencies representing us; and they are even blaming us (and our neighbors) for doing it by claiming they have no choice because of the public’s irresponsibility. And although we pick up the tab, we are not paying the ultimate price. That is being paid by the animals who are unfortunate enough to enter U.S. shelters and lose their lives.

The No Kill Advocacy Center recently did a multi-state study of rates of spending and lifesaving. The study showed that how much money a shelter spent did not correlate with how many lives they saved. There were shelters spending only $1.50 per community resident on animal control, saving better than 90 percent of all animals, and others spending $8.50 which killed 80 percent of all cats. The most important factor for lifesaving success was leadership. If the shelter’s director was committed to the No Kill philosophy and passionate about saving lives, the shelter succeeded. If a shelter director in your community is not, replace him or her with one who is. And you’ll know. Ask whether they are saving the vast majority of animals or killing them instead.

We need to personalize the needless slaughter. Let me put it this way: We have 3,500 or so shelter directors who are holding back the will of tens of millions of people. We need to reclaim these shelters.

Did you become vegan because of your work?

I’ve been a vegetarian for about 25 years and a vegan for nearly twenty. My spouse has been a vegetarian since she was 16 years old and then vegan since she was twenty. And my two kids who are now 13 years old and 9 years old have been vegan since birth. So, for me and my family, a deep love and respect for all animals has guided not only work, but are a part of our core values.

You just released the second edition of your book, Redemption. What changed in the No Kill movement between the first and second editions?

Not only has the book helped shift the national debate about killing; it is also playing a direct role in helping to transform communities. A shelter manager in Washington says the book completely changed her views and she is committing herself to saving all animals in her shelter. Another in Ohio reported that the book gave her the “conviction to move forward” with her No Kill ambitions. Yet another in Louisiana reported to her staff, “We’ve been doing it wrong, and we are going to start doing it right.”

After reading Redemption, county commissioners in an Indiana community succeeded in taking to No Kill a shelter that previously killed the vast majority of dogs and cats. As Redemption celebrates its continuing success, Tompkins County, New York, finished its seventh No Kill year; Charlottesville, Virginia, entered its third; and new communities like those in Reno, Nevada, entered the No Kill club. Other communities in other states have also embraced No Kill or are aggressively moving in that direction. No Kill is on the agenda of local governments nationwide as advocates in communities as diverse as Seattle, Washington, and Indianapolis, Indiana, are using Redemption and the model it advocates to force changes in the practices of local shelters.

There have been other notable changes as well. HSUS’ favorite misnomer -- “euthanasia” -- has lost its cache. Rescue groups and animal advocates have stopped using it and other euphemisms to describe the abhorrent practice of systematic shelter killing. People are more aware of widespread mistreatment of animals in shelters. And they are less tolerant of the poor care and the killing, the excuses built up over the decades to justify it, and the legitimacy that groups like HSUS give to it. This has put the large national humane groups on the defensive, trying to take credit for the decline in killing nationally even as they opposed and in some cases continue to oppose the programs responsible for it, and by softening their anti-No Kill positions.

After a “No Kill nation” is realized, what’s next?

Saving wildlife. I once went to a statewide meeting of the League of Conservation Voters in California. They ate salmon at a meeting about protecting endangered species, including salmon. So they are there because they claim to care about protecting salmon as a species, but couldn’t care less about the individual fish themselves. It’s hypocritical and it’s crazy. Their focus tends to be on saving “species” while ignoring the rights of individual animals to their lives and their habitat. We need to reorient the movement to basic principles which would stem from a moral foundation that placed the individual rights of each animals—regardless of their species or whether they are considered “endangered” or not—as paramount.

In addition, there are Sierra Club chapters that advocate the use of poisons and chemicals to kill. The Nature Conservancy has condoned the use of snare traps. Our national park system has campaigns of extermination. All in the name of protecting some other species or preserving habitats deemed more worthy.

Referred to as “garbage animals,” “alien” species, “weeds” and “vermin,” some creatures have become scapegoats for the massive habitat destruction, environmental degradation, and species extinction caused by one species and one species alone: humans. This is indefensible ethically and needs to stop.

The question these pseudo-environmentalists ask is, “Who was here first?” The important questions should be, “Who is alive now?” and “How can we protect and respect their rights?”