Cumberland Co Animal Services in NC is offering a new service: shooting stray dogs with crossbows. Veterinarian John Lauby is director of Animal Services and says, although his ACOs haven’t used the crossbow on any dogs yet, they might use it in “extreme circumstances”.
Lauby said pack dogs are wily and can’t be caught, trapped or tranquilized. They are able to slip away before tranquilizer darts take effect and can’t be found once they do, he said.
Most encounters with pack dogs occur in neighborhoods at night, when the dogs are active, Lauby said.
Shotguns and rifles can’t be used safely in residential areas because of the danger of ricochets.
But shooting a crossbow in a neighborhood in the dark is what – safe?
Since Dr. Lauby appears to have already ruled out catching, trapping, tranquilizing and shooting the packs of dogs, I wondered how the crossbow could be described as a “weapon of last resort”. What are the county’s preferred methods for removing the stray dogs? In order to have a “last resort”, you have to have a list of preferred options that must be exhausted first. So what’s on this list? I asked both the county manager and the shelter this very question yesterday but haven’t received any replies. If I do, I will update this post.
The story has been picked up by the AP so perhaps public pressure will force the county to come to their senses on this issue.
Thanks to everyone who sent me links about this story.
Gross! I sent an email to the head honcho of that County. Gave him my thoughts. Be constructive, if you do. But seriously, where is this place if they have “packs of wild dogs” roaming around? There’s that many? Are they in South America? Wait until one of these baffoons shoots a child at night with his new crossbow out in a neighborhood on the hunt for these pack of wild dogs.
Watch out…Packs of Wild Dogs will be arriving your neighborhood soon!
No Kill Sonoma County
Hahaha–South America. Nope–American South. They’re in NC. Land of roaming wild dogs and tame kitties on chokepoles.
And it’s not just the dogs….cats too! Sick bastards!
How stupid. Tranquilizer darts works well to catch wildlife including bears which are much larger. How can one see at night, plus one must be very experienced to shot a crossbow and even then the danger of just injuring an animal is great.So now we will have an injured dog running around in pain and fearful of humans. Does NC and SC have idiots running their state. Fox sometimes wonder into residential neighborhods and are trapped to bring them back to the wilderness. NC needs to bring in some experienced Vets and people who know how to deal with this.
Hot off the press….(yeah!)
Animal Services abandons plan to use crossbow
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2011/04/06/1084509?sac=Local
From the article:
“I’ve removed the crossbow from the arsenal,” Dr. John Lauby said this afternoon.
Instead, he said he will be discussing other options in a teleconference with Kim Alboum, state director for the Humane Society of the United States.
Oh swell. I suppose “Drop them off at a gassing facility” will now be moved to the top of the list.
Thank GOODNESS there was enough public outcry over this entirely stupid idea! (and I totally missed that they planned on using it on cats as well…we all know how those feral cats like to attack humans!)
Something that jumped out at me in the article is Lauby talking about people feeding these dogs…he says that it makes them harder to catch – but I would think that would be the perfect way to catch them. If they are use to being fed at certain locations then using live traps would be the perfect option. DUH!
In no way am I defending CCAC and I am not a fan of HSUS either, I just saw the article and thought I’d give an update.
This county-run animal control received donated pet food from fans attending the last local hockey team game a few weeks. I’d like to know why they need food donated. What are our taxes going towards, other than Dr. Lauby’s $97,000 salary.
Sadly in 2010, your taxes went to fund the killing of more than 9000 pets at the shelter (79% of the total dogs and cats they took in).
79%!! That leaves me speechless.
What’s worse is that Fayetteville (the main city in Cumberland County) is a finalist to receive an All-America City Award.
Wouldn’t it be easier and safer to shoot the dog with a friggin tazer? What happens when someone’s pet gets out and they ‘think’ it is a stray from the pack and shoot it with the dang crossbow? “Opps, we’re sorry thought it was a a dog that was from one of those wild packs running loose.” What happened to using live traps? And, while I get that you can shoot a dog with a tranquilizer and it can run off…why don’t they have tracking dogs to hunt them down? It would quite possibly lead them straight to the ‘den’ and they’d be better able to handle controlling the population of wild packs of dogs IF they knew where the den was located.
And now we have an ACO group that has access to a crossbow – and in one of the articles it says that the guys have already used it on one dog – although no one will admit to it. Is this going to be another Chesterfield only with crossbows instead of guns & metal pipes? Seriously though, there are other methods that can be used – sure they may require more time & effort on the part of the ACO’s but wouldn’t they be more humane for the animals, reduce the risk of shooting someone’s pet, and keep these people from looking like backwards hicks that have nothing better to do than use wild dogs as target pratice? I understand that these dogs can ‘possibly’ be a danger to public safety…but in all the years that they have had wild dogs there has only been “at least” 1 incident of someone getting bit.
When the director says that the crossbow “which will be used if necessary to avert an attack on a person by a stray dog, said Dr. John Lauby, director of Animal Services.” – that makes me think that it should and will ONLY be used if someone is in danger of being attacked, but given the entire situation I highly doubt that is the ONLY reason that it will be used. Plus, when talking about an animal attacking a person it seems that they will be putting the person’s life in danger by using the crossbow…and you can never detect which dog(s) will engage people and attack them just because they are running wild in a pack. This is just strange….
This is insane and so very disturbing. Memphis will probably be next to implement this genius idea.
Sent an e-mail to Dr. Lauby thanking him for deciding not to shoot roaming feral dogs with crossbows and inviting him to look into the modern humane methods described here:
http://feraldog.wordpress.com/
Hope he’ll do that instead of shooting, poisoning or using lethal or non-humane trapping methods.
What troubled me about the article in the local paper was that the whistleblower thought shooting (with a gun) was humane.
Oy vey. IMHO, not. Not even at point blank range. The accounts coming out of Chesterfield, SC didn’t sound humane to me.
The horror story of the sled dog massacre in Whistler, BC didn’t either. You’d have to be a crack shot to hit a running feral dog at all, much less kill one quickly and “humanely.”
Ima go out on a limb here and take a guess that these guys all consider themselves to be sniper quality shooters.
I think he should be forced to resign his position as ‘director of animal services’…what a freakin joke he is! He obviously doesnt have the mentality and good sense to hold his title and he damn sure dont deserve it…Please get that sick SOB out of there! im am appalled and sickened! And i have no confidence whatsoever in animal services at this point if they would even consider this as an ‘option’. It is very disturbing to say the least!
Perhaps someone should direct these idjits to Randy Grim and St Louis Stray Rescue? I’m certain the hot dog trick and some kind words would work much better than killing them! Honestly, words fail.