The second part of the local Fox affiliate’s investigation into the Atlanta Humane Society aired last night. Reporter Randy Travis delivered another outstanding piece, this time looking at where AHS gets its animals. With 50,000 pets killed each year in Atlanta area pounds, there surely is a need to get animals pulled from these places and rehomed. Despite a claim on the AHS website which leads people to believe that its animals are local pets in need, Mr. Travis found out that AHS pulls only 7% of its pets from metro pounds. It gets most of its pets from other states and even the Bahamas.
Remember the VP of Operations, Richard “Look – a puppy!” Rice, from the last report? He’s in this one too – well, his back, mostly. Mr. Travis learned that Richard Rice was taking trips to New Orleans regularly to supervise the transfer of pets from shelters there to his facility. Donors give nearly $4 million a year to AHS and those donations presumably paid for these N’awlins junkets. Mr. Rice is reportedly on administrative leave right now, pending an internal investigation at AHS. I suppose donors are picking up the tab for that too. After AHS gets done playing Mardi Gras and investigating itself (Gee, I wonder what the result will be?), maybe it can pull some pets off death row at the local pound. I mean, if there’s any money left over.
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