Animal shelter accused of freezing animals to death

A worker at an animal shelter in southern Indiana has blown the whistle on a practice of freezing injured or sick animals as a form of euthanasia.

Bridget Woodson, who worked for the Spencer County Animal Shelter said she was asked by animal control officers to put alive kittens in a plastic bag and then into a freezer to kill them. She spoke to the Courier & Press that she quit working at the shelter and showed screenshots of a text exchange she had with an animal control officer.

Woodson’s texts showed that the officer wrote “the freezer is no less humane” than euthanasia.

The agency overseeing the Spencer County Animal Control Shelter in Chrisney, IN says it has now adopted new policies and procedures.

The Spencer County Animal Control Board released a statement Tuesday, August 14, days after a former shelter employee came forward with the allegations.

In the statement, sent through a law firm, the Spencer County Animal Control Board said

The mission of the shelter is to provide a facility for humane care and treatment of stray and unwanted domesticated animals…The Board acknowledges that actions have occurred that are fundamentally opposed to that mission.”

Woodson said shelter employees and volunteers are not trained professionals who are licensed to determine death or perform any kind of euthanasia whatsoever.

The “slow chilling or freezing of unanesthetized animals” is an unacceptable form of euthanasia, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals.

The Spencer County Sheriff’s Office turned the investigation over to the prosecutor’s office due to a potential conflict of interest. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Thomas Pulley declined to comment on the case.

h/t: Tristate Homepage.com 

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Peg Fong is also in recovery from newspapers

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