Pet Massacre In Puerto Rico

[Daisy and Delilah]

I just read this story and it's making me physically sick. How horrific!!

Pet Massacre in Puerto Rico
Published: 10/12/07, 9:05 PM EDT
By OMAR MARRERO
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them from a bridge to their deaths, authorities and witnesses said Friday.

Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter.

"This is an irresponsible, inhumane and shameful act," he told The Associated Press.

Fontanez said the city hired Animal Control Solution to clear three housing projects of pets after warning residents about a no-pet policy. He said the city paid $60 for every animal recovered and another $100 for each trip to a shelter in the San Juan suburb of Carolina.

Raids were conducted on Monday and Wednesday, and residents told TV reporters they saw the animal control workers inject the animals. When they asked what they were giving them, they said they were told it was a sedative for the drive to the shelter.

"They came as if it were a drug raid," said Alma Febus, an animal welfare activist. "They took away dogs, cats and whatever animal they could find. Some pets were taken away in front of children."

But instead of being taken to a shelter, the pets and strays were thrown 50 feet from a bridge in the neighboring town of Vega Baja, according to Fontanez, witnesses and activists, apparently before dawn Tuesday.

"Many were already dead when they threw them, but others were alive," said Jose Manuel Rivera, who lives next to the bridge. "Some of the animals managed to climb to the highway even though they were all battered, but about 50 animals remained there, dead."

Rivera said he alerted officials, who spread lime over the animals' corpses to control the stench.

Animal Control Solution owner Julio Diaz said he went to the bridge when he heard of the allegations, but remains unconvinced that the dead animals are the same ones his company collected.

"We have never thrown animals off any place. We always take them to our local shelter and euthanize them," he said. "They can't prove that they are the same dogs that we picked up."

Fontanez said he would cancel the city's contract with Animal Control Solution and said city lawyers were considering a lawsuit.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has a rule allowing locally owned and operated housing authorities to set pet rules, but it does not grant authority for a blanket ban or mass confiscation, said Brian Sullivan, an HUD spokesman in Washington.

Asked to comment on the reported pet massacre, Sullivan said: "This sickens me if true."

Animal rights activists have long criticized the treatment of pets in Puerto Rico, where there is no pet registration law and little spaying or neutering. Animal shelters are overwhelmed and must kill many of the dogs they receive, according to Victor Collazo, president of the island's Association of Medical Veterinarians.

One organization recruits volunteers to take dogs home with them on commercial flights, and sends between 1,500 and 2,000 dogs a year from Puerto Rico to American shelters.

At least 175 dogs have been rescued in the last couple of years from Yabucoa Beach, which activists nicknamed "Dead Dog Beach" because of the strays that roam the coast and are sometimes found dead of disease, starvation or gunshots. Similar rescue efforts have been undertaken in the Bahamas and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

___

Associated Press writer Ben Fox contributed to this story from San Juan.

[Nobas Mom]

I just read this and was about to post this... those poor animals, how sickening is this... RIP to those that went to the bridge...

[critter crazy]

I am speechless!!!

[Daisy and Delilah]

Yes. May they all Rest In Peace

[Lobodeb]

I was just about to post about this. How horrible.

To think that this terrible act was conceptualized and completed without anyone thinking that it might be wrong is just disgusting.

I can't imagine the fear of those poor innocent souls as they were falling and drowning.

God speed the bridge sweet babies!

[steel]

That sick story got to me.People like that are evil & deserve to be thrown off that bridge instead of those innocent dogs & cats.I have been to Puerto Rico & the animals are treated horribly.May they all RIP.

[pitc9]

Rip

[sumbirdy]

R.I.P.

[moosmom]

It's stories like this that make me thank God I rescued this beautiful creature!!



She, Maya Linn, her mom and brother were all rescued from a dumpster at the San Juan Airport in Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is known for their lack of animal control. Such a sad story.

[Catty1]

http://www.pr-inside.com/pet-owners-...ng-r245293.htm

Pet owners in Puerto Rican housing projects mourn dogs, cats thrown off bridge to their deaths

By MICHAEL MELIA - Associated Press Writer
© AP
2007-10-13 22:56:37 -

BARCELONETA, Puerto Rico (AP) - Elvia Tirado Polanco says she reluctantly handed over her black- and white-spotted mutt to animal control workers after they threatened that she would be evicted from her housing project for keeping a pet there.

The workers promised to take the small dog named «Lucero» _ or «Star» _ to a shelter. Days later, however, Tirado was horrified to learn that dozens of pets seized this week in Barceloneta on Puerto Rico's north coast were instead thrown to their deaths from a bridge.

«It was barbaric,» said Tirado, 56, who wept Saturday as she described caring for the seven-year-old dog. «This has been a really hard blow for all of us.

Several pet owners inside the Antonio Davila Freytes housing project, one of three raided by animal control workers Monday and Wednesday, said they had provided vaccinations and lavished care on the cats and dogs taken from their homes and killed with strays.

The government circulated a letter inside housing projects this month warning that violators of a no-pet policy would be evicted. Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez said the town ordered the removal of the pets, but he blamed the massacre on a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter.

Fontanez said he would cancel the city's contract with Puerto Rico-based Animal Control Solutions and that city lawyers were considering a lawsuit.
Company owner Julio Diaz said he went to the bridge when he heard of the allegations, but denied that the dead animals were the ones his company collected. He said he would present his records as proof to city authorities on Monday.

«I have the dead dogs in my facility,» he said Saturday. «I am a certified animal control officer. I have been doing this for nine years.

Puerto Rico's housing department has opened an investigation into who is responsible for the deaths, said Doris Gaetan, of the department's office of community relations. She said regulations in the U.S. Caribbean territory allow pets in government-funded housing projects if they are small and do not pose a risk to others.

«We do not support the way in which this was done,» Gaetan said during a visit to hear the accounts of pet owners at one of the complexes.

A local resident, Jose Manuel Rivera, used a backhoe to bury the bodies of about 50 animals Saturday in a mass grave near the bridge where they were dumped.

He discovered the animals around dawn Tuesday after hearing barking and whimpers from animals who survived the 50-foot fall. He recovered six injured dogs, who were reunited with their owners after they saw their pets on a television news broadcast.
«One had a broken spine, and about all of them had broken legs,» Rivera said.

Many of the pets inside the housing project were strays that were adopted by residents after wandering into the low-income neighborhood. Owners said they feel they are now paying the price for the neglect of others on an island with no pet registration law and little spaying or neutering.

«It is not our fault that they come here,» said Carmen Valle, 56, who said workers seized two of her dogs. «We are humble people, but we have good hearts. Animals should be treated with decency.

Tirado said she had cared for Lucero for seven years as if the dog were her child, feeding her from the plastic table in her cramped living room and letting her sleep beside her at night.

During the raids, she said workers surrounded the housing complex and prevented anyone from leaving with pets. But she said she wishes she had never let Lucero go.

«I have been crying so much I can barely sleep,» she said.

[Catty1]

http://www.boxer.dreamhost.com/

[momoffuzzyfaces]

This makes me sick. It makes me mad and it makes me cry!!!

One of the poor injured dogs they showed looks so much like a dog we had when I was growing up. He looked at the camera with big sad eyes like: please help me !

I could kick the ones who did this to kingdom come and back and not regret it a bit. I know more violence isn't the answer but we all have our little fantasies.

[cyber-sibes]

This is sickening. RIP, little ones.

[Catty1]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...t-Massacre.php

Investigation into Puerto Rico pet massacre zeros in on Animal Control Solutions
The Associated Press
Published: October 19, 2007


SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: An investigation into the mass killing of dogs and cats seized from Puerto Rican housing projects and thrown off a bridge has confirmed the involvement of an animal control company whose owner has denied any role in the massacre, police said Friday.

Several people from the town of Barceloneta identified their dogs from among animals found dead or injured beneath the highway bridge, Sgt. Wilbert Miranda told The Associated Press.

Miranda also said local veterinarians confirmed some of the animals were from the housing projects, where local authorities hired the contractor, Animal Control Services, to pick up dogs and cats to enforce a rule banning them from the projects.

"Below the bridge they found animals .... that were taken in Barceloneta," Miranda said in a telephone interview.

Julio Diaz, the owner of Animal Control Solutions, denied his workers disposed of the dogs and cats by hurling them off the bridge.

The animal cruelty investigation is ongoing and no arrests been made, Miranda said. Asked if the evidence points to Animal Control Solutions, he said: "That's the way it is, I can assure you."

Dozens of dead and wounded dogs and cats were found last week beneath the bridge a day after a mass round up of pets and strays at the housing complexes, prompting international outrage.

Pet owners say they were told their dogs and cats were to be taken by the company — which has animal control contracts throughout Puerto Rico — to a shelter. Edwin Arroyo, a special assistant to the mayor of Barceloneta, also said the Animal Control Services was supposed to deliver them to shelters.

But in an interview with reporters earlier this week, Diaz said the animals were taken to his offices in the San Juan area, killed and placed in refrigerators. He did not explain why the animals were euthanized so quickly.

Miranda said he went to the offices of Animal Control Solutions on Thursday as part of his investigation, couldn't find Diaz and instead encountered "an unbearable stench."

The company owner told AP late Thursday that after police visited, he removed the bodies of animals from the refrigerators and took them to a location he would not disclose to be cremated. Although animals seized at Barceloneta are the subject of a police investigation, Diaz told AP he got rid of the ones in his refrigerators because of the smell.

"The refrigerators fail overnight and they defrost," he told AP.

But Miranda said an employee of Animal Control Solutions had told him Diaz ordered the refrigerators turned off.

Puerto Rico's Environmental Quality Board said it is also investigating the company after Diaz said it routinely places animal carcasses in garbage dumps.

Board manager Julio Ivan Rodriguez told AP that a person must present a certificate showing the carcass is free of contagious diseases before the remains can be put in a garbage dump. Rodriguez said Animal Control Solutions has never presented such certificates.

"I cannot give more details because we are conducting an investigation," Rodriguez said.

Global anger grew at the animal deaths. The number of signatures on an online petition calling on Puerto Rico's governor to ensure those responsible for the pet massacre are brought to justice climbed to 10,000 on Friday.

Puerto Rico police chief Pedro Toledo has said those responsible could face cruelty charges that carry six-month to three-year prison terms.

[Catty1]

http://www.hardbeatnews.com/editor/R...=Top%20Stories

New Yorker Urges Puerto Rico Governor To Investigate Pet Massacre

Hardbeatnews, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Oct. 18, 2007: Reports of the horrific massacre of family pets in Puerto Rico last week has spurred a New York resident to launch a web-based petition to urge the island’s governor to launch a serious investigation.

“We are absolutely outraged to hear of the news about the horrific massacre of family pets in Puerto Rico as reported by the Associated Press on October 12, 2007,” writes Nadia Donato.

The site is a big hit already, registering over 6,000 signatures to the petition and showing up in independent search engine Alexa at a rank of 24,211.

“We call on The Honorable Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá, Governor of Puerto Rico to do everything in his power to see to it that this atrocity is not taken lightly,” states Donato on the site. “We demand a thorough investigation, vigorous prosecution and seek the maximum penalties of jail time and fines to those responsible for this most cruel and inhumane act of felony animal abuse offense as per Puerto Rico's statute cruelty law 439.”

According to the AP report of October 12th, animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them from a bridge to their deaths. Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter. The issue has outraged not just pet owners but also rights advocates globally.

On Donato’s site, Alba Solis of California, wrote, “It breaks my heart, to read that people can be so cruel.” Her comment encapsulates the views of the hundreds signing on to the site. – Hardbeatnews.com

PETITION LINK: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/pue...o-pet-massacre