Many of you remember lending your voices to the lost, stray, and abandoned animals of Yadkin County, North Carolina. Complaints about the county “shelter”—a dilapidated collection of cramped wire-and-wood cages with metal roofs offering little to no protection from the elements—have been flooding PETA’s headquarters for years. These animals still need your help.

PETA and many concerned citizens have attempted—in vain—to help Yadkin County improve the deplorable conditions at its shelter. In 1996, county officials rejected an offer to pay the difference in cost between intravenous injections (the most humane method of euthanasia) and the gas chamber. In May 2002, after receiving increased pressure from PETA and local residents, Yadkin County commissioners finally voted to put $75,000 toward the construction of a new shelter if the community could raise an additional $75,000. PETA offered to donate $15,000 toward the construction of the shelter if the county would ensure that certain humane standards were met. The commissioners never bothered to respond directly to PETA (but Commissioner Thomas Wooten had the audacity to tell the media that the offer was “not as much as [he] would have liked” and that each of PETA’s 750,000 members should be willing to donate $1! And in January 2003, commissioners turned down an offer by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to visit the shelter and make suggestions for improvements for free. Why? County Manager Cecil Wood told the local paper, the Elkin Tribune, “We’re already aware of the problems we have over there. We’re focusing on a new shelter.”

It is now nearly a year later, and nothing has changed for the needy animals in Yadkin County. Not only has a new shelter not been built, little if any effort is being made to find land to build it on, either! And the animals are paying the price, often with their lives.

Animals at the shelter are killed in a crude, windowless metal box pumped full of carbon monoxide. Even adequate carbon monoxide equipment can fail, subjecting fully conscious animals to the horror of watching and hearing others struggle and suffer as they succumb to the fumes. But makeshift chambers, like the one used by Yadkin County, are virtually guaranteed to subject animals to suffering and to a prolonged, agonizing death. PETA is told—and video footage confirms—that animals are crammed into the box one on top of another and that live animals are thrown in, layer after layer, on top of dead and dying ones. A shelter employee allegedly once bragged about being able to stuff more than 80 animals into the tiny “kill box” at once.

Yadkin County’s Annual Animal Control Report for January 1, 2003, through October 11, 2003, shows that out of 1,933 animals killed, only four puppies and four kittens were euthanized by a veterinarian. This means that the rest of the animals—including the old, young, and sick ones, who are particularly susceptible to gas-related trauma because they breathe and circulate oxygen and other gases differently than healthy adult animals—were crammed into and died inside the chamber that has been used to kill animals at the shelter for years. (News reports indicate that Yadkin County commissioners have spent nearly $7,000 on a new gas chamber, which they refuse to hook up until a new shelter is built. So the new chamber sits unused.)

Yadkin County budget reports for 2001 through 2003 show that not one cent was slated to be spent on training for the animal control staff or on veterinary fees. One complainant wrote to PETA to say that on one occasion, an adult dog had "a large flap of skin and muscle [lying] down over his left hip, exposing bone. He lay from Wednesday until Friday on kill day. He had numerous other wounds, and the hip injury was teeming with maggots." PETA's file on Yadkin County is full of similar heartbreaking accounts.

The General Statutes of North Carolina, specifically § 130A-192, state that impounded animals who are not reclaimed can only be destroyed by “a procedure approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Humane Society of the United States [HSUS], or … the American Humane Association [AHA].”

The AVMA panel states that “inhalant agents [should] not be used alone in animals less than 16 weeks old except to induce loss of consciousness, followed by the use of some other method to kill the animal.”

The HSUS states, “It is unacceptable to use [carbon monoxide] for the euthanasia of dogs and cats who are … [o]ld …; [u]nder the age of four months; [s]ick or injured; or ([o]bviously) pregnant.”

The AHA considers euthanasia by injection of sodium pentobarbital to be “the only acceptable method for euthanasia of dogs and cats in animal shelters” and states, “American Humane considers the use of any other lethal method for dogs and cats in animal shelters unacceptable, including use of carbon monoxide ...”

The AVMA also specifies in its panel that when carbon monoxide is used, the “chamber must be of the highest quality construction and should allow for separation of individual animals … [and] the chamber must be well lit and have view ports that allow personnel direct observation of animals …,” neither of which is followed by Yadkin County.

Moreover, Yadkin County has a mandatory kill policy, prohibiting adoptions, supposedly because of a fear of rabies. However, the county dedicates no resources to enforcing North Carolina law requiring that animals be vaccinated against rabies. The excuse? Money, which, of course, would be collected if violators of the state rabies law were fined as warranted!

Conditions for animals before they are destroyed are equally cruel. The rundown structure that animals are housed in offers little to no protection from harsh wind, freezing or scorching temperatures, rain, and snow and more often than not is covered in urine and feces. Small, weak animals are housed in cages with aggressive large animals, who bully the smaller animals and prevent them from eating or drinking. Food bowls are not used at the facility, so food is simply thrown on the ground, contaminated by feces, urine, dirt, and water, creating a disgusting health hazard for the animals. The water buckets provided for the animals appear to be too tall for small dogs to reach, and the water is often foul and black with mold and filth. Cats are forced to sit on wire in small cages.

On November 4, 2003, Yadkin County Humane Society President Alice Singh spoke to the House Interim Committee on the Prevention and Disposition of Unwanted and Abandoned Companion Animals in Raleigh—formed last August by the Honorable Speakers of the North Carolina House of Representatives to address the overpopulation crisis and related issues in the state—about dire conditions at the Yadkin County shelter. Singh shared with committee members heart-wrenching photos of the facility, and graphic video footage of gas killings shot in 1997 (the same gas box is still in use) by a North Carolina School of the Arts student. The following day, County Manager Cecil Wood advised humane society members that they were no longer welcome to use the county planning building for their monthly meetings as they had been doing for nine months. The humane society is the only hope that these animals have.

Please help. Commissioners must get their heads out of the sand and immediately improve the deplorable conditions that the animals have and continue to be subjected to right now. Construction of a shelter hasn’t even begun and won’t be completed overnight once it does. There’s a long list of simple things that the county can and must do to make the shelter comply with minimum national standards.

Please contact Yadkin County commissioners and urge them to stop shirking their legal, moral, and financial responsibilities to their county’s lost, abandoned, and unwanted animals. Ask that they provide these animals with the least they deserve: a painless, peaceful death administered by a licensed veterinarian at least until caring individuals can be trained. Please push for immediate improvements to be made at the current facility. Animals shouldn’t have to wait for fundraising and construction efforts before having their basic needs met.

Yadkin County Commissioners

Cecil Wood, County Manager
Yadkin County Commission
P.O. Box 146
Yadkinville, NC 27055
336-679-4200
336-679-6005 (fax)
cwood@yadkincounty.gov

G. Brent Hunter, Commissioner
Yadkin County Commission
1916 N. Oak Ridge Church Rd.
Yadkinville, NC 27055
336-468-2575

Johnny Myers, Commissioner
Yadkin County Commission
1208 Old Stage Rd.
Yadkinville, NC 27055
336-463-5572

Lloyd Davis, Commissioner
Yadkin County Commission
3521 Smitherman Rd.
East Bend, NC 27018
336-699-3147

D.C. Swain, Commissioner
Yadkin County Commission
2553 Swan Creek Rd.
Jonesville, NC 28642
336-835-5736

Roger Evans, Commissioner
6052 Aquilla Creek Rd.
East Bend, NC 27018
336-699-3261

Please keep all correspondence and calls polite. Thank you.

For more information on helping homeless animals, please click here and here.