Animal task force shows claws

Guard dogs on commercial properties would be outlawed, towns could not legally stop people from feeding feral cats and a medical diagnosis would be required to euthanize an animal.

Police would be trained to perform CPR on injured cats and dogs, and they would be the front line in animal abuse probes. Special teams of county prosecutors also would be created to handle the cases, much like they already do for child abuse, sex offenses and major crimes.

These are just a few reforms being proposed by leaders of Gov. James E. McGreevey's Animal Welfare Task Force, a group charged with overhauling the way New Jersey handles animal welfare issues.

The nearly 200 pages of draft recommendations, obtained by The Star-Ledger, are still under review by the full 30-member task force, and with McGreevey due to leave office Nov. 15, it is unclear whether any action will be taken on the task force recommendations.

Still, the proposals already are causing a stir within the task force itself and among animal control officers and town officials who would be charged with taking more responsibility for animal welfare.

"We're supposed to do this while solving crimes and handling homeland security? I'm concerned. I'm already 20 officers down from what I should be," said Dover Township Police Chief Michael Mastronardy, who just ended his term as president of the New Jersey Association of Police Chiefs.

"We would never be able to provide the (animal) services to the degree that these people would expect," he added.

McGreevey appointed the task force in February 2003 to recommend improved ways to monitor shelters, investigate animal cruelty and deal with euthanizing strays. Currently, animal control and shelters are handled by a fragmented network of private and public agencies with little state oversight from the Department of Health and Senior Services.

"It's in draft form, not in final form," said Micah Rasmussen, a McGreevey spokesman. "We want to wait until the task force does something with it or we have it."

Judith Leiberman, task force chairwoman and a counselor to the governor, did not return telephone calls to her office.

As it stands, the report suggests sweeping changes in how towns, pet owners and animal shelter operations deal with animals.

For example, every town would be forced to hire a trained abuse investigator as well as require its police to be newly trained in all aspects of animal abuse prosecution and detection as they assume the job of responding to animal abuse calls. The SPCA, created more than 100 years ago to investigate animal abuse, would essentially be sidelined and county sheriffs would be required to become central record-keepers on abuse cases.

Overall, the report recommends creating a new animal protection system, funded in part by increased license fees, primarily to care for the more than 120,000 stray animals picked up annually from New Jersey streets.

While traditional spay and neuter programs would be increased, towns would be stopped from rounding up feral cat colonies or preventing people from keeping large groups of animals. Overcrowded shelters would not be able to euthanize unwanted animals except for medical reasons, and the report recommends building more shelters through government and private cooperation.

"What they want is obviously unrealistic," said Roseann Trezza, executive director of the Associated Humane Societies, the largest private animal shelter operation in the state with three shelters and a zoo. "In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to euthanize any animal. But in reality, people do not want to adopt many animals we find and the job of animal protectors is not to merely prolong life, but to relieve suffering," said Trezza.

"I think many of the ideas being proposed are good ideas, but there are a few that are causing concerns and we are addressing them with individual task force member responses to the draft," said Nina Austenberg, a task force member and head of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office of the Humane Society of the United States.

"They have no assimilation with reality here. The people who came up with this seem to be all from just one end of the equation. We want to help cats and dogs, but maybe we should concentrate on enforcing the laws and improving the things already in place," said William Dressel, executive director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities.

Part of the ongoing controversy surrounding the task force was the hiring of two task force leaders by the Department of Health and Senior Services to lead a new Office of Animal Welfare back in June. Without any notice to the task force, Cheryl Maccaroni and Gwyn Sondike started their new jobs this past summer.

Task force member Stu Goldman, an SPCA agent, said the two are among those authoring the final report and now recommending giving the new office widespread authority over animal issues. Goldman said yesterday he is resigning from the task force, claiming he and other members were ignored during their deliberations.

Health Commissioner Clifton Lacy declined comment yesterday on the draft report through a spokeswoman. But he previously defended the creation of the new Office of Animal Welfare, explaining it was needed to revive mandated shelter inspections and enforce requirements that animal control officers be certified.

The task force report justified sidelining the SPCA because of a State Commission of Investigation report that revealed widespread mismanagement in individual county SPCAs and no oversight by the state chapter.

http://www.state.nj.us/sci/pdf/spca.pdf

Excerpt:

The Honorable Reginald Stanton, J.S.C., recognized, but refrained from ruling on, the issue of the constitutionality of the statutory scheme. His comments are compelling:

"The powers granted under the various statutes [regarding the enforcement of the animal cruelty laws, adoption of a common badge, making of arrests and carrying of weapons] are significant law enforcement powers. It is important to note that all of the members of the state society and the county societies are self-selected. They are simply private persons who are interested in protecting animals. They are not selected by the public. They are not subject to managerial control by any public. They are not subject to managerial control by any public officials. They are not subject to any publicly imposed training standards or discipline.

At an early stage in this litigation, it occurred to me that the broad grant of powers to the state society and to the county societies might involve an unconstitutional delegation of governmental powers to the private persons...

...Although I have serious misgivings about the wisdom of granting extensive law enforcement powers to private persons, there is, of course, a vital difference between what I might view as an unwise legislative policy and an unconstituional policy. Furthermore, the record in this action is particularly ill-suited for making a sound adjudication on the issue of possible unconstitutionality of the statutory scheme. I have decided to refrain from any ruling on constitutional issues in this case."

When I read threads like this, some things come to mind.

New Jersey surpasses all states in teenage abortion rate and in embryonic stem cell research and cloning and McGreevey and Codey, Catholics, and the rest of the Kooks in the Legislature want to elevate animals created by G-d for us to eat over which we have dominion to the stature of humans which are created in G-d's image and likeness! In a state where SPCA officials charged Frank Balun of Hillside, NJ, for killing a RAT! while the unborn are slaughtered daily ; we are sliding into moral relativism. It's just more left-wing, liberal democrat incrementalism eating away at our liberties and rationality. I'm hoping that now that the newspapers are aware of this and will be printing stories, things will be scaled down or stopped.

On Atheistic Communism, DIVINI REDEMPTORIS, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI ON ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM MARCH 19, 1937

9. The doctrine of modern Communism, which is often concealed under the most seductive trappings, is in substance based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism previously advocated by Marx, of which the theoricians of bolshevism claim to possess the only genuine interpretation. According to this doctrine there is in the world only one reality, matter, the blind forces of which evolve into plant, animal and man. Even human society is nothing but a phenomenon and form of matter, evolving in the same way. By a law of inexorable necessity and through a perpetual conflict of forces, matter moves towards the final synthesis of a classless society. In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life.

10. Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse.

27. Man has a spiritual and immortal soul. He is a person, marvelously endowed by his Creator with gifts of body and mind

In 1973 two things happened:

1. The Endangered Species Act was enacted where animals, trees and scum in rain puddles became protected under law.

2. Roe vs. Wade where 9 mortals, allowed it to be made possible for Humanity to slaughter, burn, aspirate and sever Human Babies, created in God's image and likeness. Since then, humanity, and the USA, spiraled in a downward trend.

Touch a turtle egg or its nest, Canadian goose or a spotted OWL and get a yr. in jail and a $50K fine, and don't cut down certain trees or fill in that puddle! abort a child, get paid $750.00. And we wonder why there is NO respect for HUMAN life created in God's image.

This is why we need to inculcate a culture of life in our society in general and in churches and schools (starting in kindergarten) . People tend to think of children as disposable items.

A pro-life education Program

It's a grievous sin that animals and turtle eggs are afforded more protections and rights than a human fetus and baby created in God's Image with a soul.

Genesis 9:3
Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants.

Man:
Kill the humans (abortion) and save the Bears, the spotted owls, the Canadian Geese and the whales and don't crack that turtle egg!! And Give CPR to that dog and cat!

You can get fined up to $10,000 for messing with those eggs and baby-killing physicians get paid government and private money $$$ to kill humans! Go figure.

The Endangered Species Act of 1973

The Endangered Species Act of 1973
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT OF 1973
Penalties and Enforcement

The number of species listed (plants and animals, NOT humans) as threatened or endangered
Species Information
Threatened and Endangered Animals and Plants
10 FALLACIES IN THE ABORTION DEBATE
The Endangered Species Program

Page 4 Sec 3 (c)(8) don't crack those eggs, one might end the "life" of a bird, fish or turtle. I guess certain "mammals" (humans) do not apply.

Science and the ESA

The Govt. recognizes that a fertilized egg from an animal is "alive" and protected by LAW (The Endangered Species Act of 1973) and when an "alive" person created in God's image is growing and living in his mother, he's termed and given the moniker of just a blob of "unlive" or not-living protoplasm or tissue which can be aspirated if it's the mother's "choice" to do so with no protections under the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for EVERY careless word they have spoken."--Jesus (Matt. 12:36)

In Florida, women dying in bed (Terri Schiavo) have less rights than turtle eggs! (FL Law 370, US ESA of 1973)

turtle sign

Another task force recommendation would ban chaining or tethering dogs for any reason.

A lot is wrong with this proposal, but I thought I'd demonstrate a single case of how stupid this is.

Tethering a dog is a time-honored and proven training tool in cases where a dog has aquired a destructive behavior. For example, if the dog is killing chickens, then tether the dog next to a rotting chicken wired to about 24 VDC once a day for about an hour over two weeks. Then replace the wired dead chicken with a live one on a non-conductive mat. Then tie the chicken down and put the dog on a leash and try to pull him toward the chicken to build aversion. The dog will quit eating chickens.

Variations on the technique have also been used successfully to teach aggressive dogs to leave children alone. It's a lot better than destroying an otherwise good animal, or burying a dead or maimed kid. Done correctly, there's nothing inhumane about it.

Feel-good rules with no knowledge of or accountability for the consequences.

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Take a stand and help with homeless pet overpopulation...
...and protect your property against unwanted 'inspections' by Eco-nuts,
NGOs and OTHER trespassers, at the same time!

...Adopt!

...and give an unemployed Shepard a HOME, and a great JOB(!)...TODAY!

Take a stand and help with homeless pet overpopulation... ...and protect your property against unwanted 'inspections' by Eco-nuts, NGOs and OTHER trespassers, at the same time!

...Adopt!

...and give an unemployed Shepard a HOME, and a great JOB(!)...TODAY!

Take a stand and help with homeless pet overpopulation...
...and protect your property against unwanted 'inspections' by Eco-nuts,
NGOs and OTHER trespassers, at the same time!