Okay,
@SigmatoZeta I can clearly see you were upset that night, but this is mixing apples and oranges. There a lot of us on this server who are fully aware of the problems of animal shelters. I could easily point out that almost all of them are overstretched for cash and always within a hair's breadth of bankruptcy or are using it to farm donations in an already alarmingly full world of things to donate to.
A lot of funding to large national shelters comes from corporations looking for tax write offs. From our current position we cannot do anything about the way shelter systems work. Veterinary supplies have been conglomerating for years and like other healthcare industries they are looking to increase the profit margin for investors. If you really want to drop veterinary care prices you need veterinary unions. If you want better animal shelters you need more funding for it as well as a healthy economy so that the typical american pet owner can actually keep their pet in good care, and you need an education system that allows for pet owners to get proper scientific evidence to base their pet care on.
I've done volunteer work at shelters, and believe me the experience of dealing with some of the most dunderheaded staff on the planet can make you really want to shut the whole thing down. The issue is they are all that's standing in the thin line of defense between the slaughter of capitalism and a stable home for hundreds of pets. They are staffed with minimum wage workers and volunteers. About 1/3 of animals that go into a shelter will die there if the last study I read on it was accurate.
Really though the issue of animal shelters and animal rescues has little to do directly with us as zoos. They are anti-zoo often enough but they generally just see the horror of what humans do to animals. I once worked with a horse covered from head to tail in whip lacerations or knife cuts, don't know which. They can't imagine the dreamy snuggle times that zoos have because it's been beaten out of them. Many animal rescue owners eventually adopt the belief that humans can't be trusted with animals in general. The belief in being opposed to pets as a concept is not uncommon in those areas. As zoos, we have the paradise they lost.
I am fully aware HSUS does terrible things. I know that in general most animal rescues I've seen are underequipped, understaffed, undertrained and underfunded. They are fundamentally though not our enemies. They lobby against things they do not understand. The path to hell is paved in the bricks of good intentions.
So what can we do? Find methods to make veterinary equipment cheaper. Find ways to make things at home for animal rescues that we can build for a fraction of the price they could buy it for. Find remote operated and automated methods of volunteering. A gift of an automatic water dish can keep on giving long after you have left, and saving labor time leads to better conditions. Offer project management advice, and share scientific studies on animal intelligence with friends and neighbors. Actions speak louder than words, and where there is suffering we must be the ones to answer the call to aide. So when the police shoot an innocent dog, be the first to demand justice. Know your local animal rescues, and try not to just blame, but fix.
It's no enough to just say you care about animals, you have to prove it to the world and yourself.
Then we need to join with the other groups that care, and build a strong united movement.
