100 Healthy Sled Dogs Gruesomely Executed after Vancouver Olympics
source: http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRNeHD1GHGDzhSIrjYgvO3_0EaNPinUC_x6dJZo4imOe9T3vBQ4
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- EthicalVegan
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After mass dog slaughter, stressed man files workers' comp
February 1st, 2011
11:28 AM ET
An animal welfare group is investigating the execution of 100 healthy sled dogs in Vancouver, British Columbia, after tour business got slow following the Olympics, according to Canadian news reports.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is investigating the animal cruelty allegations after a Howling Dog Tours general manager filed a claim with the provincial workers' compensation board saying he suffered post-traumatic stress after slaughtering the dogs in a two-day cull.
The claim says the dogs were killed in front of each other, causing them to panic and attack the worker, The Vancouver Sun reported.
“By the end, he was covered in blood,” the review board wrote January 25, confirming the worker’s claim. “When he finished, he cleared up the mess, filled in the mass grave and tried to bury the memories as deeply as he could.”
Attorney Corey Steinberg told Vancouver radio station CNKW that his client either shot or slashed the throats of the canines.
“It wasn’t always a clean, one-shot kill,” Steinberg said. “Inevitably, (the employee) ended up seeing and having to put the end to some horrific scenes.”
Marcy Moriarty of the British Columbia SPCA told the station she was most disturbed by the “description where he notes that one of the dogs he thought had been killed was crawling around in this mass grave. ... Honestly, I had to put down the story then.”
The employee, who was compensated for his claim and no longer manages Howling Dog, sought treatment for depression, panic attacks and nightmares five days after the killings, The Sun reported.
Steinberg told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that his client tried to find adoptive homes for the animals, but when that failed, he and company executives agreed to euthanize the oldest and sickest dogs. The Sun, however, said the workers' compensation report claimed a veterinarian was contacted but refused to kill healthy animals.
“He just wanted the greatest happiness for the greatest number of dogs," Steinberg told CBC. "He had to choose: Do I keep 200 dogs and make their lives great, or do I stick here with the 300 that I have?”
Moriarty countered that “blowing off half of the dog’s head while it ran off” – as one of the executions was described in the worker’s compensation report – did not constitute euthanasia.
She further told The Sun she isn’t moved by the manager’s claim that he named the dogs and had “developed a strong emotional bond of mutual love.” She added, “I don’t feel sorry for this guy for one minute.”
“I’ve no doubt he has suffered post-traumatic stress, but there’s a thing called choice,” she said. “I absolutely would not have done this, and he could have said no.”
The Vancouver Olympics closed February 28, 2010, and Canadian Employment Law Today reported that the company decided to kill the dogs - reportedly a third of its kennels - when business dropped off.
Twitter users have homed their sights on Outdoor Adventures Whistler, which had a financial stake in the company but didn’t take operational control until May 2010, a month after the incident.
“Outdooradventures has the guts to shoot captive animals, do you?” read one.
Another said she “Is truly ashamed to live in Vancouver because of these dog slaughterings taken place in Whistler. I never want to go back there. Idiots.”
Outdoor Adventures, which also offers snowmobile, snowshoe and horseback excursion in Whistler, issued a statement saying it was aware of the “relocation and euthanization” of the Howling Dog animals but was “completely unaware of the details of the incident” before reading a report Sunday.
Spokesman Graham Aldcroft said in the statement that there are no longer firearms on the site, and in the future, sled dogs will be euthanized in a veterinarian’s office.
Tourism Whistler, which has marketed the company’s dog-sled tours for six years, told The Sun that it has suspended dog-sledding reservations for the company and is offering refunds to anyone who has booked a tour.
On Monday morning, Outdoor Adventures was still advertising dog-sled tours on its website, saying that its “lengthened tour means more time with the puppies.”
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- tags:
- Animal Rights, animal cruelty, Tourism, Animal Abuse, 50 more
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Chrisstie_Flanigan
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Does anyone know what he his punishment was?
- 4 months ago
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Chrisstie_Flanigan
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EthicalVegan
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Chrisstie_Flanigan:
I haven't had time to do a follow-up, so would greatly appreciate if you would do so, and then post the information here. Thanks in advance!
- 4 months ago
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EthicalVegan
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Rebekah_Bourlier
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This is disgusting. Outdoor Adventures needs shut down. That is not humanely euthanizing. That is murder. These dogs were not even sick. I have 2 huskies myself and when I read this, It made me want to vomit. Any employee involved with that decision needs jail time. It's all about money.
- 1 year ago
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Rebekah_Bourlier
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Lillian_Henry
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Can I sic my neighbor's dogs on this guy? It's the most humane thing he deserves.
- 1 year ago
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Lillian_Henry
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Avika
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"and in the future, sled dogs will be euthanized in a veterinarian’s office" WHY, WHY DO THEY NEED TO BE EUTHANIZED?
- 1 year ago
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Avika
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EthicalVegan
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Avika:
Isn't it effing INFURIATING???!?!?!?
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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bailey78
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How can anyone with an once of self-respect do that to a dog or any animal as far as that goes? They need to be put in jail at the very least. An ass kicking is more inline with what they need.
- 1 year ago
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bailey78
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Ian_Judge_Lord
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if there were any justice or sense of right or wrong in the world, or much less in the universe,
then none of the people
(i hesitate to refer to people so utterly lacking any sense of morals or ethics whatsoever as being able to be considered "human" under any reasonable, logical, or rational definition of the term)
NO ONE
involved in any way, shape, or form in the carrying out of this genocide
not those who ordered it, not those who gave the commands, not those who sold the weapons, not those who bought the weapons, not those who carried out the orders, and not those who did the murdering
would survive to be left alive
they would wake up dead
they would come home one day (preferably better sooner rather than later) and they would just be gonei refuse to even speculate on the possibility of compounding more killing on the top of this atrocity
if there were any justice in the universe, the people in question would simply BE dead
blood boiling, flesh-devouring parisitic fungus, weakened decalcified bone structures compound fracture splintering into internal organs, acidic blood dissolving circulatory vessels, explosive decompression of interior body cavities, pressurized air blowing out extremities and appendages
i would never will any person to kill anyone else,
but by slaughtering beings and entities infinitely by far and away more intelligent and wise than any of those "human" beings could ever dream of hoping to be in their wildest fantasies
these people have more than earned for themselves the most excruciatingly agonizing and painful demise and death, (preferably after having been alone, ostracized, isolated, impoverished, destitute, and lonely) any human mind could ever possibly conceive of to imagineas they have, with their actions, quite thoroughly and explicitly, with resounding finality, sacrificed and forfeited any claim they ever might have had of the right to the privilege of continuing persist to continue "living" and existing on this planet earth.
- 1 year ago
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Ian_Judge_Lord
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EthicalVegan
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Ian_Judge_Lord:
And... several articles report that, IN THE FUTURE, these "leftover" dogs will be "HUMANELY" (?!?!?!?) euthanized.
HUMANE euthanization should be done (for any and ALL living species, including stupid humans) ONLY when they are already terminal, or in a helpless/hopeless MEDICAL condition. I've been through it a few times with loved ones, and it is a deeply serious decision to be made.
Just because a dog -- or, as obviously shall be the case repeatedly in the future -- dogs don't "serve" their purpose as slaves to humans, doesn't mean they should then be killed. Maybe stopping breeding them would help. And, of course, maybe not using dogs for entertainment would help.
The whole thing sucks.
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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EthicalVegan
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12331024
BBC...
31 January 2011 Last updated at 21:22 ET
Canada police investigate 100 husky deaths
Sled dogs pull tourists during a tour run by Outdoor Adventures in the Soo Valley north of Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, on Monday, Jan. 31, 2011. The dogs were reportedly used to pull tourists' sleds during the 2010 Winter Olympics
Canadian police are investigating the reported killing of 100 huskies which had been used to pull tourist sleds in the ski resort of Whistler.
An animal rights group claims the dogs were killed inhumanely by an outdoor adventure company and thrown into a mass grave.
Local media reports say business slumped after the 2010 Winter Olympics and the dogs were no longer needed.
The company could not be reached for comment.
"We've opened a police file and assigned an investigator," Police Sergeant Steve LeClair told AFP.
'The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in British Columbia, alleged that an Outdoor Adventures employee was told to cull the dogs in April last year.
Manager of animal cruelty investigations, Marcie Moriarty, claimed that some dogs were shot, while others had their throats slit. The bodies were then thrown into a mass grave.
The killings came to light after the employee who did the culling was compensated for post-traumatic stress disorder afterwards, AFP news agency reports.
The employee's personal injury lawyer, Cory Steinberg, told news radio station CKNW: "It wasn't always a clean, one-shot kill. Inevitably he ended up seeing and having to put the end to some horrific scenes."
The company had reportedly expected an expansion in its sledging business after the Olympics, but it failed to materialise.
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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EthicalVegan
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/world/americas/02dogs.html?hp
The New York Times
February 1, 2011
Canadians Outraged at Dog KillingsBy IAN AUSTEN
OTTAWA — During the Winter Olympics last year, the main attractions in Whistler, British Columbia, were the skiing and sliding events. But tourists looking for something different could also book dog sled rides pulled by teams of “energetic and lovable Alaskan racing huskies.”
The rides were suspended this week after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and animal welfare authorities in British Columbia said they were investigating what they described as an “execution style” shooting of as many as 100 dogs that took place after a business slump in the weeks after the Olympics ended.
Gruesome details of the killings surfaced Monday when a Vancouver radio station, CKNW, obtained a copy of a confidential decision by a workplace compensation board granting compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder to an employee who killed the dogs.
Both the killings and the compensation have outraged many Canadians and, according to the police, prompted serious threats against the company that operated the tours, Outdoor Adventures at Whistler.
“I see a lot of unpleasant things in my job,” said Marcie Moriarty, the general manager of cruelty investigations at the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is leading the investigation. “But I had to put this document down a few times before I could get through the whole thing. It’s a horror story.”
The report is a review of an earlier decision denying compensation to the employee, who is not identified. The Workplace Compensation Board of British Columbia, citing privacy laws, would not give information about the worker or his settlement.
The dogs were owned by Howling Dogs Tours Whistler, a company controlled by Outdoor Adventures. Ms. Moriarty said that her inspectors had investigated other complaints about Howling Dogs’ treatment of its animals over the past few years. In the period leading up to the Olympics, she added, the company expanded its operations, moving to Whistler from a smaller town.
Exactly what prompted the killings in April is not clear from the report.
Ms. Moriarty speculated that without the Olympic tourists, Howling Dogs found that it could not afford to carry 300 animals. Graham Aldcroft, the director of operations for Outdoor Adventures, denied that was the case in an e-mail, but he did not offer another explanation.
According to the report, a veterinarian refused to kill healthy dogs. Attempts to find them other homes were unsuccessful. Ms. Moriarty said that because sled dogs usually spend their entire lives outdoors, primarily in the company of other animals, they “are not highly adoptable.”
The killing went on for two days, and several of the deaths were grisly, the compensation board’s report said. When an initial shot failed to kill a dog that was the mother of the employee’s family pet, she ran around with her “cheek blown off and her eye hanging out” until she was felled by a rifle with a scope, according to the report. The bullet also penetrated another dog, which was not supposed to be part of the kill and which suffered for about 15 minutes before dying.
Another dog, left for dead for 20 minutes, emerged from a mass grave only to be shot again, the report said. The employee said he eventually wrapped his arms in foam padding after the frightened dogs began attacking him.
Under Canadian criminal law it is not illegal to kill dogs using a gun, provided it is done without undue suffering. Ms. Moriarty’s officers may dig up the mass grave after the spring thaw.
Outdoor Adventures said in a statement that it had known about the cull, “but it was our expectation that it was done in a proper, legal and humane manner.” The company said that it learned otherwise only on Friday, when it received a copy of the compensation board’s report. The company said that new policies were introduced several months ago to prevent another mass shooting.
The man who shot the dogs remains an employee, the company said.
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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EthicalVegan
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http://yourlife.usatoday.com/pets/pawprintpost/post/2011/02/dog-lovers-shocked-a...
USA Today...
Feb 01, 2011
Dog lovers shocked at slaughter: weigh in
One after one the dogs were shot and left in a mass grave. Horrific images are coming out of Canada. Columnists are writing about the slaughter of 100 sled dogs, officials are saying they are sickened, and animal lovers cry why.
This gruesome event was described in documents awarding compensation to a worker who claimed post-traumatic stress disorder after having to shoot the dogs. Some were badly maimed, writhing in pain, and dumped in a mass grave near Whistler, Canada, after bookings dropped for a tour operator following the 2010 Winter Olympics. No work, doggies, no life.
Both the B.C. SPCA and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating the slaughter. The man raised the dogs himself and named them, one report says.
One columnist asks why didn't he say" Hell, no." There are so many things wrong on so many levels and blaming anyone person is too easy, but come on. You tell us.
[Click on above link to see comments]
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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EthicalVegan
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http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/mutts/blog/2011/02/sled_dogs_executed_d...
The Baltimore Sun...
February 1, 2011
Sled dogs executed during slow season
Animal advocates in Canada and around the world are appalled to learn that a tour company in Whistler, British Columbia, executed 100 dogs last year, apparently because business was slow.
According to the Vancouver Sun, last April a worker at a firm called Outdoor Adventures was ordered to shoot 100 sled dogs "execution style" because they weren't being used "due to a slow winter season." The Vancouver Sun obtained confidential workers comp reports detailing the slaughter -- the man who had to kill the dogs claimed he was traumatized by it and was seeking compensation.
"We're horrified," Connie Arsenault, owner of Snowy Owl Dog Sledding Adventure Tours, told the paper. "Those dogs didn't deserve that. I don't understand why that person would even follow through on instructions like that."
The British Columbia SPCA is investigating the incident as a criminal matter, Metro Vancouver reports. That paper also details the anxiety some dogs experienced as they realized what was happening -- how some of them tried to run away, how others didn't die at first and had to be shot again.
“It’s a horrible, horrible case,” SPCA spokesperson Lorie Chortyk told Metro Vancouver. “The description in the WorkSafe report is one of the most sickening things I’ve ever read.”
Photo: Dogs compete during the Quebec Winter Carnival dog sled race in the streets of the Old Quebec in Quebec City January 29, 2011. REUTERS/Mathieu Belanger
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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EthicalVegan
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http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2011/02/01/17113231.html
Toronto Sun...
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
News Canada
Details of gruesome dog slaughter emerge
By BOB MACKIN, QMI Agency
Last Updated: February 1, 2011 2:18pm
VANCOUVER — The WorkSafeBC review that awarded a man compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder details the gruesome slaughter of 100 healthy huskies near Whistler, but it doesn't answer the key question of who ordered the massacre.
"On April 21 and 23, 2010, he was tasked to cull the employer's herd by approximately 100 dogs,” Allan Wotherspoon's review says. "A veterinarian was contacted but refused to euthanize healthy animals. Attempts were made to adopt out the dogs with only limited success."
Dogs were shot in the head, but didn't die instantly. Others had their throats slit. The man was covered in blood.
"He had been given a job to finish and did not want to prolong the suffering and anxiety of the whole kennel population. He stated that he felt numb."
Five days after the killing, the man sought professional help and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress. An Oct. 3 clinical assessment found he was suffering from panic attacks, nightmares, sleep disturbance, anger, irritability and depressed mood.
The original claim for compensation was denied because it "did not arise out of a sudden and unexpected traumatic event.” Wotherspoon overturned the original decision on Jan. 25.
The worker had previously killed dogs one at a time for reasons such as old age or disease and under the supervision of a veterinarian.
"The worker had also been treated in late 2009 for euthanizing a number of dogs," according to a clinical counsellor's notes referenced in the report.
The seven-page report doesn't specifically say business declined after the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but it does say the cull occurred "due to a slow winter season.”
On Monday, Outdoor Adventures Whistler admitted it had a financial interest in Howling Dog Sled Tours, but didn't order the cull or take operational control until May 2010.
Whistler RCMP are assisting a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-led investigation. Tourism Whistler has stopped selling OAW dogsledding packages.
Meanwhile, a publishing company in Brantford, Ont., has received threatening e-mails and phone calls because it has a similar name to Outdoor Adventures Whistler.
Outdoor Adventure Canada and its publisher GJ Studios are "in no way involved or affiliated with the dog sled tour company Outdoor Adventures Whistler," the company said in a statement Tuesday. "Outdoor Adventure Canada is an online magazine that specializes in backpacking, paddling and general backcountry travel."
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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EthicalVegan
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http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/news/huskies-shot-and-stabbed-to-death-after-...
Herald Sun...
100 huskies shot and stabbed to death after tourism slump
* From: The Daily Telegraph
* February 02, 2011 6:29AM
Picture: AFP Source: AFP* Tour operator hit by post-Olympics slump
* Injured dogs tried to crawl out of grave
* "It wasn't always a clean, one-shot kill"these?The slaughter of the huskies only came to light after the worker who killed them claimed compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder.
ONE hundred husky dogs were slaughtered after the 2010 Winter Olympics because they were no longer needed to pull tourist sleds at a Canadian ski resort.
The killings were reportedly carried out over two days in April by one worker with a shotgun and a knife, with reports of injured dogs crawling out of a mass grave.
The dogs were killed because business slumped in the two months after the Games and they were no longer needed by tourism companies Outdoor Adventures and Howling Dogs, which sell dog-sled rides to tourists, reports said.
"We've opened a police file and assigned an investigator," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Staff Sergeant Steve LeClair said.
The case came to light on Monday after the worker claimed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of killing the dogs and was reportedly awarded compensation.
Marcie Moriarty of the Society for Prevention of Animal Cruelty, the lead agency in the investigation, said: "The way he describes [in the board's report] multiple shots and faces blown off and coming back on a second day is gruesome. The way this employee describes it, it's a massacre. These dogs were killed in front of other dogs that were all tied up."
The man's personal injury lawyer Cory Steinberg said: "It wasn't always a clean, one-shot kill. He ended up seeing and having to put the end to some horrific scenes."
A spokeswoman for the law firm refused to comment on the criminal investigation and Outdoor Adventures did not return repeated calls.
The company's website, with photos of huskies and sleds, continues to advertise dog sled rides.
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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EthicalVegan
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http://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/59842/Sled-dog-cull-shocks-horrifies
Kastenet.net News...
Kelowna News
Photo contributed: SPCA
Sled dog cull shocks, horrifies
by Daniel Hayduk - Story: 59842
Jan 31, 2011 / 1:45 pmThe inhumane slaughter of 100 sled dogs in Whistler has prompted a strong local reaction.
"My immediate reactions is shock, horror. I don't think you have to be a dog loving person to be horrified by this," says Michael J Ballingall, Vice President of Big White, which offers dog sled tours.
While acknowledging that financial issues may have been a contributing factor to the cull, Ballingall says he doesn't understand what would drive an operator to inhumanely slaughter their dogs.
"The operators love their dogs, dogs are family to the operators and to many members of the community. It is a business but it is a lifestyle first."
Ballingall says more should have been done to find new homes for the desirable dogs.
"They're beautiful dogs. If they are working sled dogs they are amazing, smart and good character dogs. The problem is they are dead."
Kelowna SPCA Branch Manager Sabrina Fedorak says she was mortified when she heard the news.
"It is so disappointing to see this type of cruelty happening in our society. In many of the cases some of the dogs were shot more than once or had their throat slashed and were dumped into what is begin described as sort of a mass grave -- some of them still alive," says Fedorak.
Fedorak says the SPCA was not contacted by the owner of the dogs prior to making the decision to slaughter them.
"We need to be notified of such problems or issues prior to making such inhumane decisions."
The BC SPCA has now launched a cruelty investigation and is working with the RCMP to resolve the matter and will potentially lay charges.
It is speculated that the dogs were specifically bred for an Olympic tourism boom, and instead became a financial burden.
Fedorak says anyone with unwanted animals should call the SPCA for help.
"There's a lot of different options. Call us and let us know what your situation is. We're here as a resource to the public."
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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EthicalVegan
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http://www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1355160
CKNW News...
Dog slaughter update
Whistler/CKNW980AM1/31/2011
The BC SPCA says it is working with Whistler RCMP to get warrants for the full Worksafe BC report on the worker who was recently granted compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder.
From those documents they hope to be able to find the location of the alleged mass grave - but because of snow and ground freeze, will likely need to bring in excavators later in the week. - 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
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EthicalVegan
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http://www.straight.com/article-370972/vancouver/outrage-brewing-online-over-rep...
Straight.com (Vancouver)...
Outrage brewing online over report of mass dog slaughter in B.C.
By Stephen Thomson, February 1, 2011
A Facebook page titled "Boycotting Outdoor Adventures in BC, Whistler" has received support from more than 14,000 users of the social-networking site.
The B.C. SPCA recently launched an investigation after learning through a WorkSafe B.C. report that 100 dogs owned by a sled-tour operator in Whistler were allegedly killed in a mass slaughter.
According to the animal-welfare agency, the incident took place over two days in April 2010 and followed a slump in post-Winter Olympic business.
Comments on the Facebook page convey a mix of anger and disbelief over the incident.
A site user identified as Doug Martell posted a comment saying: “I still can't believe that this can happen....there must have been another way to foster these poor dogs other than killing them.”
Another user, Karie Hill, wrote: “I am so upset. Every time I look in my dogs eyes I wonder how anyone could do that....I am so mad!!”
“I was beside myself yesterday when I heard about this on the noon news,” Nancy Messere wrote. “I cried and cried, and I cried myself to sleep.”
The company Outdoor Adventures Whistler has reportedly said it had a financial interest for years in Howling Dog Tours Whistler, where the cull allegedly took place, but did not take operational control until May 2010.
Outdoor Adventures has also said it was aware the dogs were to be euthanized, but expected the killing to be done legally and humanely.
http://blog.ratestogo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/sled-dogs.jpg
- 1 year ago
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EthicalVegan
