Report on Berger Blanc

I’d rather not link to a Facebook article but this story is disturbing enough to do so.

I found via Livejournal a link to this well-written account of a visit to Berger Blanc, with which the city has a contract to collect stray animals in various parts of town.

Why so many of the cats in the shelter were being hidden from someone seeking a missing cat is a disturbing question. I don’t think anyone can reasonably expect a major city shelter to be no-kill, but the account given suggests that something unhealthy is going on out there if the company is making a profit off animals that are neither returned to their owners nor adopted out. There should be more motivation to reunite pets with owners or find new homes for healthy animals; there shouldn’t be the institutional paranoia as described in the post.

If indeed there is any doubt about its operations, questions must be asked of the city why it is doing business with a firm that would ship missing pets to labs for profit. Some journalist should be looking into this.

And yes, I believe pets matter. Our society has a lot of lonely corners in which a pet animal is the main source of emotional warmth for a person, and the city should not be associating itself with a business which profits from snatching pet animals off the streets, if that is indeed what’s going on with Berger Blanc.