That complies with signing of HB 107 by Governor Herbert. But the shelter had already indicated it was “cutting way down” on the proportionate number of animals sent to the university, says Animal Control Director Curtis Andersen.
“We had told the U we wanted to cut it way down, have other shelters participate,” he said even before the law took effect. Previously, only a couple shelters in the state, including one in Lindon, Utah County and the Davis County facility, participated, he said.
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), spoke favorably of the law’s passage and Davis County’s compliance.
“We congratulate the Utah Legislature for acting so quickly after our investigation to recognize that dogs and cats at animal shelters aren’t laboratory tools,” PETA vice president of laboratory investigations Kathy Guillermo said in a statement. “Now Utah’s public animal shelters should focus on what they’re supposed to do: providing a haven for lost and homeless dogs and cats.”
PETA conducted an eight-month long under cover investigation last year of dog and cat experiments at the university.
PETA officials said that “in the wake of the new law, Utah animal shelters are being urged to formally prohibit sale of animals to laboratories.” The statement said PETA “will be pushing for the university to stop purchasing cats and dogs from animal shelters once and for all.”
PETA said Utah had been one of only three states in the country “that still forced animal shelters to engage in this practice.”
“It (law) won’t change anything,” said Andersen. “They’ll (university) just get them from someplace else. It’s like supply and demand.”
In the meantime, Davis County is doing more to assure that dogs and cats are spayed and neutered, he said.
Rather than giving those who adopt animals a certificate they can use toward those procedures, the shelter’s surgical clinic is performing that before animals are adopted, Andersen emphasized.
“It’s been working out really well,” he said. In the past, about half of animals adopted weren’t spayed or neutered when coupons were offered.
“The shelter is a sanctuary,” Andersen said. “The animal doesn’t have a choice in the matter” of being taken for testing.
“We didn’t know how animals would be tested. Even though there was (theoretically) no pain involved,” there was the possibility they’d be kept in small cages, for example.
“It’s a tough ethical question. It was in the county’s best interest to discontinue it.”
The shelter scans animals for chip identification two or three times during their time there, he said.
As a part of the new law, animals will be held for at least five business days vs. three.
“We hold animals now sometimes two to three months if we can, unless we’re getting so full that we can’t,” Andersen said.
tbusselberg@davisclipper.com
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