BAN GAS CHAMBERS IN THE U.S.!

What is gas chamber euthanasia?  

Euthanasia is supposed to translate to painless death but dying in a gas chamber is anything but that.

Gas chambers are made of cinderblocks or metal.  Inside these chambers, animals are slowly asphyxiated by poisonous carbon monoxide until they finally succumb to death.  The process isn't pretty it typically includes gagging, gasping for breath, vomiting, defecating, fighting/biting other animals, animals beating their heads against the chamber walls and clawing the sides of the chamber to escape. 

Does the gas chamber effectively kill the animals inside of it?

Some states have laws which mandate that puppies, sick, injured, or older animals are to be spared from the gas chamber since these animals have impaired or underdeveloped lungs and it takes longer for them to die this way, which prolongs their suffering.  However, most shelters gas these animals anyway... 

Many animals survive the first round of gassing, only to be put back in with the second group of animals to repeat the process. Some shelter personnel have admitted to breaking kittens' and puppies' necks with shovels or drowning animals in buckets of water when they would not die from the gassing.  Undercover footage has also shown animals being thrown against walls and beaten..  

If the gas chamber is cruel to animals and unsafe for people too--shouldn't it be illegal?

We think so!  What they're doing to our animals is the same as what Hitler did to people during the Holocaust.  Even convicted rapists and murderers who are put to death are granted a painless lethal injection, not tortured in a gas chamber.

Sadly, there is no legislation prohibiting our pets from being gassed in most states..some of the states that still allow gassing are New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Nebraska, and Michigan.  Of all of the United States, there are only 14 with legislative restrictions regarding the gassing of our companion animals.

You can see a list of the states and their specific restrictions here:

http://animallawcoalition.com/gas-chambers/article/729

In North Carolina alone there are 32 shelters that still utilize gas chambers as their primary euthanasia method.  If you want to feel sick to your stomach, you can view this document:

http://www.epi.state.nc.us/epi/vet/pdf/snreport2007dogscats.pdf which shows the number of animals euthanized in the state during 2007 (2008 statistics are not yet available).  They don't show a "grand total" on that list but we added it up by hand and it comes to...... 218,350 animals.  That's 218,350 animals that were killed simply because they were homeless....and North Carolina is just one state....