A dog-sled company in Whistler, British Columbia, ordered the killing of 100 dogs in April, 2010, when bookings for adventure tourism slumped after the Olympic Games.
Vancouver radio station CKNW obtained documents revealing that 100 healthy sled dogs were killed in a mass slaughter at Outdoor Adventures Whistler last April 21 and 23.
If that wasn't bad enough, the story actually gets worse. From
CKNW: (Warning - this is pretty gruesome reading.)
Worksafe BC documents obtained by CKNW say an employee has been granted compensation after developing post traumatic stress disorder for having to kill the dogs himself over a two day period.
Lawyer Cory Steinberg says the employee "..... ended up having to do it...I guess the only way to describe it was "near misses". It wasn't always a clean, one-shot kill. Inevitably he ended up seeing and having to put the end to some horrific scenes."
Steinberg speaks on behalf of the worker who doesn't want to be named.
In most cases dogs were shot more than once, or had their throats slashed before they were pitched into what is described in the documents as a mass grave. Some were still alive.%u2028
The company didn't contest the Worksafe injury claim. In fact, they even made a correction, where the worker stated he had killed 70 dogs, the company corrected and wrote he had actually killed 100.According to CKNW, Mary Moriarty, the head of cruelty investigations at the BC SPCA says they are launching an investigation, after reviewing the Worksafe BC file. She adds that it's a dirty secret of the industry that so many dogs are bred purely out of greed.
Moriarty says there appear to have been breaches of the
animal cruelty act in the cull and criminal charges are a possibility.
Well, yes. A brief reading of Canada's Animal Cruelty Act states that there is zero tolerance for animal cruelty.
It's hardly surprising that the Outdoor Adventures employee suffered post traumatic stress disorder and is entitled to compensation, but there is no way to grant compensation to those dogs.
Let's hope this heartless organization is prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and that we never have to read about such cruelty again.
We the undersigned are saddened and disheartened that this atrocity happened. We request that the individuals involved are punished for their actions.
Please do not let these dogs deaths be for nothing. Instead, let it help bring change to the animal cruelty laws in this country. We ask you to charge them with an indictable offense.
Thank you
