Australia Executes Rescue Dogs Over Covid Fear

Can Mustafa Ozdemir via (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/) Flickr

Australians are executing dogs over fears that those who would come to pick the dogs up might catch or spread Covid-19, this is truly awful.

The dogs that were killed were rescue animals and were supposedly going to be sent home after completing a mission, officials in New South Wales decided that it would be safer to execute the animals instead of having someone travel to get them.

From the Sydney Morning Herald: 

Several impounded dogs due to be rescued by a shelter have instead been shot dead by a rural council in NSW under its interpretation of COVID-19 restrictions, alarming animal activists and prompting a government probe.

Bourke Shire Council, in the state’s north-west, killed the dogs to prevent volunteers at a Cobar-based animal shelter from travelling to pick up the animals last week, according to council’s watchdog, the Office of Local Government.

“OLG has been informed that the council decided to take this course of action to protect its employees and community, including vulnerable Aboriginal populations, from the risk of COVID-19 transmission,” a spokesman from the government agency said.

The spokesman said the agency was examining the circumstances of the incident to find out whether companion animal and cruelty prevention laws had been broken.

This news comes at a time where dogs are in need, many people carelessly picked up these animals during Covid-19 and returned them after things looked like they were opening up again. These dogs need homes, killing them for fear of Covid-19 is remarkably cruel.

Australia’s Covid-19 lockdown has been extreme, to say the least. The country has started quarantine areas for those traveling in and out of the country and these areas look like jails with slightly better conditions.