An Excellent Test

It also proves the point that eyewitness ID isn't always that great or reliable.

King Co. Animal Shelter--A Stinking Mess

The King County Council is holding a public hearing on April 14th about the deplorable shelter operations documented by an outside consultant. Per the consultant's report, these same systemic problems were occuring back in 1998. Despite increases in shelter operations budgets since then, conditions haven't improved, and are the same or worse than the last series of independent inspections.

Burnout of workers in animal care is fairly commonplace, especially in "kill" shelters. But there's apparently been no real recognition of the potential problems burnout can lead to by King County, so there's no system in place to minimize it, prevent it or deal with it.

So if you have staff or management working in an animal shelter who don't come from a mindset or a life philosophy that animals absolutely have basic rights and deserve our kindness and care, who don't feel personally responsible for the animals, and who aren't self-reflective and don't understand how humans can become uncaring and cruel because of burnout, then you have systemic disasters like what has been going on at the KCAC shelter.

In general I oppose privatization of public services, but in this case I conditionally support Councilman Bob Ferguson's call to privatize the shelter operations, as long as it is operated by a long-established animal welfare group such as the Humane Society or PAWS. These groups have the correct mindset towards animals, understand the challenges of shelter staff burnout, and know how to deal with it and keep it under control.

Among other things the consultant found:

1. Animals without food or water, sometimes for days.

2. Animals housed in filthy cages, not cleaned for days.

3. Numerous open cages while adoptable animals languished unseen in back rooms (note--KCAC has strict time limits on how long an animal is "adoptable" before it is euthanised).

4. Staff not following basics of santiary cleaning procedures or animal handling.

5. Staff not keeping accurate or complete, updated records.

6. Staff not cross-checking lost animal reports with shelter animals and not entering lost animal reports into computer system.

7. Non-compatable animals put together--leading to severe stress, food hoarding, fights and injuries.

8. Staff not relocating animals once non-compatability determined.

9. Animals not being vaccinated.

11. Cruelty and neglect reports not followed up, properly investigated or documented.

12. Outdated "contagious disease" notices posted in adoption areas falsely implying current outbreaks (which could negatively impact adoptions.)

13. Facility showing significant wear and tear (same physical plant problems as last time).

14. Unsanitary food storage and handling.

15. Sick animals housed with healthy ones. Quarantined sick and injured animals not closely monitored.

16. Substantial difference in conditions and staff conduct when consultant pre-announced versus surprise or "undercover" visits.

17. Significant management and staff turnover, with new management not having background in animal care/shelter management.

18. Staff "doing own thing" with animal care--not following procedures and guidelines.

19. Donations of food and money not used for animal care.

20. No follow-through on spay/neuter coupons leading to minimal improvement in pet overpopulation.

21. Disciplinary procedures inadequate or simply not followed.

New Terrorist Threat--Root Vegetables

A raw turnip in a gift bag led to a bomb scare at an Indiana law firm. The police bomb squad used a robot to move the gift bag to a parking lot and then unsuccessfully tried to detonate it before discovering the vegetable.

I guess I could understand someone panicking over a suspicious package in the weeks following 9/11.

But it's 2008. Come on people. Get a grip for crying out loud.

Whatever happened to using a trained explosives dog and handler to first assess the threat? Nah. That would be too easy, too "pre-9/11". Plus I suspect the cops were happy to have an opportunity to play with their high-tech bomb robot, which "justifies" this expense.

And what about the cost to taxpayers for the police response to these persistent false alarms? So Chicken Little gets a "suspicioius" package and instead of just opening it up he calls the cops. The cops come, evacuate the building and cordon off the parking lot. Then they send in a robot to retrieve the package and try to blow it up.

Shouldn't the Chicken Littles among us start paying for these false alarms?

On second thought, the terroristic turnip was sent to a law firm, so perhaps the attorney's guilty conscience went on overdrive, or perhaps his fears weren't entirely unfounded.

About the Name

Greetings to all! This is my first blog.

Emerald City Scion, is a collection of musings, opinions, critiques, essays, interesting tidbits and (hopefully) investigative work.

"Emerald City" refers to Seattle, Washington, where I live. A "scion" per the Encyclopedia Britannica is:

. . . the act of placing a portion of one plant (called a bud or scion) into or on a stem, root, or branch of another (called the stock) in such a way that a union forms and the partners continue to grow.

So, this blog, Emerald City Scion, is a grafting of my work here to the larger body of web-based writing and journalism.

Nuff said!