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POUND SEIZURE FACT SHEET
 PURPOSE
Pound seizure is the ultimate betrayal of companion animals. Animal shelters, by their very name, are trusted to provide safe haven to lost or unwanted animals. Yet the practice of “pound seizure” is still legal in California and is still practiced.
More and more scientists, veterinarians and physicians are stepping forward to decry the practice of pound seizure, because it is unnecessary, unethical and makes for faulty science.
COMMENTS
What is Pound Seizure?
 Pound seizure is the practice of releasing or selling lost, stray or abandoned cats and dogs from municipally funded animal shelters for use in biomedical research, product development and safety testing, and educational demonstrations.
Animals from shelters, commonly called “random source animals,” are used to practice surgery by medical and veterinary students and are then euthanized. Hundreds of dogs and cats taken from shelters are used every year in painful or long-term experiments or programs.
Pounds or animal shelters never were designed to be supply houses for the vivisection trade. They were developed to be places were people could bring unwanted or stray animals in the hope of a new home being found. Failing that, the animals would be painlessly killed. The release of these animals for research is a breach of the public trust and leads to loss of public support.
How Does it Affect Local Revenues?
While 57 out of 58 counties in California have discontinued the practice, the temptation to sell homeless animals to research is even greater now due to the state budget crisis and the impending cuts to local government budgets.
But ironically, pound seizure can often result in a loss of revenue to local governments and shelters. The practice of pound seizure violates public trust in the local shelter – it undermines the public’s confidence that if someone surrenders a cat or dog, he/she will either be adopted into a loving home or humanely euthanized. When there is a public awareness that impounded animals will be sold for medical research, people will abandon animals in public instead, which creates more work for animal control personnel, adds to the formation of wild dog packs and the destruction of livestock and creates health and safety problems. Pound seizure actually increases the cost of taxpayer-funded animal control.
In fact, the National Animal Control Association has a clear policy statement opposing pound seizure, for the following reasons:
• Such laws hinder the effort of progressive animal shelters to promote animal welfare in a collective atmosphere of public trust.
• Animal research is clearly a personal decision which should be decided by individual animal owners without involvement of animal shelters.
Won’t This Interfere With Effective Veterinary Teaching Methods?
The harmful and fatal uses of animals as teaching ‘tools’ in veterinary medical schools is inhumane and unnecessary. Western University of Health Sciences’ College of Veterinary Medicine is committed to a policy of ‘nondetrimental use,’ using “willed-body” programs which allow students the opportunity to practice medical techniques on deceased animals donated by the pets’ former guardians, thus circumventing the practice of pound seizure.
Won’t This Undermine Medical Research and Retard Progress That Will Help Humans?
A prohibition on pound seizure will not hinder medical science. In Massachusetts, which has the most comprehensive state law against pound seizure, three years after the ban was enacted, medical research remained at the same level, in terms of the number of dogs and cats used. Biomedical research continues in Sweden, Holland and Denmark where the use of random-source animals has been banned.
The perception that medical progress will be retarded without a supply of shelter animals is a sham, as demonstrated by the fact that many hospitals and research institutions in California no longer use shelter animals and are doing fine.
Ultimately, the issue is not the future of medical progress and whether or not it depends on animal research. Rather, the issue addressed in AB 588 is that it is inappropriate to use animals taken from public shelters funded by taxpayer dollars.
The issue of pound seizure is not an antivivisection issue. In fact, very few of the animals that would be killed every year in pounds are used in medical research. Ending pound seizure would not stop research, it simply would change the source of some animals for some projects. When members of the scientific community support pound seizure, it suggests that they would like an exhaustible supply of stray or unwanted animals. This is the antithesis of the goal of every humane and compassionate person, which is to reduce this population to zero.
What About Science?
According to the HSUS, studies by researchers have shown that is takes more random-source than purpose-bred dogs to produce the same results in an experiment. Shelter animals are of undetermined genetic, environmental and medical background. They react unpredictably and inconsistently, making questionable the reliability of most research in which they are used. Animals with unknown backgrounds could carry an infections disease leading to cross-infection within a laboratory. Purpose-bred animals provide more precise data; therefore fewer are needed.
The National Institute of Health (NIH), the largest funder of biomedical research in this country, stopped using shelter animals in its own in-house research several years ago because shelter animals were deemed unsuitable research subjects-too little being know about their origins, health conditions, or age. Further, it is more expensive to buy, treat, and condition shelter animals than it is to purchase animals purposely bred for research.
Won’t They Just Be Put To Death Anyway?
While it is true that the animals to be released often are those slated for death, it is the quality of life prior to death with which we are concerned. In the pound, the unwanted animals are most likely given a quick and painless death. If released for research, they become part of a project which involves the deliberate or unavoidable infliction of a great deal of pain and suffering. They then may live in agony within small cages, usually without the benefit of exercise or socialization. The irony of this is that the very animals who have the most trust in humans are the ones most likely chosen by the researcher because of their docility. It is unconscionable to subject these trusting creatures to anything but a dignified death when society cannot continue to provide for them.
Unfortunately, many shelter animals are euthanized due to the severe overcrowding. But many shelters around the state are reporting an increase in adoptions and a decrease in the euthanization of animals, mainly due to increased education and 25 years of spay/neuter efforts. There is a hope for adoptable animals – they should not be given up on and sold to research. To do so undermines the public trust in the shelter system.
How Does This Relate to Pet Theft?
When a local animal shelter decides to sell pound animals, a much higher rate of pet theft occurs in those areas. This occurs in part because there exists a profit motive to sell animals. High demand animal research has created a market for dogs and cats and has insured hefty incomes for animal dealers.
What Have Other States and Countries Done?
Pound seizure is prohibited in 14 states including Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia.
England, Denmark, Sweden and Holland have banned pound seizure, while the World Health Organization and the Council of Europe publicly advise against use of “random-source animals.”
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