Polina Vyazovkina claims she was fired from her volunteer job after speaking out against the use of gas chambers at West Valley Animal Services.
A Utah woman has been fired from volunteering at West Valley Animal Services on January 13, 2012 for becoming an advocate to end the abuse she felt animals routinely endure at the West Valley Animal Services shelter during euthanasia in the gas chamber.
Polina Vyazovkina volunteered hundreds of hours of her time as well as her expertise as a photographer and also utilized her social networking skills to dramatically increase the adoption rate of animals in West Valley City, Utah. A Facebook page, WVC Animal Adoptions was started by Vyazovkina to increase adoptions and raise awareness of the animals at the West Valley Animal Services shelter.
Vyazovkina became increasingly concerned about the shelter’s method of euthanasia. West Valley Animal Services uses a gas chamber to euthanize animals, a method decried as unnecessarily cruel by animal welfare organizations including the American Humane Association. Animals in the gas chamber routinely scream in pain, bite each other in fear, vomit and lose bowel and bladder control during the 15 to 45 minutes it takes for them to be killed. Animals only lose consciousness after their internal organs have shut down and many animals have to endure the gas chamber more than once.
Andrea was one of those animals.
Andrea, a stray cat who was not adopted within 30 days of arriving at the shelter, was scheduled for euthanasia at West Valley Animal Services in October of 2011. Andrea was loaded into the gas chamber with other cats, and the gas was turned on. When the euthanasia operator opened the chamber door, Andrea was still alive.
Vyazovkina stated that this happens regularly at the West Valley Animal Services shelter. The operator closed the door and ran carbon monoxide gas into the chamber once again. Opening the door after the second cycle, the operater found that Andrea was no longer responding. She was placed in a plastic bag inside the freezer for disposal at a later time.
Approximately 45 minutes after being placed into the plastic bag, shelter workers opened the cooler door to place a euthanized dog inside the freezer and found Andrea meowing. Andrea the cat, who cheated death three times at the West Valley Animal Services, was turned over to Community Animal Welfare Society (CAWS,) where she was adopted into a loving home December 11, 2011.
Kelly Davis, director of West Valley Animal Services, is, in Vyazovkina words “Not very good and doesn’t care about the animals or how they are euthanized.”
After learning about numerous euthanasia of animals that did not go well,Vyazovkina attended the West Side City, Utah, City Council Meeting on January 3 where she presented her Bachelors research paper on ‘Euthanasia by Gas Chamber.’ The next day that Vyazovkina was scheduled to volunteer, Kelly Davis told her “You are not going to take any more pictures of animals and you are not going to put them on the website.” She was also told that she was no longer welcome to volunteer at the shelter. She strongly supports a Facebook page dedicated to ending West Valley Animal Services use of the gas chamber to euthanize animals.
Advocates of the animals at West Valley Animal Services are demanding the resignation of the shelter director Kelly Davis, a man who they claim has no concern for the animal’s welfare, their adoption rate, or how they are euthanized.
By definition, euthansia must be a “good death” otherwise it is merely animal cruelty. West Valley Animal Services is now being accused of purposefully inflicting cruelty upon the animals in its care. Doug Fakkem, a Euthanasia Specialist and Instructor for American Humane Association, is against the use of gas chamber and says that Carbon Monoxide is no longer considered acceptable by American Veterinary Medical Association or national animal care and control agencies.
West Valley Animal Services is having an open house at the shelter on February 2 to answer questions about their use of the gas chamber.
About the author: Tawnee Preisner of Oroville, California is the Vice President of Horse Plus Humane Society. She co-authors the daily blog for Horse Plus Humane Society in addition to being featured in many news articles and TV spots about animal welfare. Since Co-Founding Horse Plus Humane Society in 2003 she has rescued over 2,000 horses out of the slaughter pipeline and has founded many ground breaking programs for horse welfare.
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