The quality of mercy

Does the Michigan Humane Society kill far too many animals? That's what two former board members claim. They set off a firestorm of controversy this month by resigning over this.

Indeed, the figures at first glance are horrifying. Last year, the society's three shelters in Detroit, Rochester Hills and Westland took in something like 29,000 animals, mostly dogs and cats, puppies and kittens. More than half showed up in Detroit.

And the vast majority of all the creatures the society took in were destroyed. Seven out of every 10 were given a lethal injection.

Those who operate no-kill shelters called that "outrageous" and "barbaric." Michigan Humane Society officials say they have no choice. "None of us here wants to euthanize any animals, but, unfortunately, it's sometimes necessary," the society's chief veterinarian, Dr. Robert Fisher, told a reporter.

Now I know that some people will say, why care about this? The state is falling apart, the city is full of homeless people, and there are all sorts of urgent problems at all levels of government. Why waste time and space on mere animals?

Well, for one thing, because they are living and feeling beings who totally depend on us and whose existence is largely due to us. And, as Gandhi once noted, you tell a lot about a society by how it treats its animals.

So what's the truth here?

Frankly, so far as I can tell, the Humane Society is, sadly, doing the right thing. Anybody who thinks an open-admission animal shelter could, or should, avoid "putting animals to sleep" is ignorant, an idiot or both. I know something about this.

I have had dogs and other pets all my adult life.

They have been as dear to me as children might have been. I have had to be at the euthanasia table to say good-bye to seven old and sick collies, every one of whom I loved and love still.

Not pleasant, but it was necessary. Yet when I first heard of this controversy, I didn't automatically assume the Michigan Humane Society was correct. I have had legitimate concerns over the competence of the society's upper management over the years.

So I went last week to visit the toughest and grimmest of their three animal shelters; the one in Detroit, right off southbound I-75 at Clay. The society, which desperately needs a new building, does the best it can with a 19th century building which once was a machine shop where pistons were made, and where animals are saved.

I told Jennifer Rowell, a North Carolina native in her 30s who has run the place for the last eight years, that I wanted to see everything — and I wanted her to explain why so many of the animals have to die.

She began by showing me photographs of some of the animals they couldn't save, victims of accidents, unspeakable cruelty and neglect. You don't want to see those pictures. Ever. Though perhaps you should be made to see the dog left impaled on a fence.

> Email Jack Lessenberry