Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - City declines PETA offer to provide free cost analysis of animal killing

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Thursday, April 4, 2002
City declines PETA offer to provide free cost analysis of animal killing

By Neal Falgoust
Caller-Times
   Assistant city manager says Washington group does not know how to run Texas animal shelter
   City officials have turned down an offer by a national animal rights group to do a free analysis of the cost to kill animals with lethal injections.
   Assistant City Manager Jorge Cruz-Aedo, who received the offer Monday from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said the city did not need the analysis because it already knows the cost.
   "I don't think some PETA group in Washington knows what it takes to run an animal shelter in South Texas," Cruz-Aedo said. "It's more important to go to the groups locally" to find the best way to run the shelter.
   For the past few weeks, the two sides have stood at opposite ends of an analysis that looked at the city's cost to stop killing animals with carbon monoxide gas and start using lethal injections of sodium pentobarbital. A city analysis, done with a cost model provided by PETA, showed the lethal injections cost $3.24 . PETA activists figured the cost at $1.27. But the PETA analysis was not specific to the Corpus Christi animal shelter, and the group offered to do a local study for free.
   "I certainly think it would be helpful," said PETA spokeswoman Lindsay Gardewin. "The issue of cost is a factor in how soon they implement this policy."
   PETA took the city to task after local members complained that animals in the city's shelter were being mistreated and were being killed in a gas chamber. The city has since begun looking at developing a new euthanasia policy, Cruz-Aedo said.
   "It serves absolutely no purpose to go back to PETA and validate those numbers," he said. "Coming up with a third set of numbers won't solve anything."
   Kristen Anderson, president of the Corpus Christi Animal Rights Effort, said the increased costs are justified if the animals are killed more humanely.
   "We do need to move to lethal injection," she said. "But if it's not performed properly, it will be just as inhumane as the gas chamber."
   Contact Neal Falgoust at _886-4334 or falgoustn@caller.com

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