The Fat Lady Ain't Sung Yet But the Song Has Begun

Bass estimated the cost of caring for the animals until custody is decided will be about $200,000. He said a $100,000 donation has been received.

  • First, WHO IS THE DONOR???  The public should most certainly know who is donating these levels of funds to sway a governmental agency’s actions!
  • Second, Did you notice that the estimated costs of taking and moving the animals is identical to the amount of the “donation”?
  • Third, Did you notice how these estimated costs have come down since the last huge seizure in the area?
  • Fourth, $100,000 that the taxpayers may have to foot.  YOUR tax dollars at work!  (And you KNOW that number will end up being higher than that if YOU have to foot the bill.)
  • Fifth, Don’t forget that SPCA of Texas doesn’t want these animals sold and they’ve got them so they’ll probably die or be killed rather than sold so YOU probably will be footing the bill.
  • Sixth, if those of you in that area don’t get on your representatives, you will have to do without other services or your taxes will have to go up because AC will continue to spend hundreds upon hundreds of thousands on these types of animal seizures.
  • Lastly, if we're going to sell seizure services, the "donors" should darn well foot the entire bill!!!

 “Kudos to the unnamed PETA guy…”  It appears Dallas Morning News columnist, Jacquielynn Floyd, rushed to get her kudos posted (Wednesday at 3:58 PM) so she could call him “the unnamed PETA guy” (read on, we have his name now and employers should be watching out for him) and proceed to praise him based upon his bare and, at that time, totally unsupported allegations.  Sorry Sweetie, this case has just begun and I have to lean towards your opening statement, the one PETA proves is true over and over, rather than your hastily jumped to and premature conclusions.  You opened with: “It's easy… to ridicule those flaky, stunt-addled wackos at the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals when they exhaust their resources on asinine theatrics”.  However, they certainly don’t exhaust their resources on those asinine theatrics.  (And I’ll have to remember that “columnist” certainly isn’t synonymous with “journalist”.) 

It's not often People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is praised…  But this week, PETA is being feted for its diligence, which has resulted in a raid…”  HUH?  These are the only 2 “news” sources I’ve seen singing PETA’s praises.  The rest of the “feting” seems to be on email groups and chat rooms where people notoriously jump to conclusions and spout their knee jerk emotional reactions without ever having read past the headline of an article!

“PETA has gone undercover before, most recently in November, where the organization exposed a company called Wild Creations and its Frog-O-Shperes... However, after PETA filed a complaint with police, an investigation did not verify PETA's claims... The police finding has not deterred PETA from it's campaign against Frog-O-Spheres… “  She goes on to indicate this situation is different because the raid took place and then goes on to indicate that the owner of the raided business has been arrested, citing a New Zealand source.  Hm, someone correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t remember seeing ANY local sources indicating he’d been arrested but they were quick to point out that he has NOT been criminally charged.  Stephnie, my dear, this is how we do this in Texas and we can indict a ham sandwich here.  It means nothing until the conviction AND appeals have been completed.  THIS raid is civil, nothing has been proved at all, not even to the lesser civil standard. 

THIS case and PETA’s actions herein simply represent PETA’s further harassment of exotic pet dealers and their absolute opposition to all such pets.  PETA’s stance on this is quite clear: “Support legislation that would make owning exotic animals illegal in your community and prohibit the interstate sale of exotic animals.  PETA does not save animals, it kills them; “the animal rights group admitted under oath that it does, indeed, kill large numbers of animals”. http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ It finds homes for 1 in 300.  That is worse that the WORST shelters across the country!  Take a moment and sign the petition encouraging revocation of PETA’s tax exempt status here. 

You may feel alone when you’re combating the knee jerk emotional reactions on email groups and chat areas but you are not.  Most of us live in fear that speaking out will put our own beloved pets at risk and there is some truth in that.  However, our numbers are growing and here’s someone who recently joined a board to give an alternative perspective to the one prevalent on the board.  MY KUDOS go to him/her.  We’ve already allowed the snowball to roll too far and gather too much energy.  We must overcome our fears or we will be without our pets altogether in the much nearer future than any of us anticipated.  It isn’t our grandchildren’s pets at risk, it is our own and they are at risk now if you DON’T speak out.  Based on some of the research now being done, a life without childhood pets could indeed put your grandchildren at serious risk of lacking immune systems and even shorten their lives.

And now, finally, to the hearing that started yesterday.  It went on for 4 hours and was held before Arlington municipal Judge Michael Smith.  “Smith is to rule on custody of nearly 27,000 animals seized this week” but the hearing wasn’t completed yesterday.  It appears the reporters may not have stayed to the end of the hearing since they simply presume it will be continued next week.  Sadly, no date, time, or other information on the resumption of the hearing.  I guess the media doesn’t want to encourage the public to show up and see what’s what for itself.  Next week being Christmas week, I wonder if any of the reporters will attend at all.

“Officials told Smith on Friday that they seized 26,882 live animals… removed 603 dead animals”; “Mike Bass, assistant director of Arlington’s community services department, said it appeared that most of the animals had inadequate food, water and medical care and were kept in cramped, dirty conditions that led to the spread of disease, injury and death.  Due to the conditions present and the lack of food for the number of animals present and the number of deceased animals present, all the animals were taken," Bass said.

27,485 total animals.  2.2% dead (but I’ll be coming back to that percentage because it may not be low enough).

They received the PETA twit’s information on the 9th and performed the raid on the 16th.  A full week and there’s no information in the story on what the AC did, if anything at all, during that week to attempt to verify the PETA twit’s allegations or do any investigating of its own.  The rest is broad, vague allegations and conclusions.

I have to separate out this nonsense that comes up about “medical care” for the animals.  First off, it’s called “veterinary care”.  Beyond that, the more experience one has with animals, the less one tends to go running to the vet.  It’s a simple fact.  Every parent with more than one child has experienced this phenomenon.  First time parents tend to run to the pediatrician or even the ER every time a child sniffles.  Second child gets a bit more comforting and tending but not so likely to run to the doctor.  Third child gets the older child wiping his/her nose.  The parents have learned along the way.  Many get to skip steps in there because they were older children in larger families so learned these lessons even before they had children.  The same is true of animals and those who own and tend them.  Over time, one tends to run to the vet less often, especially when the veterinarians are increasing their fees and pushing extraordinary care of each and every animal.  Do animal owners sometimes make mistakes that result in death?  Of course but so do veterinarians and I don’t know that experienced owners are any more likely to do so than many of the veterinarians I’ve encountered.

It certainly appears that Arlington AC officials simply took the word of the admittedly biased PETA twit, talked a municipal judge into issuing a warrant, and then scooped up ALL of the animals without any attempt to identify which were indeed abused or even neglected.  The abusive intent is clear from that alone and was bootstrapped from what looks like crony favoritism to the word of a biased plant in the business.  And then there's how the animals may have been handled and treated during the near freezing weather seizure and since then...

Howard Goldman, PETA OPERATIVE, “who said he is affiliated with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, testified… he had conducted undercover investigations into animal cruelty for PETA before…; photos and other documents — turned over to Arlington officials on Dec. 9”; “Goldman testified that he made repeated attempts to get food and care for the animals. In audio recordings that Goldman said were the Shaws talking to him, the owners could be heard saying that they had forgotten to order food or that it would take too much time and money to provide medical care for some of the injured or sick animals he had brought to their attention.”

Do we have any reason to believe it is even the Shaws in the audio recordings?  Perhaps it's audio only because it isn't the Shaws at all.  Come on, this operative doesn't have a cell phone with audio/video recording capability like half the world does these days?  Even if I try to take those allegations at face value, it doesn’t tell me the animals were without food, merely that it hadn’t been ordered.  How much was on hand, in stock at the time?  If they did indeed run out, surely there’s a local pet store for them to run to for emergency supplies if they’re needed.  I like to have a nice food stock on hand but it's not like we're in Alaska waiting to be snowed and iced in for a month.  Remember, this is a business and dead inventory turns a loss rather than a profit so it makes no sense whatsoever that the business would stop feeding them during the holiday rush of increased sales.

The article starts out saying Goldman is a veterinary technician and that is referenced in the affidavit too.  Interesting that it isn’t mentioned that he testified to that.  I can’t find any reference to him on the internet either and professional licensing and certifications usually come up easily on-line.  I wonder if he really is a veterinary technician or if Howard Goldman is even his real name.  This guy needs seriously background checked if governmental agencies are going to take his word for anything; especially if he’s traveling around the country doing these PETA “undercover ops”.  When it isn’t a local citizen with a vested interest in the community, it isn’t someone who’s going to care about wasting OUR local tax dollars!

If all the City had were the bare allegations of one employee whose PETA agenda is quite clear and whose affiliation was stated in the affidavit, they should never have been granted a search warrant.  Remember, US FWS is said to have asked them to check out this business.  I've seen nothing that indicates they alleged abuse or neglect.  Whoever signed that warrant should really be sent back to “judge school” IMO!

 “The Shaws’ attorney, Lance Evans, questioned whether city officials investigated Goldman’s credibility and motives”.  Unfortunately, the reporter didn’t include the response from City authorities on this and I’ve already addressed my concerns about it above.

“Evans also argued that the city has not provided a detailed account of which animals were mistreated and did not have information about which of the sick or injured animals were shipped to the north Arlington warehouse in that condition.”  I agree with Mr. Evans’ argument and I seriously doubt AC has such an account.  I think AC was just chomping at the bit to snatch these animals up at the slightest of allegations and I think they intentionally waited a week doing nothing and selecting 9 days before Christmas as their time to file so as to put a rush or huge delay on this case.  Things like this tend to happen with the AC employees come from the radical animal rights organizations like HSUS and start off with a biased perspective; especially so when being egged on by the even more radical likes of PETA.  Arlington AC has had their 2 minutes of fame in making the BIGGEST animal seizure ever.  It's looking to me like they should get the remaining 3 minutes being flamed for their abuse of these business citizens.

“He also questioned whether Goldman was opening himself to cruelty charges since some of the snakes that reportedly died of mistreatment were in his care.”  If he’s going to claim the higher ground as a certified veterinary technician, Goldman should be given no quarter at all.  In fact, he should be held strictly accountable for his actions.  He could have quit rather than participate so, if he did participate in any neglect or abuse, he should be charged and, if convicted, should suffer the stiffest sentencing of all.  In addition, if he set forth some of the care standards followed by others that turns out to be considered neglectful or abusive, it is he and not the business that should be held accountable.  He is not a law enforcement person entitled to sometimes violate the law he has no such immunity.  He is a private citizen who is deliberately lying and committing fraud to obtain jobs under false pretenses to promote his own radical agenda and that of PETA.  I hope the business owners sue him to top it all off.

 “Evans pointed out that one-third of the 600 dead animals had been involved in a single shipping incident.”  It may well have been Goldman who should have unpacked these animals.  At any rate, errors happen when humans are involved and I’m certainly not inclined to include these 200 animals in the percentage I calculated above.  Without them, the dead animals account for less than 1.5% of the total animals and we still don’t know how many arrived in poor condition or were delivered as seniors and near death (guessing that age estimates for exotics is even more difficult than for dogs and cats).  The simple truth is that a percentage of animals will die no matter the care.  Every person in livestock, animal raising and care, retail or even small private operations knows this reality.  Death is a part of the life cycle.  A death count below 2% of animals that are notoriously more difficult to keep alive seems more than low to me.

Without having been at the hearing, I can’t say “GREAT” reporting to the reporter who wrote the article from which the above quotes were taken but do have to give some KUDOS to Ms. Susan Schrock of the Star-Telegram for doing some real reporting.  Thank You!!!

Of necessity, TV stories are more limited but the slant on WFAA’s story is pretty clear.  The prosecution gets 85% and both opening and closing positions in the article.  Sad really; they’ve picked up the way legal prosecutions are often done – the prosecutor gets to go first and last to ensure it gets the advantage, like it needs more of one than it already has.

It appears that while the initial, “OMG, ABUSED ANIMALS SAVED” stories spread round the world (oh, yes, foreign language sites are picking up this story), there will be little follow up as the matter progresses.  Most of the media chooses to hold back the facts and details until the final decision.  Then, if the court rules for the City, they will publish away; if for the business owner, there will be little or no coverage from most; if the decision is split, they’ll like emphasize the City’s “win” and minimize its loss even if it’s rather overwhelming.  Just look at the last big seizure in the DFW area and the coverage it got!

Only 4 hours to the hearing so far but I see serious bungling by the City officials already.  Yet I have concerns when these cases come before small courts.  In this case, the hearing is before a municipal court rather than a justice of the peace court.  They are both small courts that should be handling cases involving small matters.  Taking property that is surely worth upwards of $250,000 should not be decided in small courts.  More on that in my next blog entry.

A wee clarification of my Cronyism entry.  Mark Bass is a governmental employee, an Animal Control Officer.  In my opinion, he is merely a secondary agent of PETA but I don’t know his connections to them or any other organizations so that is why the term agent was in quotation marks in that entry.

My apologies for delays in posting updates.  I like to do a bit of research and ponder, mull, and contemplate before dragging out my torch and/or praise.  Unlike the media, I rarely have a pressing need or media deadline pushing me to print without thinking things through a bit.

Go Back

Comment