We start with a business in the trade of small exotic animals that has been in business for 11 years. This business has been subjected to inspections by U.S. Fish and Wildlife and by U.S.D.A. Other than a couple of minor recent paperwork violations that have been alleged (but are so far unproven), this business seems to have been operating within the law and passing its inspections, generating business in the City of Arlington. Generally, a good citizen. A perfect business? Probably not. There aren’t many (if any) of those.
We don’t know who made the call to U.S. Fish and Wildlife and talked them into doing their evidence raid but I’ll bet it was PETA or one of their Associates. We know that someone “donated” about half the funding for this seizure. I’ll bet odds it was PETA or one of their associates. At any rate, it sure seems that PETA, Goldman, Arlington Animal Control, HSNT, SPCA of North Texas, and who knows who else did a little huddle up and decided to raid and indiscriminately confiscate ALL the exotic animals regardless of the below 45 degree weather. No visit, no inspection, no opportunity to work with Animal Control offered, no identification of which animals are alleged abused, just snatch them all up and cart them off in through the cold. And, apparently many of them were carted off in the cages and containers belonging to Global as well. And all at great cost to the Arlington’s citizens during poor economic times.
AC and the NPO representatives run in front of cameras to report “it’s awful, it’s terrible, I’ve never seen anything to horrendous”. Gotta love the “I’m a dog guy” who’s clearly clueless but seems to be in charge of making the “was the animal abused” decisions. Oh, I forgot, someone made an outcry and it doesn’t matter if it’s valid or not, just rush in and snatch them all up…
Less than a week after the animals were seized in near freezing weather, the expected had happened; over 1,000 of them were dead while in the custody of Arlington AC and its designees. It’s been almost 10 days since that accounting. How many are dead now? How many euthanized?
Since PETA clearly has its fingers in this mess, let’s get something clear. The media has referred to them repeatedly as an “animal welfare” group. They are not. They are an animal rights group and proudly say so on their own website.
We have Howard Goldman being sent in to play private investigator (in apparent violation of Texas law as he appears to be without the requisite license to be a private investigator) and paid piece meal ($135/day) for producing negative reports to the liking of PETA. He obtains a job at Global under false pretenses, collects paychecks as a veterinary technician for 7 months while double dipping that $135/day from PETA, then chooses to make his report to Arlington AC just days before Christmas and while the weather is very cold which he knows full well will be detrimental to the exotic animals if they have to be moved. For all we know, he may be entirely responsible for whatever abuses of animals was going on at Global.
2 carefully selected and imported veterinarians appear to testify for the Arlington. One PETA reptile quake is brought all the way from the UK. Let me make it very clear that I am calling Clifford Warwick a QUACK.
“A health specialist testified Tuesday that U.S. Global Exports is so contaminated by pests, parasites and illness-causing pathogens that it should be demolished or completely gutted and sterilized before housing animals again… It is a rampant reservoir of potential infection.” So says the imported QUACK. All I could think about when reading that was the number of hospital acquired infections that result every year in the US. Shall we burn the hospitals as well? How about the Streptococcus (and other bugs) we all carry around as our normal flora? “The average bacteria per square inch of their workplace surfaces were 17,800” for teachers, identified as the dirtiest job. (Didn't they test animal caretakers?) All keyboards tested positive for cagulase-negative staphylococci and 80% were positive for diphtheroids. How about this one. Your Keyboard: Dirtier Than a Toilet. And, Dude-from-the-UK, this is TEXAS and we’re over run by cockroaches that drag every germ you can think of EVERYWHERE. You have animals and it’s not gonna be cleaner (except they do tend to cut down on the cockroaches) but then that may indeed be a good thing for us all. Time to gargle and scrub with Clorox if this quack gets to make the rules or we’ll all have rabies! Fear mongering, alarmist, germ-phobe QUACK.
I did enjoy the 8 photos that accompanied the story. Photo 7 clearly shows a box marked “LIVE CRICKETS” loaded up during the seizure. Were they abused too? Or were they taken to feed some of the others? If the City is going to snatch up animals and charge for their care, they can go buy their own bloody food! Oh, no, they must have been some kind of exotic crickets because there was supposedly no food for any of the animals but then they fessed up there was “some” food. What happened, someone noticed the photos? Then there’s photos 1, 2, 8, and 4 that very likely show cages and containers that belong to Global being loaded up. What containers did the “humane” folks bring? Check out photos 3, 5, and 7 – cheapy clear plastic tubs from WallyMart with holes poked in them. Wonder what they looked like 12 hours later. Dirty?
And finally, those who actually know the facts get to start testifying.
Mr. Boiko who has worked there about 6 years finds the early morning timing of the raid suspect, as do I. “Paul Boiko, another U.S. Global employee, testified Monday that most animals were fed and watered regularly and that a veterinarian visited the business once a week.” So that’s on top of all the inspections by federal authorities. Were there any by local authorities? There certainly could have been had AC been the least bit interested in actual facts. I do take issue with him portrayed as “another U.S. Global employee” since Goldman was there under false pretenses. So this is actually the only real employee who is reported to have testified so far.
Boiko: “Certain animals, such as turtles and iguanas, were kept in cold conditions to force hibernation so they wouldn’t eat or move much, a practice he said is standard in the industry.” Makes sense to me. I don’t know exotics but I do know that all animal husbandry involves manipulating the animals to some extent and one always takes advantage of a species inherent abilities. I take up water bowls after the last pee walk before going to the vet. I’ve been advised by vets to deprive cats crated in my truck cab of water during trips if they’re inclined to puking if given water.
“Boiko testified that he had packaged more than 400 iguanas on Dec. 2 to be shipped to Egypt and had left them in their crates for about two weeks without food or water, waiting for the order to go through.” Yep, that one disturbs me but I didn’t hear all the testimony. Even if that’s accurate, it’s a single incident that, to my mind, doesn’t come close to warranting the snatching up of 27,000+ animals which resulted in more deaths over the next few days than if this entire shipment and another one had died.
"I thought it was horrible to drag coldblooded animals out of a warm building on such a cold day," Doss said. "The shock of the temperature change could have killed them alone." Huh, imagine that. Too bad Arlington AC didn’t have the good sense to do so!
“Doss testified that some of the conditions shown in photographs and videos during the hearing did appear to be inhumane or inappropriate… Doss said he does not condone U.S. Global’s method of euthanizing animals by placing them in a freezer to die… However, Doss said, he was concerned that some of the situations might have been staged by former employee Howard Goldman, who took some of the photos.”
FINALLY, a witness that I think is EXCELLENT. There’s nothing in testifying for this man and his employer may indeed be none too happy but there he sits to tell the truth. That truth is that he disagrees with some practices and the business may not be perfect but, after 3 years experience with them, he (an actual caretaker of similar animals) hasn’t seen the alleged “horrors”. The “evidence” from Goldman is potentially tainted.
And I find myself back approximately where I started. This case STINKS of PETA and abuse and harassment of animal owners. Had Arlington AC handled this properly, Goldman would be charged with violating the PI law and U.S. Global Exotics would have been given a chance to resolve whatever issues Arlington AC raised. Instead, an over-reaching government, goaded on by PETA and friends, thieved 27,000 animals, is responsible for numerous deaths of animals since the seizure, and has utterly wasted thousands upon thousands of tax dollars while tanking a multi-million dollar business. All to what end? Most likely numerous appeals that end with the City paying a humongous settlement or judgment somewhere down the road. We’ve all seen our little Texas Dictators do it before!
Ah, well, there was probably a full day of testimony today too but I’ve seen no reports post up yet.
I’d love to say the prosecutor had looked at this mess and tried to repair the damages but apparently not.
I’d love to say municipal Court Judge Michael Smith will rule appropriately and cut the citizenry’s financial losses and put a swift halt to this type of nonsense.
I'm both depressed and MAD AS HELL. I think the latter will win the day.