Georgia banned most animal gas chambers in 1990. Macon continues to use a gas chamber under one of the few exceptions. Gas chambers are a cruel and outdated method of euthanasia of animals. Lethal injection is a much more humane, less expensive alternative.
Gas chambers also place shelter workers at risk of CO poisoning when they load and unload or clean the gas chamber, breathing in low levels of the gas on a regular basis. In Tennessee, a shelter worker died from CO poisoning from the gas chamber. As a result, Tennessee has banned the use of gas chambers.
The use of the gas chamber causes great psychological suffering for many shelter workers. Animals do not lose consciousness or die until there is a build up of the CO gas in their lungs. Shelter workers have documented that until that build up happens, they hear the piercing cries, howling, frantic calls, scratching and panic of animals. It is not uncommon for shelter workers to have to gas some animals a second time.
Less than 1% of shelters in the U.S. still use the outmoded gas chamber.
Please sign the petition to ban the use of gas chambers in Macon, Georgia.
