[August 22, 2011] EDITORIAL: Defense - 'Animal welfare' means pets as well as packs Tweet Aug 22, 2011 (The Fayetteville Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The activists who marched in Fayetteville last week were within their rights, behaved responsibly and we appreciate their concern for animal welfare. A little more information might make their message easier to grasp, though. Clearly, the protesters, one of whom warned that officials should expect them to "be in their face, all the time," oppose letting a wildlife control firm shoot dogs running in packs. We're not crazy about it, either. But the subject of alternatives deserves attention. The protesters prefer that dogs that can't be trapped be tranquilized. So do we. But Dr. John Lauby of county Animal Control explained that long ago. Dogs run away when they're darted and usually aren't found before they revive. If that alternative is impractical, what's left? Does this in-your-face approach offer the city and county no better plan than to trap a few and otherwise watch while 10 packs of feral dogs kill pets and menace people? What about this four-legged "interface" between our pets and a wildlife population that has already provided a dozen confirmed cases of rabies? The public needs to know how much energy the contractor invests in trapping before resorting to the gun. But "No guns" will find a cool reception here until residents are shown that those packs can be neutralized by non-lethal means alone. ___ (c)2011, The Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.) To see more of The Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.), or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to www.fayobserver.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]