Murdered Siberian Huskies In BC More Than Simple Cruelty to Animals

My son owns a beautiful Siberian Husky dog named Niko, pictured above. Niko has ice blue eyes and a gorgeous red and white coat. He's my son's constant companion. To say that my son loves Niko would be an understatement, it's way beyond that. I think Niko, above even the people in my son's life, has been such a huge source of comfort and companionship to my son.  Huskies are intelligent, loving, and devoted pets.

This is why the news story concerning the murdered Siberian Huskies in Whistler, British Columbia really hit home with our family. In case you haven't heard the story, it would probably never have come to light had one of the employees of Whistler Outdoor Adventures not filed a Workman's Compensation suit claiming post-traumatic stress against the company. On April 23 and 24 of 2010, 100 Siberian Huskies were shot or knifed to death at Outdoor Adventures by this employee at the order of his supervisor, because business had dropped and they were no longer needed.

The huskies were one of the "adventures" that could be had at the company and could be rented for two hours for a sled dog ride at the rate of 250 pounds a shot. Business fell off sharply after the 2010 Olympics ended and the Outdoor Adventures company says they could not find a vet who would put down the dogs since nothing was wrong with them and they could not find homes for the dogs. so the company basically conducted a "culling" of the herd. It was a business decision since they couldn't afford to keep the 300 dogs they currently owned.

The worker who filed the PTSD claim said that he shot many of the dogs at point blank range and once he ran out of ammunition, those who remained were tackled and their throats were slit with a knife. Once he was finished, the dogs were thrown in a mass grave, some of them still half alive. The owner of Outdoor Adventures told authorities that he had made every effort possible to find homes for the dogs.

Hmmm...did you see 100 Siberian Huskies listed on Craiglist? How about an ad in the paper? How about just an article in the paper explaining the owner's plight offering the dogs up for adoption? How about anything on the evening news? It would have made a great human interest story.

Of course not. Only now instead of a story about 100 lucky dogs finding new homes and 100 lucky people finding wonderful, devoted pets, the human interest story has to do with 100 animals senselessly murdered and business decisions being made that are beyond cruel and inhumane.

The British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has rightly become involved in the case. Marcie Moriarty, general manager of cruelty investigations for the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said "the slaughter left her sickened and said it is the worst case she's ever handled." The man who actually killed the animals name was withheld initially, but once released, he began receiving death threats.

In case you think that the dogs were just dumb animals and they weren't really aware of what was happening to them, at least two of the dogs tried to attack the worker as he slaughtered the other animals.  Surely dumb animals would not have tried to halt the cruelty they witnessed against their fellow creatures.

Bob Fawcett, the employee of Outdoor Adventures Whistler who actually conducted the slaughter on orders from his supervisor, won his Workman's Compensation claim and was awarded a settlement.

Is this not unbelievable? Who took his hand and forced him to pull the trigger on those defenseless animals? What ever happened to free will? It seems that we have become a civilization of people who do what we're told and then whine later saying it wasn't our fault, we were just following orders. I seem to recall the same sort of excuses being made during the Nazi War Crimes trials and the brutal slaughter of the Jews who were also thrown into mass graves.

I am sure there are many of you who will say this is different, those were human beings, and these were just animals, and it's wrong to trivialize what happened during the Holocaust. But is it so different, really, to look straight into the eyes of any creature, particularly the beautiful eyes of a husky and pull the trigger? Is it so different when life has so little value that we can eliminate it and then try to turn a profit from it? Have we become so desensitized that life, any life, becomes insignificant when it comes down to dollars and cents?

My son says there's a special place in hell reserved for people like this...I would have to agree.