Parental Unit's sister, Renee, of Renee DeMartin Photography and Design, forwarded us this article from the website Care2 Make A Difference. And we knew immediately that we wanted to share the work of these extraordinary two people with our readers.
Marina Dervan and Mark Barone's cause is to make the United States the first "no-kill nation" on earth.
This quest began over a year ago while they were still mourning the loss of their 20 year old dog, Santina, but decided it might be time to allow a new dog into their lives. They started with online searches of shelters and rescue groups and discovered an ugly truth: most shelters in the U.S. have a 60% kill rate or higher. And at that moment they decided that they must speak up and take on this cause.
Read the full article here to discover the amazing art project Mark and Marina are creating to get the word out about these shocking kill rate statistics -some 5500 dogs are euthanized each day in the United States-and what we can do together to change this: www.care2.com/causes/animal-welfare/blog/can-the-u-s-become-a-no-kill-nation/ .
We'd love to know what you think about this couple and their cause. As always, thanks for your support.
2 comments:
This sounds like an amazing art project. I hope I get to see it. You know what's scary, even MORE animals (especially cats) die on the streets every day. Take that 8-12 million per year in shelters and double or triple it and then you have the total number of animals who die because they are unwanted.
The other tricky thing is - no-kill is defined very differently even among no-kill shelters. Some shelters are considered no-kill shelters even though they euthanize aggressive dogs and/or cats that test positive for Feline Leukemia or FIV. Often when towns and cities become no-kill, they are only talking about adoptable animals and not the others I mentioned. Also, usually only dogs and cats, not rabbits, birds, etc.
Now, having volunteered in no-kill shelters, I know this is not as black and white as it appears. What does a shelter with limited space do with a severely aggressive dog or a cat who with a communicable disease? Do you risk many to save one? I am totally in favor of no-kill, but I also think it is a really complicated issue with many difficult questions that have yet to be resolved.
Pip, thanks for raising these good points! Yes it is a very complicated issue...and we've got a long way to go:-) But PU and I are all for awareness and baby steps...
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