We humans are a funny lot, especially our weird sentimentality towards animals. We may sniff and shake our heads at the worst atrocities committed against our fellow humans but nothing stokes the flames of outrage like enormities committed against animals.
Especially our closest animal companions, dogs. There is something about dogs’ unwavering loyalty that makes us react with fury when they are mistreated.
No amount of exposing the horrors that lockdowns have imposed on humans seems to have moved the hearts of lockdown fanatics. Despite their pretension to moral superiority, they remain unwavering in their dedication to the cruellest public policy enacted in living memory.
Maybe the fate of the lost dogs of Bourke might finally move them.
Several impounded dogs due to be rescued by a shelter have instead been shot dead by a rural council in NSW under its interpretation of COVID-19 restrictions.
Nothing seems to capture the bureaucratic inhumanity of lockdowns quite like this shocking action.
Not the elderly dying alone and unable to say their last goodbyes to loved ones. Not the rows of empty chairs at funerals. Not the children kept isolated and fearful, nor the adolescents denied the solace of each other’s company. Not even politicians berating people for sitting on the beach to watch the sun set.
But killing helpless dogs?
Bourke Shire Council, in the state’s north-west, killed the dogs to prevent volunteers at a Cobar-based animal shelter from travelling to pick up the animals last week, according to council’s watchdog, the Office of Local Government.
“OLG has been informed that the council decided to take this course of action to protect its employees and community, including vulnerable Aboriginal populations, from the risk of COVID-19 transmission,” a spokesman from the government agency said.
As with every enormity of the Covid era, the most vile bureaucratic atrocity can be hand-waved away by invoking the magic phrase, “protect the vulnerable”.
Except the most vulnerable of all: lost dogs caged by the local council.
According to NSW Health, there have been no recent locally acquired COVID-19 cases in Cobar, although fragments of the virus have been found in the area’s sewerage system.
The Office of Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock, who has previously faced questions in Parliament over the shooting of animals in council pounds, did not comment. However, Animal Liberation campaigner Lisa Ryan called for an urgent investigation.
“We are deeply distressed and completely appalled by this callous dog shooting and we totally reject council’s unacceptable justifications that this killing was apparently undertaken as part of a COVID- safe plan,” Ms Ryan, Animal Liberation’s regional campaign manager, said.
Sydney Morning Herald
For once, I’m in agreement with the animal libbers.
But I have little hope that even murdered doggos will move the cold, bureaucratic hearts of the Covid dictators and their bootlickers.
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