Everyone’s problem – Editorial

Many of the animal welfare advocates in this month’s cover story helped achieve the radical changes and improvements in how Baton Rouge is handling stray and abandoned animals.

At the philosophical center of their efforts is the “no-kill” approach: that is, do everything possible to treat and find homes for as many animals as possible.

But as some people were stunned to learn recently, if you suddenly stop killing strays, guess what? Animals start stacking up three to a cage and spilling into the lobby at the parish animal shelter.

That temporary crisis seems to have been averted, and the shelter’s new management is taking aggressive steps to improve conditions for the additional animals in their care.

But there’s a crucial lesson to be learned here: the high population of stray and mistreated animals is not the animal shelter’s problem, or that of East Baton Rouge Animal Control, or the Metro Council, or local vets; it’s everyone’s.

Just like every other civic challenge our parish faces—failing public schools, crumbling infrastructure, violent crime—the parish’s animal challenges won’t be solved solely by a handful of civil servants, the bureaucracies they serve, or by elected officials. Getting a handle on our animal problem will require effort, input and engagement from all corners of the community, from private pet owners to taxpayers who don’t even have animals in their lives.

Kudos to the Capital Area Animal Welfare Society, Project Purr, and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation who demanded change—and when it didn’t come, implemented it themselves. Also, props to corporate sponsors such as Lamar Advertising and Raising Cane’s for doing their part to help animals.

But East Baton Rouge Parish still has some major challenges ahead. If the community is truly committed not to kill so many potential pets, then who’s going to feed all these additional animals? Who’ll keep them healthy? Who’ll pay for it all?

We’ve seen great progress recently, but now comes the hard part. The whole community must recognize and embrace the problem and not leave it to pet lovers or the folks at the animal shelter.

When called upon, will you exercise your vote to ensure that government spending on animal control and sheltering is efficient and effective? Will you remain interested enough to make your vote an informed one?

Baton Rouge has a real opportunity here, because there’s something special about the way people respond to companion animals. No less a person than Gandhi said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” The same is true of the greatness of one growing city—our own.

Maybe if the whole community leverages its empathy, and everyone embraces their small part in solving these problems, then this long-term improvement of animal welfare could become the model for how Baton Rouge tackles deeper, more urgent civic problems: as an engaged community that works together.

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