Attempts to ban glue traps and cat declawing, and a bill to relax restrictions on owning squirrels and raccoons as pets, activated animal welfare advocates early this year. During the legislative session, many made the pilgrimage to the State House to urge lawmakers to listen as they spoke for the voiceless.
Michelle Conroy, of Concord, recounted horrific scenes from her time working in an animal hospital in the 1990s. Cats who’d undergone declawing procedures “would be banging their hands trying to get the bandages off and the cage would be full of blood,” she told legislators in January, imploring their support for a ban. The following month, lawmakers in the House of Representatives rejected it instead.
This was a significant year for stories about animal welfare.
House fires claimed the lives of several beloved pets. Concord residents spotted a loose emu on the shore of Penacook Lake in early September — worry not, the bird soon reunited with its owners. The same week, 4-H participants at the Hopkinton State Fair trotted their livestock around a show ring and, riding the coattails of a successful auction, shared their pride and sorrow at raising animals for slaughter.
Just as 4-H’er Hannah Cargill said of her bond with her lamb, Ferguson, some stories simply “put a hole in your heart.” Others asked readers to reflect not on the defenselessness of animals but on their strength.
Draft animals, better known as beasts of burden, account for almost 90% of the operations at Sanborn Mills Farm in Loudon. For owner Ray Ramsey, who convened farmers for three educational field days in October, employing horses, mules and oxen as working implements is simultaneously a tradition worth preserving and an innovative green technology for future-proofing small-scale agriculture.
The practice doesn’t necessitate a trade-off with the animals’ health and well-being, contrary to what laymen might expect. “If you start out heavy, you may wear that animal out in a couple hours,” Ramsey said. “It’s better to go light and go often, than to go heavy and go once.”
Fostering pregnant animals, in terms of the Monitor’s coverage, proved to be the largest animal welfare story of the year.
Over the course of the last year, the Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food has communicated to rescues and shelters across the state that pregnancy and lactation are not sufficient reasons to place animals in foster homes, previously a common and widespread practice. Animal welfare advocates bristled at the Department’s increased enforcement of the fostering statute, which allows for fostering in the case of medical and behavioral rehabilitation, and expressed fear that the directive would harm mothers’ and infants’ well-being.
Guided by conviction, volunteer foster families have continued welcoming pregnant animals and their litters into their homes. Amy Shaw, a foster owner in Milton who supported a pregnant dog through an hours-long delivery, saw the situation plainly as a question of right and wrong.
“Having these dogs give birth in an animal shelter is like asking us to give birth in a homeless shelter. And I don’t mean a transitional living facility, I mean a homeless shelter where you pack up your stuff and leave every day,” she said.