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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>Visionaries:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>I’m sharing – with gratitude -- a letter to the editor from Elizabeth Sloan that appeared in yesterday’s (2016-09-16) Arg. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:blue'><a href="https://www.uiargonaut.com/2016/09/16/mailbox-catastrophe/"><span style='color:blue'>https://www.uiargonaut.com/2016/09/16/mailbox-catastrophe/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>Cats are being killed on Moscow’s University of Idaho campus. According to an article in the Idaho Statesman: “Two state agencies say the University of Idaho failed to seek approval <span class=s1>for a program that trapped and euthanized feral cats on campus.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span class=s1><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>In a UI Argonaut article, Veterinarian Autenried said that the cats are trapped because they are wild, sick, “completely feral,” and unmanageable. “The captured cats were a mixture of kittens and adults.”</span></span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span class=s1><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>Feral: ferocious, vicious, savage.</span></span><span class=apple-converted-space><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'> </span></span><span class=s1><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>Savage kittens, then.</span></span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>Autenried claims he “gives each cat a check-up.” <span class=s1>After which they are gassed, lethally injected and incinerated. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span class=s1><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>“I am a veterinarian, and I can tell a pet cat from a feral cat without a long evaluation.” </span></span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>That does not mean merely visual. That does not mean, “I spy with my little eye a cat in a trap who needs to die.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>I see a grand irony worth mentioning. Cats are being killed on a college campus that has adopted the book “Soul of an Octopus” as their common read this academic year. The author, Sy Montgomery, will be on our cat-killing campus on Oct. 3. Montgomery talks about learning humility, compassion and empathy from getting to know and understand these marvelous creatures named octopus.<span class=apple-converted-space> </span><span class=s1>Accepting the challenges and differences between species is something that can only benefit and enrich the lives of our university students. Killing animals with no accountability is not the lesson I want my students to learn.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span class=s1><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>I have a Richard Feynman quote posted for my students on our BbLearn site: </span></span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span class=s1><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>“I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” </span></span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p1 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>There are legitimate questions to be asked, from both sides of this issue. But trapping and killing cats on a college campus as an answer is indeed something that needs to be questioned.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=p2 style='margin-left:.5in;background:white'><span class=s1><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'>— Elizabeth Sloan</span></span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:#333333'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>I have been dismayed by some of the ignorant and biased comments I’ve heard about the UI’s atrocious recent handling of campus cats. One can be against free-roaming cats – as am I – without hating cats and wanting to kill them all, a fact that seems to have escaped a vocal few. You’ll find no one more distressed by bird tragedies in their environments than am I, whether those tragedies are from free-roaming cats, raptors, scavengers, dogs, coyotes, reptiles, or whatever, yet I’m not out advocating for the ability to kill everything that offends me. And to advocate killing free-roaming cats to “save the birds” (BTW, I’ve spent a lot of time & money over the years making my yard bird friendly) while remaining mum and doing nothing productive about habitat destruction, window collisions (responsible for killing about a billion birds in the US each year), pesticides, and all the other causes/contributors to bird fatalities is silly and short-sighted.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>I also heard there was an article in the Daily News earlier this week about the UI’s failure to comply with Idaho Public Records Law with respect to providing access to the records pertaining to the trapping, gassing, and subsequent euthanasia of the campus cats. Unfortunately, we were down to one car this past week and I was unable to pick up the paper to read the details. However, while I’m disappointed in the UI’s failure to comply, I’m glad to know I’m in good company because I received no response whatsoever to my email to the UI, which I’m also including below. As some may remember, Rose Huskey and I have run into the UI’s obstruction with respect to accessing public records more than a few times in recent years, which has been a marked change over earlier times when we found the UI nothing but cooperative when we wanted to examine public records in accordance with Idaho Public Records Law.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>It goes without saying I continue to remain disappointed by the lack of transparency at the UI, and I’m thoroughly disgusted that it continues to hold itself above the law by failing to comply with public records law.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>For those interested, please scroll below my sig to read my email to the UI which has been ignored. Please keep in mind that I sent my email prior to the subsequent revelations that the UI did <b><u>not</u>, </b>in fact, secure the appropriate permission as required by law to trap cats. By all reports thus far, Dr. Autenried seems to have been mistaken – at best -- in his earlier claims to the contrary. Yet another black eye for the UI.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>Saundra Lund<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>Moscow, ID<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'>~ Jeremy Bentham<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b>From:</b> Saundra Lund<br><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, August 25, 2016 4:30 PM<br><b>To:</b> 'campusvet@uidaho.edu' <campusvet@uidaho.edu><br><b>Cc:</b> 'chuckstaben@uidaho.edu' <chuckstaben@uidaho.edu>; 'aharner@uidaho.edu' <aharner@uidaho.edu><br><b>Subject:</b> Accountability<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Dr. Autenried:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>I suspect today isn’t a good day for you, and I’m not going to make it any better.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'>To be clear: as taxpayer, a University of Idaho graduate, and the wife of a 28-year UI faculty member who would be resigning <u>today</u> if not for his contract and dedication to his students, I cannot tell you how extremely disappointed and angry I am by the revelations in today’s newspaper.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>The question about how best to manage feral cats is a complicated one with strong opinions on all sides, to be sure. And, to be as charitable as possible, I’m willing to grant that someone such as yourself --whose expertise is the use and care of research animals -- is ill-equipped and clearly unqualified to determine feral cat management policy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Intelligent people with strong ethics don’t hesitate to admit the limitations of their expertise, and your failure to do so in this instance certainly didn’t serve the UI well. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>The questions I’m asking are not rhetorical: I expect answers. I find it disturbing the UI apparently refused to give a clear-cut answer as to whether the handling of this “single family sick feral cats” is something that was an unacceptable and regrettable one-off <b>or</b> a continuation of existing campus policy. So, consider that my first set of questions: what exactly is the UI policy regarding trapping cats on campus, when was it put into place, exactly how many cats have been trapped at the UI during the last five years, and what has been the disposition of all cats trapped at the UI during the past five years?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Also, what are the specifics of the trapping program? Who is responsible for setting the traps, and what training did they receive to ensure that they were qualified to <b>humanely </b>trap cats? What is the policy about checking the traps, and what is the process followed when a cat is found in a trap? What is the policy that ensures trapped cats aren’t subjected to dangerous and inhumane deprivation of food and water, are protected from temperature/weather extremes while trapped, etc.?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Next, let me make this very clear: if you think your flowery language to describe your <b>self-built</b> gas chamber fooled anyone with connected brain cells, you are sadly mistaken. <b>I find it appalling that no one involved had the sense God gave billy goats to recognize how horribly inappropriate your scheme was.</b> There are many good reasons the practice by organizations of using gas chambers to dispose of unwanted non-research animals has been outlawed in much of the nation. That it hasn’t yet been outlawed in Idaho doesn’t change the fact that just because you can do something, that doesn’t make it ethically, morally, rationally, or logically right to do it. And, the cats you gassed weren’t research animals.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>A quick look at the research euthanasia policies of several other higher education institutions indicate that when gas chambers are used for non-rodent research animals, they are to be commercially produced “proven” chambers, not jury-rigged devices. <b>I find it unconscionable a jury-rigged gas chamber was allowed to be used on cats – research subjects or not -- at the UI.<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>What is your specific training that qualifies you to design and build a gas chamber to suffocate cats specifically to unconsciousness? What is the gas displacement rate of your self-built gas chamber? What are the specifics of your design <b>and </b>testing protocols <b>prior</b> to your use of gas chamber on the cats and kittens? What carbon dioxide flow rate did you use, and what instruments did you use to ensure appropriate concentration to guarantee the administration was as humane as possible? What carbon dioxide concentration did you use? What’s the source of the carbon dioxide used to gas the cats and kittens (i.e., did you use CO2 that was funded for use on research animals for non-research animals)? Did you gas the cats individually or in groups? What euthanasia method was subsequently used? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Given your background, I’m also frankly disturbed to learn you fancy yourself some kind of feline expert qualified to determine whether an understandably stressed trapped cat is feral or just plain traumatized by being trapped and handled by unknown people. Those experienced with cats know it takes time to determine whether a trapped cat is feral, stray, or lost. Please do tell me over what time frame you observed the cats <b>after</b> you trapped them to make the determination, and how were they housed in the time between trapping and gassing? Specifically, what modern (I know you graduated from vet med school decades ago) and specialized training have you received to qualify you to make that determination about non-research cats?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>I fear I already know the answer to my next question, but did you scan for microchips the cats you trapped before killing them? If you didn’t, then how can you state with authority that the cats you trapped were feral rather than stray or lost? <b>The nightmarish fact of the matter is that you can’t, no matter how much you spin, back-pedal, and try to convince anyone otherwise.<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Perhaps there is no better evidence of your lack of qualification to “handle” the problem than your hubris in fancying yourself qualified to build a gas chamber for cats <b>and</b> your stunning failure to even reach out to HSOP -- or to any other organization -- with legitimate expertise in <b>humanely</b> dealing with cat management. Reaching out to IDFG while not contacting HSOP to request assistance is inexplicable and inexcusable.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'>I think it fair say both tell this community a heck of a lot about not only the sad mindset of those calling the shots, but also about the obviously deficient critical thinking and problem-solving skills of all involved with this horrifying debacle. This whole thing points to an incredibly disturbing institutional failure. I expect better – much better -- from the UI.</span></b><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>There’s another aspect of this “incident” I find very troubling: I can’t help but notice that the Office of Research Assurances – which is where I found your contact information -- is located in Morrill Hall, which reportedly was the location of this “single family of sick cats” discovered in the spring.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Is that where your office is located? Whether it is or not, why didn’t <b>you</b> – as a veterinarian – get involved in a non-lethal way? What <b>positive</b> steps, prior to trapping and killing, did you take to address the “single family of sick cats?” And, once you made the decision to trap, why on <b>earth</b> didn’t you make any non-lethal plan whatsoever about what to do with the cats you set out to trap?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'>That glaring absence of a plan certainly seems to indicate that a decision had been made <u>in advance</u> to simply <u>kill everything</u> you caught <u>without consideration of the health, condition, temperament, feral/stray/lost status of the trapped cats</u>, doesn’t it?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Otherwise, you’d have had contingency plans for what to do with any healthy and/or friendly cat or kitten that was – however inadvertently -- trapped. And, without prior contact with the HSOP, you clearly didn’t have any alternative plan, did you?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'>And without a reasonable and thoughtful humane plan for what to do with any “health” feral, stray, or lost cats you trapped, why on earth should anyone with connected brain cells believe a word you say about the state/condition of the kittens and cats you trapped and killed?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'>The answer is this: no reasonable or thoughtful person should.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'>In case I’ve not made myself perfectly clear, I find the UI’s handling of this situation – and your role in it – utterly repugnant and completely unacceptable.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Again, I do expect answers to my questions, and I expect that those answers be timely.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>A Thoroughly DISGUSTED UI Alum,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Saundra Lund<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>1220 Highland Dr.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>Moscow, ID 83843<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'>(208) 882-2150<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'>The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak out for themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><span style='color:#44546A'>~ Jane Goodall<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#44546A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>