D.A., advocates say animal abuse won’t be tolerated

By Riley Snyder

Thursday, June 13, 2013 | 6:01 p.m.

The tide of animal abuse and neglect that spreads throughout Las Vegas every summer must come to a halt, District Attorney Steve Wolfson said Thursday.

Wolfson, appearing at a Thursday morning news conference, pointed to this week’s third and final guilty plea in an October 2012 case involving the decapitation of an exotic bird at the Flamingo’s wildlife habitat serving to emphasize the District Attorney’s Office stance on abusing animals.

“The message we want to send from this point forward is simple,” Wolfson said. “Abuse and neglect of animals is a crime. And when these cases are submitted to our offices, we will prosecute them.”

Animal Control officers respond to an average of 5,000 animal abuse and neglect calls a year, with most of them coming in the summer due to the heat, Officer Dawn Stockman said. And that’s why Stockman, along with Wolfson and a host of animal advocates, gathered at the Lied Animal Foundation to remind the public of the consequences of animal neglect.

Animal Control receives about 10 to 20 calls a day for animals in dangerous conditions, and about 75 percent of those are purposeful abuse or neglect, Stockman said.

Animals need more care in hotter conditions, Animal Control officer Darrell Hampton said, but their owners “don’t always realize how much care is required.”

In an effort to increase the consequences for animal abuse, Nevada lawmakers approved a law in 2011 to add felony charges to the killing or torture of an animal. The bill, known as “Cooney’s Law,” was named after a 3-year-old pit bull that was killed after having her stomach cut open with a box cutter.

Lawmakers this session approved a bill allowing the state to release more information about animal cruelty cases, which was formerly required to be confidential.

But the majority of animal cruelty cases involved heat-related illness or death, Stockman said. Keeping animals locked up in a car or tied up outside without shade can lead to deadly consequences, veterinarian Jessica Graham said.

Excessive heat mostly affects dogs because cats are more self-sufficient, veterinarian Graham said. Dogs begin to suffer organ damage when their internal body temperature reaches 109 degrees, which is easy to reach in a hot car or outside during the summer, she said.

Dogs most affected by heat are breeds like pugs, bulldogs and others with short muzzles, Graham said.

For Wolfson, who said he owns a 5-month-old labradoodle, the case against the three men who killed the exotic bird last March is a step in the right direction.

But because most animal abuse calls come in from the public, Wolfson said stemming such behavior comes down to public care.

“We feel strongly than public attention and public education is the key to reducing cases of animal abuse and neglect,” he said.