01 November 2009
A 'Cure' for Pet Euthanisia?
Can a $75 million program, funded by a billionaire doctor’s foundation, offer the solution to pet over population?
In the September issue of Science Magazine, David Grimm reports that humane organizations throughout the United States can’t surgically sterilize homeless cats and dogs fast enough to control their numbers. Developing countries with dangerous feral dog populations – such as China and India – fare even worse. As a result, nearly four million dogs and cats are euthanized in United States’ animal shelters each year – and millions more are put to death in less humane ways around the globe.
“The amount that municipalities in the U.S. spend to catch, house, and kill our pet cats and dogs is staggering,” Found Animals Foundation Founder, Gary Michelson, M.D., shared with Science. “Surely we should be able to come up with a more cost-effective and humane approach.”
The solution could be a program announced last October by Dr. Michelson’s nonprofit foundation, Found Animals, the $75 million Michelson Prize & Grants in Reproductive Biology. The aim of the Program is to encourage researchers to develop a low cost, non-surgical sterilant, for cats and dogs. The Program offers $50 million in funding to approved researchers and a $25 million prize to the winning solution.
“There are a lot of very bright people out there who haven’t applied their research direction to dogs and cats, in part because there’s been no money,” added Found Animals Director of Scientific Research, Shirley Johnston, Ph.D., D.V.M, a veterinarian and expert in animal reproduction.
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Labels:
cats,
companion animals,
dogs,
pet euthanasia,
research,
statistics,
USA