Comment by fnovd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fnovd | Hacker News Reader

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There are two kinds of shelters: open-admission, and no-kill. There is no third kind. We will never be a no-kill nation without addressing the root causes: lack of availability of subsidized spay/neuter programs, and the profitability of animal breeding.

I think it's great to try to connect people with animals they want to take care of. It's not going to make overcrowded shelters any less crowded. There is certainly some unused shelter capacity that your organization can fill up, that is true. However, that capacity is not infinite, and once you have reached it you'll have all the same problems.

There is only one solution: subsidized spay/neuter programs and a crackdown on any animal-breeding operation. Otherwise, you're just giving a blood transfusion to a patient with a gushing wound.

> a crackdown on any animal-breeding operation

As someone with zero interest whatsoever in animal breeding, this kind of restriction seems way too draconian and incompatible with a free society. I'd rather have there be too many stray animals forever than for that to be implemented.

Stray animals, cats in particular, are contributing to the rapid decline of our bird population. Freedom to breed animals in an irretrievably broken ecosystem is a dubious proposition.

(I’m not advocating for a ban but there aren’t any good options here. )

Isn't the real problem not breeding animals, but rather releasing them into the environment? Why not crack down on the latter instead?

I don’t know how you can accomplish either, but breeding is much easier to detect than releasing into the wild. Basically if someone is selling animals, they’d need a license…which now that I write it, doesn’t seem all that impractical.

Most people agree with you, which is exactly why there is no chance that an organization like this can have a real impact.

How can a breeder, who is incentivized to create a stream of puppies to sell, be compatible with a society that is trying to reduce euthanasia for animals? Breeders already have to deal with puppies and kitties "aging out" of profitability, an organization like this just subsidizes their cost of dumping unwanted stock.

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