NWCOA HUMANE EUTHANASIA STATEMENT

NWCOA Policy Statement:  Definition of Humane

"In the opinion of NWCOA, "humane" should be regarded as a relative rather than absolute term.  "Humane" is a term that defines the attitude or feelings of the operator (human) conducting the act toward a subject (in this case animal) rather than the act itself.  Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary describes it as "adj. Characterized by kindness, mercy, or compassion".  Therefore the true test of humaneness lies in the intentions of the operator performing the act.  If an operator controls, captures, kills, or takes action with kindness, mercy or compassion as a factor when deciding or making choices than they are acting in a humane manner.  Certainly to cause a "humane" death should be one that is as swift and painless as possible, by choosing a method found to be superior to another when compared side by side.  Factors, in particular the legal or physical availability of a method, play a part in humaneness. 

Options available to a veterinarian in a clinic may not be available to the wildlife control professional in the field.  A CO2 chamber may kill certain species with less physical trauma than a body grip trap, but if the utilization of the chamber involves increased handling and transport injury or stress, the body grip may be more humane.  If an animal is in immediate unrelievable pain and no sanctioned humane method of euthanasia is available (i.e. AVMA defined), a swift but non-sanctioned method, such as blunt force trauma head strike, would be more humane than abandoning the animal to its suffering.

In the opinion of NWCOA, when it is necessary to use lethal methods or that the animal will be killed after capture, the method employed should be the safest to the operator and the public, and the quickest and most painless available (see NWCOA Policy Statement on Euthanasia). 

NWCOA supports the training of NWCOs in a variety of methods of euthanasia, including but not limited to those that are recommended by the AVMA, and encourages the conditional ranking of killing methods by species from most to least humane, so NWCOs can choose the method most appropriate to the species and situation.”

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NWCOA POLICY STATEMENT ON EUTHANASIA

“It is the policy and practice of NWCOA to promote the most effective, scientifically based principles in regards to Wildlife Damage Management.  Therefore it is our opinion that where laws or rules are to be formed in regards to wildlife control operators killing wildlife that the law or rule should state:

"That when it is necessary to use lethal methods or that the animal will be killed after capture than the method employed should be the safest to the operator and public, quickest and most painless available".

These principals should apply to selection of lethal capture devices as well as killing methods. Therefore if it is known that an animal is to be killed after capture it is considered a better choice to use a quick killing lethal method of capture rather than to first put an animal thru the possible stress of capture and handling prior to death.  In situations where it is not practical to use lethal methods for safety consideration, then it is recommended the animal be removed and handled in a manner that causes the least amount of stress and killed as quickly as circumstances permit.

NWCOA supports the training of NWCOs in a variety of methods of euthanasia, including but not limited to those that are recommended by the AVMA, and encourages the conditional ranking of killing methods by species from most to least humane, so NWCOs can choose the method most appropriate to the species and situation”.

End of Statement