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Pets Seized From Apartments Hurled To Deaths

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The Associated Press

Published: October 13, 2007

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them from a bridge to their deaths, authorities and witnesses said Friday.

Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter.

'This is an irresponsible, inhumane and shameful act,' he told The Associated Press.

Fontanez said the city hired Animal Control Solution to clear three housing projects of pets after warning residents about a no-pet policy. He said the city paid $60 for every animal recovered and $100 more for each trip to a shelter in the San Juan suburb of Carolina.

Raids were conducted Monday and Wednesday, and residents told TV reporters they saw the animal control workers inject the animals. When they asked what they were giving them, they said they were told it was a sedative for the drive to the shelter.

'They came as if it were a drug raid,' said Alma Febus, an animal welfare activist. 'They took away dogs, cats and whatever animal they could find. Some pets were taken away in front of children.'

But instead of being taken to a shelter, the pets and strays were thrown 50 feet from a bridge in the neighboring town of Vega Baja, according to Fontanez, witnesses and activists, apparently before dawn Tuesday.

'Many were already dead when they threw them, but others were alive,' said Jose Manuel Rivera, who lives next to the bridge.

Rivera said he alerted officials, who spread lime over the animals' corpses to control the stench.

Animal Control Solution owner Julio Diaz said he went to the bridge when he heard of the allegations, but remains unconvinced that the dead animals are the same ones his company collected.

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