England's Great Pet Massacre of 1939

[packman]

With war approaching, the citizens of London began euthanize and kill their pet dogs, cats, and birds.

"IN EARLY SEPTEMBER 1939, the citizens of London set about killing their pets. During the first four days of World War II, over 400,000 dogs and cats — some 26 percent of London’s pets — were slaughtered, a number six times greater than the number of civilian deaths in the UK from bombing during the entire war. It was a calm and orderly massacre. One animal shelter had a line stretching half a mile long with people waiting to turn their animals over to be euthanized. Crematoriums were overrun with the corpses of beloved dogs and cats; the fact that they could not run at night due to blackout conditions mandating the extinguishing of all manmade light sources so as not to aid German bombers’ navigation, further added to the backlog. Animal welfare societies ran out of chloroform, and shelters ran out of burial grounds. One local sanatorium offered a meadow, where half a million pets’ bodies were interred"

More at:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-pets-war-on-hilda-keans-the-great-cat-and-dog-massacre/

[underpants]

1. Wow I had no idea

Good read

[Warpy]

2. A lot of the culling of animals was taking place outside the city on the farms

as farmers were ordered to plow up pastureland to plant grains and other crops to feed humans directly instead of running it all through cattle, pigs, sheep, and even chickens. With no sheep to herd, sheep dogs were put down out of kindness.

The net result after six years of war was that the soil was severely depleted without all the manure that farm animals had produced. However, the rationing system and largely vegetarian, low fat diet had made Britons healthier than they'd ever been before.

That didn't mean that people liked it, at all. It was bland and boring.

But yes, it did mean that family pets who didn't earn their keep killing rodents and other vermin had to go. It was that or watch them starve since a family's meat ration wouldn't feed the animals, too.

[MFM008]

3. It wouldn't happened

With mine.
Family comes before everything.
You don't get rid of family because they are
Inconvenient .
If you wouldn't put grannie down you don't put Mr. Kitty down.