Fraternity urged to ban wild animals from frat houses after opossum abuse allegations
I just want you to sit back and quietly imagine how you would feel if you were rounded up and stuffed into a large barrel with 40 other humans both living and dead! Do you feel fear or heart break? Outrage perhaps?
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - Animal rights advocates want a national fraternity to bar use of wild animals in chapter activities after two members at the University of Missouri-Columbia members were charged with abusing about 40 opossums that were rounded up and stuffed - living and dead - into a barrel.
Philip Josephson, national executive director of Alpha Gamma Rho, replied Thursday that he found the opossum stunt "deplorable" but that it wasn't sanctioned or sponsored by the fraternity. While the Missouri incident was "isolated and wrong," there are no plans for a rule barring wild animals, he added.
Authorities said it was a bizarre contest: Opossum gatherers received one point for each dead opossum, two points for a live one. The Missouri Department of Conservation quoted fraternity members as saying they planned to release the opossums into another frat house's yard.
Police received complaints about noise from neighbors of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity house around 2 a.m. on Nov. 19. An officer reported seeing students gathered around a large plastic barrel that was about two-thirds full of opossums, only half of them still alive.
Fraternity members Zachary Wade Famuliner and Adam Paul Thomas were charged with two misdemeanor counts each of animal abuse and a single misdemeanor count each of illegally pursuing, taking, killing, possessing or disposing of wildlife. The students, both 19, pleaded innocent and remain free on bond pending trials next month.
Famuliner and Thomas told police fraternity members drove around, found live opossums as well as carcasses, and returned them to the frat house for points. The conservation agency took the live opossums to a remote area south of Columbia and released them. The agency also disposed of about 20 opossum carcasses and two dead raccoons.
Authorities could not say how many opossums may have died because of being stuffed into the barrel. Boone County Prosecutor Kevin Crane said Thursday that he pressed charges "because we take this very seriously."
Stephanie Boyles, spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said she wrote this week to Alpha Gamma Rho, "trying to get them to enact a policy that would prevent any chapters from using wild animals."
"There is every reason to believe this would escalate in occurrences," she said.
Vern Pierce, the Missouri chapter's faculty adviser, strongly disagreed. He said Alpha Gamma Rho's members are planning professional careers in agricultural and animal management, and are "highly sensitive to any notion of abuse."
Pierce said the chapter has volunteered to sponsor educational events about proper treatment of animals for all fraternities and sororities.
"The fraternity has decided they are going to take an active role in disciplining themselves to make sure nothing like this happens again," Pierce said. "You ask, 'What were these two thinking?' And it's a poignant question. That is the point: They weren't thinking."
On the Net:
Alpha Gamma Rho: www.agrs.org
University of Missouri-Columbia: www.missouri.edu
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - Animal rights advocates want a national fraternity to bar use of wild animals in chapter activities after two members at the University of Missouri-Columbia members were charged with abusing about 40 opossums that were rounded up and stuffed - living and dead - into a barrel.
Philip Josephson, national executive director of Alpha Gamma Rho, replied Thursday that he found the opossum stunt "deplorable" but that it wasn't sanctioned or sponsored by the fraternity. While the Missouri incident was "isolated and wrong," there are no plans for a rule barring wild animals, he added.
Authorities said it was a bizarre contest: Opossum gatherers received one point for each dead opossum, two points for a live one. The Missouri Department of Conservation quoted fraternity members as saying they planned to release the opossums into another frat house's yard.
Police received complaints about noise from neighbors of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity house around 2 a.m. on Nov. 19. An officer reported seeing students gathered around a large plastic barrel that was about two-thirds full of opossums, only half of them still alive.
Fraternity members Zachary Wade Famuliner and Adam Paul Thomas were charged with two misdemeanor counts each of animal abuse and a single misdemeanor count each of illegally pursuing, taking, killing, possessing or disposing of wildlife. The students, both 19, pleaded innocent and remain free on bond pending trials next month.
Famuliner and Thomas told police fraternity members drove around, found live opossums as well as carcasses, and returned them to the frat house for points. The conservation agency took the live opossums to a remote area south of Columbia and released them. The agency also disposed of about 20 opossum carcasses and two dead raccoons.
Authorities could not say how many opossums may have died because of being stuffed into the barrel. Boone County Prosecutor Kevin Crane said Thursday that he pressed charges "because we take this very seriously."
Stephanie Boyles, spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said she wrote this week to Alpha Gamma Rho, "trying to get them to enact a policy that would prevent any chapters from using wild animals."
"There is every reason to believe this would escalate in occurrences," she said.
Vern Pierce, the Missouri chapter's faculty adviser, strongly disagreed. He said Alpha Gamma Rho's members are planning professional careers in agricultural and animal management, and are "highly sensitive to any notion of abuse."
Pierce said the chapter has volunteered to sponsor educational events about proper treatment of animals for all fraternities and sororities.
"The fraternity has decided they are going to take an active role in disciplining themselves to make sure nothing like this happens again," Pierce said. "You ask, 'What were these two thinking?' And it's a poignant question. That is the point: They weren't thinking."
On the Net:
Alpha Gamma Rho: www.agrs.org
University of Missouri-Columbia: www.missouri.edu
posted by Shane at 11:53 AM
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