Victory: City by city, we just ended gas chamber euthanasia in the U.S.
The 7–0 vote on October 7 followed months of sustained public pressure tied to Animals’ Angels’ campaign to shut down the country’s last remaining gas chambers.
Councilmember Pete Williams acknowledged the scale and intensity of that outreach, including the nickname used for the mayor in Animals’ Angels’ advocacy materials:
“I got a few really, really radical emails over the last six months. They called us Nazis. They called us genocide, they were calling us all kinds of names, different organizations. It was pretty ugly, and they had a nickname for our mayor, called him ‘Gas Chamber Pete.’”
With Green River’s decision, one of the final cities in the United States still using gas chambers ended the practice. Shortly afterward, Evanston, Wyoming — the only other known city at the time still using this method — also announced it would discontinue gas chamber euthanasia.
Because the Animals’ Angels community took decisive and relentless action, innocent dogs and cats will be spared a prolonged and terrifying death. This victory proves that organized, persistent advocacy works — and that even long-standing cruelty can be dismantled, one city at a time.
Since 2016, Animals’ Angels has distributed over a million pieces of literature educating the public on the cruelty of gas chambers used at shelters to kill dogs and cats.
Thanks to our efforts of educating the public – working alongside many other organizations – we have seen many states ban gas chambers across the country. Because of the power of advocacy, gas chambers are no longer a “normal” way of euthanizing companion animals in America.
In the summer of 2024, Animals’ Angels launched a petition campaign to the mayor of the last city in Missouri that was continuing to use an animal gas chamber – Mayor Shane Cornman of the city of Poplar Bluff.
On October 7th, the Poplar Bluff City Council voted to dismantle their gas chamber! This means that no more innocent animals will be gassed to death in Missouri.
Now we’re on a mission to end gas chambers for pets in the last state in America that’s using them…Wyoming. Currently, there are two cities in Wyoming that continue to use gas chambers to kill animals: Green River & Evanston.
Since our petition drive to Poplar Bluff’s mayor was successful, we’re going to focus on shutting down Green River’s gas chamber first by launching a petition campaign to the Green River Mayor, Pete Rust. The town and those in charge of the fate of shelter animals appear to be extremely unapologetic about what they are doing.
Green River’s Animal Control Supervisor Tracy Wyant said this to the media when asked about her city being one of the last in America to use a gas chamber to kill pets: “Our stance hasn’t changed. We’ve never had a bad experience with it [the gas chamber].”
Horrific statements – death in a gas chamber is a long, agonizing death and the animal’s last moments are filled with fear and panic.
We ask our supporters to call or email Mayor Pete Rust and urge him to do the right thing and make the country’s last torture chamber a thing of the past.
Contact Information:
307-871-3175
Thank you so much for taking action on behalf of these helpless animals!