WARWICK, R.I. – A man who abandoned 280 white rats found dead and dying in crowded carriers was ordered to pay $1,000 restitution and perform 50 hours of community service. Toby Duffany pleaded no contest Wednesday to a single count of animal abandonment. Authorities say the 22-year-old Duffany left the rats crammed into aquariums and cages by the side of a road in Foster last month. By the time they were discovered on Dec. 30, the animals had been there several days, 72 were dead and the survivors had resorted to cannibalism. The living rats were euthanized by the state Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Duffany’s mother had started with one or two pet rats that multiplied quickly, said David Holden, inspector for the group.
Duffany said in court he got rid of the rats because he and his fiancee just had a baby. The couple share a small house with his mother. He said that at his mother’s request, he tried without success to get various pet stores to take the rats before abandoning them. Veterinarian E.J. Finnocchio, the group’s president, said he was disappointed with the sentence. Duffany could have faced charges of malicious injury to animals. “I’m waiting for the day to come when the message is sent that in Rhode Island, you will not get away with doing these things,” Finnocchio said.
I love animals as much as the next guy…maybe more so. But is this insane or what? I mean I have paid people to kill the little bastards, does that make me an accomplice?
You are correct. It is insane.
Maybe I’m missing something but there is a big difference between the suffering of starving to death versus a quick painless death.
I had pet rats who did tricks on whistle commands. Much smarter and friendlier than the Chinchilla, gerbils, hamsters and killer racoons.
Its the TAIL!!!!!!!!
Animals starve to death all the time in nature, perhaps we should set up a food stamps program for them.
Is death by rat poison really quick and painless?
# 2 bobbo said, “Maybe I’m missing something but there is a big difference between the suffering of starving to death versus a quick painless death.”
Not in the business of rat killing. Most traps use glue that causes death by starvation and/or dehydration…
Doesn’t really make any sense. He tried the proper procedures and then had to chose between his human child or a pet…
The part that is a crime is the cruety involved in leaving the rats in their cages. He should have just let them go.
#3–SL==in a sense you are right, but absent MAN being in the picture, rats normally don’t live and breed in aquarium containers.
Now you put MAN back into the picture, and ethics and morality have developed to the point that it is considered demeaning to MAN to inflict needless pain or torture on animals. Killing is to be done as painless as possible.
SL–are you “developed” or still pulling wings off of flies?
The difference is these rats were meant to be pets and were cared for as pets. (A wild, disease-ridden rat infestation is a different story—health and safety—and would need to be eradicated for the health and safety of a human population.)
I think the courts were actually fair in this case. He got one count of animal abandonment. If he had done this to another type of animal, like cats or dogs, he would have gotten a count for each animal. $1,000 fine and 50 hours community service is fair. If he got nothing, the courts would essentially be condoning animal cruelty in cases where the pets aren’t “cute” and conventional.
Starving your pets to death is sick. Nothing wrong with killing rats (the fuckers keep attacking my chicks) but to just dump them is as cruel as it is cowardly. Don’t they have pillow cases and rivers in Warwick, RI?
#8, to me it just shows how silly it is that animals captured for the amusement of selfish humans are thenceforth being provided a special legal status over the ones that have managed to escape the same fate.
I love the photo for this piece…reminds me of the crooks in congress…
#10–SL==is that YOU or are you channeling John Wayne Gacy?
#6 has it right! let them go at the back of a Safeway..
He should have gotten a cat. Cats know how to deal with rats.
You think starving them is cruel? How about playing and batting them around until the limbs fall off, then eating the good parts and leaving the rest on the doorstep??
Five to one baby, one in five. No one here gets out alive!
He really should have taken a nice 300 mile ride in the country, dropping a few of the rats off in a wooded sucluded area every few miles (you don’t want to drop over a 100 in one place since that can cause problems).
Most would die, but a few wouldn’t right away, and the ones that did die would provide food for other animals.
He should have slipped them under the door at the local PETA HQ some dark night…
No more Ranch dressing for me.
Jeeze. He should have just put them all in a burlap sack and drown them. Better than starving them or letting them go wild.
All he needed was a couple of snakes.
Animal cruelty laws shouldn’t apply to all animals. I’m not sure how they’re written, but they *should* just list the animals the law applies to.
I don’t see many people wanting the law applied to more than cats and dogs.
Monkeys, whales, seal pups, elephants, wolves, convicts, opposition party members, muslims, === all kinds of animals need protection.
But seriously folks, the concept is not to protect “animals” but rather to protect humans.
# 21 brm said
I don’t see many people wanting the law applied to more than cats and dogs.
Obviously a city boy. How about horses? Guinea pigs? Ferrets? Aquarium fish? etc….
J/P=?
OK, someone’s got to ask. Is this story about Obama leaving the Senate?
[Please drop the WWW from URLs as WordPress doesn’t display it properly. – ed.]
He should have sold them to people with pet snakes or just let them out of the cages. Hawks, owls and other animals would have had a good feed.
When you take a pet, you are implicitly agreeing to care for said pet for life.
Rats happen to be quite intelligent.
I heard one story of a woman with a pet white rat who would let it roam free. When her house burned, the rat, rather than leave the house like the proverbial rats jumping from a sinking ship, licked the woman’s face until she woke up. The rat saved her life.
I think when the man took in these rats as pets he took an obligation to care for them. I agree with this sentence.
#2 – bobbo,
You’ve got it. It’s the tail. People would react very differently if these were hamsters. And, hamsters are less intelligent, even according to a friend who has had many hamsters and has loved them all. (Hey, even I can see the difference in personality ?hamsterality? among her different hamsters. And, rats are smarter and probably have even more ?ratality?.)
Who thinks squirrels are cute and rats are ugly? Why?
#23 John Paradox:
“How about horses?”
Horses taste good, and it’s fun to bet on races, so I’d rather not see the cruelty laws applied to them.
Whomever likes rats didn’t read 1984.
#29 – Pat M,
Read it. Also saw Willard. I still like rats. When I see them in the subway, I consider myself lucky that I’ve managed to get a wildlife sighting on a work day. Although, there are a few that don’t look too healthy, a bit mangy, and some carry switchblades. Most are cute though.