City of Ottawa threatens the lives of freedom protesters’ pets

The notice put up on the official Twitter account reads: "Attention animal owners at demonstration If you are unable to care for your animal as a result of enforcement actions, your animal will placed into protective care for 8 days, at your cost. After 8 days, if arrangements are not made, your animal will be considered relinquished."

To be clear, the text "your animal will be considered relinquished" means in no uncertain terms that the animals will be put into the city's animal shelter system.

This did not go unnoticed in the response tweets to the original notice. "What happens after the animals are 'relinquished'? You put them down?" read one reply tweet by journalist Chris Tomlinson:

It's no secret that animals tend not to have very good outcomes once they disappear into the shelter system. Looking at the big picture, according to the American Humane society's website, 56 percent of all dogs and 71 of all cats who enter shelters wind up being euthanized.

Perhaps more alarmingly, only 15.8 percent of dogs and a mere 2 percent of cats wind up being reunited with their original families.