What Project Hercules Suggests

Project Hercules was an organized (but failed) endeavor to airlift dogs out of Afghanistan in the wake of August’s US military troop withdrawal from the country. The dogs were left behind by evacuees who were unable to take their animals with them. The project garnered an impressive amount of financial as well as spiritual backing across the internet. Although the operation garnered some pushback from people who thought such efforts should be directed only on the behalf of humans trying to escape the country, Project Hercules received impressive support.

I have to ask, though, why there isn’t more concern for animals in this country who have no homes to go to? 

According to the ASPCA, ”One of the largest challenges facing animal welfare organizations today is the sheer number of animals in need of assistance. Every year, approximately 6.5 million companion animals arrive at one of the community animal shelters nationwide.…Each year, approximately 1.5 million animals are euthanized (670,00 dogs and 860,000 cats).”

These figures reflect pre-COVID reports. In 2020, shelter adoptions and so fewer animals killed in 2020 because of a new sense of isolation caused by the pandemic—in fact, shelters struggled to meet adoption demands in this period. Since lockdown measures have eased, however, the number of animals surrendered to shelters has dramatically increased. In many cases, COVID-related unemployment and subsequent financial hardship have made it difficult for owners to afford providing for their animals; in other instances, people who adopted animals for company during lockdown have decided that they don’t want companion animals either because they have returned to work or because they have lost interest in living with them. In other words, they didn’t care enough about “their” animals.

With so many adoptable animals in shelters, doomed to euthanasia because nobody wants them, why does anyone buy from a breeder or a pet store suppled by puppy mills?

The certain tragedy that will befall many, many homeless dogs (and cats), those in both Afghanistan and the US, is disturbing. The effort expended to save some of them through Project Hercules—an effort born of concern and compassion—is evidence of at least some trend toward acknowledging that animals do matter.

Or was the support for Project Hercules, for many people, more about humans than dogs? These dogs belonged to people, and these people felt their dogs belonged with them. Maybe belonging, not compassion for animals, was the key element driving the effort to reunite families with their dogs.

That would explain why millions of animals live and die in American shelters every year: they don’t belong to anyone.