Numerous online newsmagazines report
that documents published online show that People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an organization known for its
uncompromising animal-rights positions, killed more than 95 percent
of the pets in its care in 2011.
In the Huffington Post today, Doug
Cooper pens a devastating critique of the high kill rate at PETA
animal shelters: "The shelter of last resort" is an
interesting euphemism for Death. PETA "accepts" those
piteous creatures? Death is accommodating that way: It famously
accepts all."
Noting the growing record in the
mainstream press that PETA is falling behind the burgeoning success
of better-run animal shelters with miniscule budgets yet drastically
higher adoption rates, Cooper begins to make the case for a better
way of sheltering and adopting animals:
As The Atlantic concluded, "an
animal rights organization with a $35 million budget should be able
to do a whole lot better."
The documents, obtained from the
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, were
published online by the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), a
non-profit organization that runs online campaigns targeting groups
that antagonize food producers.
“PETA hasn’t slowed down its
slaughterhouse operation,” said Rick Berman, CCF’s executive
director. “It appears PETA is more concerned with funding its media
and advertising antics than finding suitable homes for these dogs and
cats.”
His organization runs
PETAkillsAnimals.com. “[PETA’s] primary purpose,” Kovich wrote,
“is not to find permanent adoptive homes for animals.”
PETA media liaison Jane Dollinger told
The Daily Caller in an email that “most of the animals we take in
are society’s rejects; aggressive, on death’s door, or somehow
unadoptable.”
Dollinger did not dispute her
organization’s sky-high euthanasia rate, but insisted PETA only
kills dogs and cats because of “injury, illness, age, aggression,
or because no good homes exist for them.”
PETA’s own history, however, shows
that this has not always been the case.
In 2005, two PETA employees described
as “adorable” and “perfect” some of the dogs and cats they
killed in the back of a PETA-owned van. The two were arrested after
police witnessed them tossing the animals’ dead bodies into a North
Carolina dumpster.
In defense of its policy PETA has
insisted that euthanasia is a necessary evil in a world full of
unwanted pets. But while the group has some well-known allies,
including the Humane Society of the United States, a growing number
of animal rights activists claim to have found a better, more humane
way, adopting what is known as the “no-kill” standard
According to PETA's Ingrid E. Newkirk “As long as animals are still purposely bred and
people aren't spaying and neutering their companions, open-admission
animal shelters and organizations like PETA must do society's dirty
work. Euthanasia is not a solution to overpopulation but rather a
tragic necessity given the present crisis. PETA is proud to be a
"shelter of last resort," where animals who have no place
to go or who are unwanted or suffering are welcomed with love and
open arms.”
According to Michael Mountain at the
Zoe animal friends website "None of this should be news to any
of us in the world of animal protection. Killing homeless pets has
been Ingrid Newkirk’s modus operandi since the time when she held
the job of killing animals at the Washington Humane Society. Exactly
what is the psychology that lies behind her philosophy that they’re
all better off dead is something many of us have speculated on. But
more urgent right now is the need simply to stop the killing – and
the Kool-Aid madness to which PETA staffers meekly subscribe. "
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