Sunday, March 14, 2010

PETA Continues Slaughtering Pets in 2009

PETA has roughly 187 employees in addition to interns and volunteers. The group has 2 million supporters. If we make the assumption that PETA is like most organizations who kill pets, we can assume that employees, interns, volunteers and supporters will, on occasion, save a pet from being killed by adopting that pet themselves. This is common practice and easily understandable - people who work with pets, even shelter staff who kill them, often have a fondness for them and keep pets themselves.

In 2009, PETA took in 2366 animals. Of those, they adopted out 8. That's a .34% adoption rate. I can't help wondering if, given the number of staff, interns and volunteers at PETA, they couldn't have adopted out more pets to themselves. It's not realistic to think every staffer could adopt a pet every year but it certainly seems like they could have found homes for more than 8 pets among their ranks. I wonder too if they could have appealed to their 2 million supporters for homes for these 2366 animals. Many killing "shelters" utilize their own websites, along with other online resources such as Petfinder, to try to find homes for the pets in their care. In this way, their potential reach is greatly expanded and they don't have to rely solely on staff or supporters to adopt the pets in their care. Where were these 2366 animals PETA took in listed? Or did they not even try to find homes for them?

As longtime PETA staffer Daphna Nachminovitch testified at the 2007 Piggly Wiggly dumpster trial:
"PETA does not maintain an animal shelter. PETA has a couple -- we call them 'quarantine rooms' -- which are used to house animals that are held for one reason or another. And animals who are, who have a chance for adoption, are usually fostered in private homes. We do not have a public facility that's open to the public where people can stroll through and pick an animal. That's not a service that we are able to provide. We're an office building."
Did you ever hear anyone who supposedly cares about animals make pet adoption sound so dirty? "...[P]eople can stroll through and pick an animal" - eww, those filthy people who want to adopt pets. Look how they stroll though like they have some kind of right to save a pet. And then they pick an animal they want to care for and love. It makes me sick!

The question that makes me sick: How does killing 97% of the animals in your care, apparently without even trying to find homes for them, jive with the phrase "ethical treatment of animals"? Killing healthy/treatable pets is not ethical. Duping the public to the tune of millions of dollars with the notion that your group helps animals is not ethical. Operating a pet slaughterhouse while filing as a tax-exempt charity organization is not ethical.

Pet friends don't let pet friends donate to PETA. Find your local no kill shelter and make a donation there instead. It's the ethical thing to do.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really? You are quoting CCF stats re: PETA? Perhaps you should do some research first -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Consumer_Freedom

PETA has done more for animals as a whole than you could ever hope to do. Would I like to save all of them? Of course I would. But berating people or thinking they are less than you because they support PETA? Not cool - have you not ever heard of the "Divide and Rule" strategy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule

You have fallen right into it. Please rethink your stance on PETA, or at least base it on better information than what you have gotten from the CCF or by editing a written quote to how you imagine it was meant.

YesBiscuit! said...

CCF's PETA info which I have quoted from many times includes their kill stats and dumpster trial transcripts. If anyone has any information that these transcripts are not accurate, please speak up. CCF is the only resource for some of this info and I'm glad to have access to it. It doesn't mean I'm unaware of what CCF is, it just means they have info which they've shared that I'm grateful for.

As far as saving "all of them", as you say, my point is that PETA barely saves ANY of them. And I've seen no indication they even TRY.

Susan said...

The statistics come straight from PETA's filings with the State of Virginia. While I am not a big fan of CCF's other activities, as to PETA and HSUS they are absolutely accurate. If "anonymous" had information to contradict you, it would have been cited and sourced. As Sherlock Holmes noted, the curious thing about the dog in the night was that the dog did nothing, i.e., did not bark. Your diversionary tactic will not wash. It is just static. PETA is a slaughterhouse. Period. PS - the links to the Virginia filings are, I believe, available on PetConnection, and probably on the NoKill blog as well. I have seen the sources, and they are real.

YesBiscuit! said...

I too have links to the PETA filings with the state of VA on the right hand side of this blog. I know they're for real. More real than "Anonymous" at least.

Anonymous said...

Here's the thing.

PETA does not HAVE to accept any animals to their "office building"

Most of us concerned with animal welfare, or born with a normal reasoning capacity and sense of responsibility, understand that anyone, rescue, shelter, adopter, breeder should not take on more animals than they can care for properly.

Call me crazy, but I don't personally think sticking it with a needle and stuffing it into a freezer is all that wonderful for the welfare of each individual animal.

They choose to be a "shelter" under VA law. So are they doing it to get a nice tax break with the minor side effect of slaughtering thousands of pets yearly? Or do they wish to slaughter thousands of pets yearly?

And "anonymous" or any other PETAphiles, please don't tell me that all of the 97+ percent HAD to be shuffled off the mortal coil for their own good. You should see the state, mentally and physically, that some (most are in pretty good shape on admission) of our rescues come into care in. Emaciated, ruptured eyes, 80-100 percent hair loss, septic, blind, deaf, broken legs, ruptured spinal discs. Abused, neglected, sometimes utterly withdrawn, terrified and not touched for years.

Yes, we euthanize truly hopeless cases or those so dangerous they will never be able to enjoy a quality life. But the dogs I am remembering while making this list ALL went on to live or be living quality lives with loving owners. 2500-2800 processed a year via our National network with a better than 90% save rate. About 50% percent from shelters, with about half of those having been on the PTS list due to health or behavior problems. Our entire network made up of volunteers and working with pennies compared to the resources PETA has.

Please, anyone coming here or elsewhere to defend PETA, tell me they really can't do better than less than 3% leaving their care. And convince me it's true

JenniferJ
(still having Blogger account trouble!)

Pai said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pai said...

It's telling the worst any Petaphile ever says about those kill numbers is 'CCF is run by animal agriculture interests!' ...but they never say 'Those numbers are false!' Because the facts are facts, and they're indesputable.

Killing healthy, adoptable animals is not 'kindness'. It doesn't matter if PETA does it or anyone else.
Stop defending animal killers if you call yourselves 'Animal Rights' activists.

Anonymous said...

I don't like the CCF or what they stand for, but I have independently verified all of their PETA kill data - which is, after all, publicly available information from public databases.

Just because I don't like them doesn't mean they aren't right.

Valerie said...

PETA's kill data is available directly from the state of VA via the VDACS webpages, untainted by any association with the CCF. I've recently been engaged in a little back-and-forth with a PETA employee whose latest strategy is to argue: "The term 'shelter of last resort' is simply a euphemism for offering humane euthanasia to sick, injured, aged, dying, unsocalized, aggressive, therefore unadoptable animals." So it's not a fake shelter, its a euphemism. You heard it here first. A deadly euphemism. Nevermind that 'euthanasia' as it has commonly been used in reference to shelters is a euphemism. Is that like a double negative? The psychology behind this just gets curiouser and curiouser.