Newsflash – PETA Still Killing Animals, No One Outside Hollywood Surprised
Is there anyone left who still believes PETA is an animal *welfare* organization, and not just a PR driven arm of the animal rights movement? Well, rights for some animals, that is – lab rats and KFC chickens are pretty important to them. Not shelter animals, though. Those are dispensable. If they weren’t, would PETA keep killing 97% of the animals it ‘takes in’?
Read that again – 97 percent.
PETA answers that statistic with the claim that “For many of the animals we do accept-such as those who are injured, elderly, aggressive, or otherwise unadoptable-we are a “shelter of last resort,” offering a humane death to those who would otherwise suffer a slow and painful end”.
This sounds noble and all, but what about the animals PETA actively solicited from North Carolina shelters? Adria Hinkle promised shelter workers that PETA would try to find homes for animals she collected from, but instead she killed those animals later that same day. Adding insult to injury, PETA then tossed the bodies into a North Carolina shopping mall dumpster. Way to provide a humane and dignified death, PETA – especially since those were all healthy, adoptable animals, one of whom was pregnant.
From Itchmo:
Report From PETA Shows 97% Of Animals In Their Care In 2006 Euthanized
In a Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Online Animal Report, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) reported that in 2006, they took in 3,043 animals that were surrendered by their owners.
Of these 3,043 animals (1,960 cats, 1,030 dogs, 52 other companion animals, and 1 chicken), the organization reported that 2,981 animals were euthanized. The report filed by PETA shows that only 2 cats, 8 dogs, and 2 companion animals from the 3,043 animals were adopted out. This means 1,942 cats, 988 dogs, 50 other companion animals, and one chicken were euthanized which makes PETA’s euthanization rate 97%.
In response to this report and to many people asking them about their 97% kill rate, a PETA administrator wrote this on the PETA Forums:
PETA makes no secret of having to euthanize most of the animals we take in. Although we do not run an adoption facility (we refer most adoptable animals to well-known shelters with a high rate of public traffic), we have managed to place animals in excellent, lifelong homes. For many of the animals we do accept-such as those who are injured, elderly, aggressive, or otherwise unadoptable-we are a “shelter of last resort,” offering a humane death to those who would otherwise suffer a slow and painful end.
PetaKillsAnimals.Com reports:
PETA employees killed more than 97 percent of the flesh-and-blood creatures in their care that year.
Compare that with the Norfolk (where PETA is based) Society for the Protection of Animals, which euthanized only 38 of the 1404 animals placed in their care that year. Even the Norfolk city pound managed to release or adopt out more than half the number of animals it euthanized.
While PETA collects millions in donations by pretending to advocate for the welfare of animals, the group has killed 17,400 pets since 1998. Some animals are killed at PETA headquarters and stored in a giant walk-in freezer.
Others are killed in roving death vans and tossed into dumpsters. In fact, less than three percent of the animals handed over to People for the “Ethical” Treatment of Animals actually survive.
.. my question is, who STILL is donating money to PETA thinking that any of the work they do is for the day to day welfare of companion animals?
PetaKillsAnimals.Com ran an ad pointing out the hypocrisy of this kind of support that targets the brainless clones of Hollywood who can’t wait to line up and trumpet their support of PETA at any given opportunity:
Celebrity PETA Supporters Have Blood on their Hands
Today the Center for Consumer Freedom criticized the celebrity supporters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in a full-page advertisement in Variety for endorsing the animal rights group even as it kills thousands of animals in its care. The ad coincides with the airing of an HBO documentary about PETA’s president titled, “I am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA.”
The ad reads:
PETA Supporters Have Blood on Their Hands As Americans learn more about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and its eccentric founder, Hollywood stars should know the whole story. Despite the well-known animal rights group’s $30 million budget, it spends very little actually caring for adoptable animals. Instead, it kills them. By the thousands.
Government records show that between 1998 and 2005, PETA killed more than 14,000 dogs and cats at its Virginia headquarters. (The group refuses to release its 2006 numbers.) In 2005, PETA killed 90 percent of the pets in its care. Some were thrown in trash dumpsters. Most were incinerated. PETA’s donors footed the bill.
That’s not “ethical.” It’s hypocritical.
“Ingrid Newkirk runs the most disingenuous animal group on the planet,” said Center for Consumer Freedom Director of Research David Martosko. “PETA takes pet lovers’ donations with one hand while administering lethal injections with the other.”
Martosko continued: “What’s next? Will Greenpeace start harpooning whales? Alec Baldwin, Pam Anderson, Alicia Silverstone, and the rest of Tinseltown’s finest should think twice before throwing their support behind a compromised, hypocritical group like PETA.”
Honest Kitchen Dog Food Assesment
As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I picked up some samples of Honest Kitchen dog food to try out on Ellie. I picked up a trial sized packet of each of the foods made by Honest Kitchen – Force, Embark, Preference and Thrive. The samples were kindly provided by the Canadian distributor of Honest Kitchen, Companion Dog Xpress, located right here in Durham, Ontario.
I decided to start with Thrive, their diet for dogs with sensitive stomachs. From the Honest Kitchen website:
Thrive is our gluten-free, low carbohydrate dog food. This diet was designed to cater to dogs of all life stages including adults, puppies, pregnancy and nursing. Thrive is ideal for sensitive dogs who need gluten-free dog food but with a little grain, to help maintain a healthy body weight.
My initial impression on opening the package was that it smelled strongly, but not unpleasantly, of kelp. The color reflected this – in appearance, Thrive looks something like finely ground grass clippings. This makes sense, when you realize that the fourth through seventh ingredients of Thrive are Spinach, Parsley, Organic Kelp, and Rosemary.
I followed the feeding recommendations, and mixed a cup of dry food with a cup and a half of lukewarm water. Roughly ten minutes later, the food was the consistency of thick soup. In hindsight, I think that the water to food ratio I followed was too high, especially when preparing it for a dog who has difficulty with differently textured foods.
Ellie took one look at the bowl of Thrive, and turned her back on it. After a few minutes, she deigned to sniff it warily, and lap up a few mouthfuls. The mournful expression she turned on me clearly said “Have you lost your mind? I’m not eating this.” And, sure enough, two mouthfuls were as much as she ate, and this in a dog who usually clamors for her food. Honest Kitchen will not be Ellie’s new food of choice, so we’re back to soaked kibble for now.
I split the bowl of Thrive into two portions, and fed it to Paris and Tula. They both inhaled it in less than a minute, and knocked the bowls around in an attempt to clean out every last particle of food. Apparently some dogs really like Thrive – but bear in mind that Tula and Paris are the most food motivated dogs I own, and would happily wood chips if given the opportunity.
The finely ground texture of Honest Kitchen’s food made me consider how suitable it might be for a weaning food.
I usually follow the same protocol when weaning our puppies: start them on rice pablum mixed with formula; move up to ground kibble mixed into the pablum; add raw at an increasing rate until the pups are eating raw only.
I then feed the pups soaked kibble one meal per day, in an effort to ensure that any new owners who choose not to feed raw aren’t faced with overly fussy eaters. The whole process takes about two weeks.
The problem with ground kibble is that I’ve had pups who cough or choke on it. The texture is grainy, and doesn’t agree with a lot of puppies. Honest Kitchen is so finely ground that I decided to give it a try on Solo this morning. He’s been eating pablum mixed with formula for about a week now, and I had been planning to introduce ground kibble to his diet this weekend. I decided to try mixing in some Embark, instead.
The appearance of Embark was similar to that of Thrive, as was the smell, but it’s darker in color and smells less strongly of kelp. The ingredients in Embark are —
Hormone-free USDA turkey, organic flaxseed, potatoes, celery, spinach, carrots, coconut, apples, organic kelp, eggs, sesame seeds, bananas, cranberries and rosemary.
I mixed a teaspoon of Embark in with the tablespoon of pablum, added warm formula, and left the mixture to sit while I fed Solo his bottle. After about fifteen minutes, the mixture was slightly thicker than pablum on its own. It had tiny flecks of green, orange and brown in it, and a pleasant smell.
Solo seemed really enthused about trying it, and lapped up the entire dish, even licking it clean afterwards. It’s been a few hours since he ate, and there’s no sign of any stomach upsets or diahrrea.
I’ll keep feeding him the Embark this weekend, and if there are still no stomach upsets, I think I will officially consider it my second stage weaning food, replacing ground kibble. I like that it’s a raw food, that it’s not extruded (or even baked), and that it’s made with organic, hormone free meats.
It’s always nice to find a new food I feel comfortable feeding, and that the dogs seem to enjoy – even if I still can’t get Ellie to eat it.
Snowy Day Food Blogging
The weather here today is horrific — blowing snow obscures everything, it’s minus -7° celcius, and expected to drop to -15° , and I have no intentions of leaving the house if I can possibly help it. Unfortunately, Solo is out of goat’s milk, so I don’t really have much choice. Sucks to be a responsible pet owner, doesn’t it?
I have another reason for leaving the house today – I’m going to pick up some sample packs of Honest Kitchen dog food from our local distributor. He’s actually the Canada wide representative for Honest Kitchen – he just also happens to be located here in Durham, a town with a population of about twenty people. It really is a small world sometimes.
I’m going to try switching Ellie over to Honest Kitchen, in the hopes she’ll find the texture easier to eat. She has a hard time eating kibble, even if it has been soaked. Honest Kitchen is a dehydrated food, as opposed to a kibble. The basic ingredients have been dehydrated, and you then re-constitute them with water before feeding. This results in a food with a ‘pudding’ like texture.
Apparently, not all dogs like it, so I’ll start with just some samples and see how Ellie tolerates it.
As for Sean and I, we’re eating Jamaican food today. I’ve got oxtail stewing down in the slow cooker, and tonight I’ll fry some plantain, boil some yellow yam and Irish potato, and make a batch of coconut rice and peas. For dessert, we’re having fresh made banana fritters. Since I can’t get ethnic food out here, I’ve had to learn to make do with what we can cook here at home.
Next week, we’re going to get together the ingredients to make Pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup we ate at least once a week in Toronto.
Every block in our ethnic neighborhood had a decent Pho place on it, and I really miss being able to just drop in and grab a huge bowl filled with noodles, broth, seafood and bean sprouts. Sean likes his plain, but I love my Pho with a squeeze of lime and a dash of chili sauce.
Here’s a simple recipe for rice and peas —
Serves: 4-5
1 medium sized can red kidney beans
1 can coconut milk
2 cups of rice
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 table spoon oil
1 scotch bonnet pepper (whole, do not chop up)
water
Drain the liquid from the can of beans into a measuring cup and add the can of coconut milk and enough water to make four cups of liquid. Place liquids in a pot with beans, onions, garlic, thyme and oil, bring to a boil. Add rice and stir for a minute. Reduce heat to Medium-Low. Place scotch bonnet pepper on top of liquid and cover tightly for 30 minutes or until rice is cooked. Remove scotch bonnet pepper before serving.
This recipes can also be made using other peas.