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.”