PETA Kooks

$34 Million Later, PETA Saves Eight Animals?

PETA’s Euthanasia Rates Have Critics Fuming, according to AOL News, and rightfully so.

“In 2009, PETA euthanized 2,301 dogs and cats -- 97 percent of those brought in -- and adopted only eight, according to Virginia state figures. And the rate of these killings has been increasing.”

That’s 2352 animals: 681 dogs, 1620 cats and 51 other companion animals.

A mere eight of them were saved.

Granted, PETA’s main function isn’t to run as an adoption agency, but eight animals? That’s just shameful. Where’s the ethical treatment in that? Was something wrong with them? Terminal illness? Injuries? Behavioral issues? Aggression? Were all of the dogs Pit bulls?

According to Daphna Nachminovitch, vice president of cruelty investigations at PETA, their euthanasia program isn’t any big secret. She also adds that money can’t buy a good home.

Maybe not, but with $34 million in the bank, surely more of an effort could have been made. Maybe by spending less on things like billboards that shame women into giving up meat by calling them whales…because only skinny people care about animals?

"It's whoring itself out for media coverage," David Martosko, director of research at the Center for Consumer Freedom, said of PETA. "They'll do the ridiculous stuff, but they won't put an ad in the Norfolk press saying, 'We have puppies and kittens, come adopt one.'"

I shed a tear of confusion over the fact that I just agreed with CCF’s mouthpiece Martosko, the very same man who said that animal abuse is alright, just as long as no one sees it, it’s the undercover investigators that must be stopped. However, on this point, he may just be right.

Even with up to 8 million cats and dogs making their way into shelters, others also disagree and are looking to the No Kill movement as an answer. (Check out Sharon Seltzer’s post Is Pet Overpopulation Really Killing Our Cats and Dogs?)

PETA may make a lot of money, use shock value and sex as a means of getting a message across, but they haven’t changed the dialogue about animal cruelty or a compassionate and healthy lifestyle in a real way. Instead, they make everyone else who cares about the cause and thinks that sentient beings should be treated with kindness and respect while being allowed to live free of exploitation look stupid. Which is unfortunate, because it’s a cause worth defending with integrity, logic and education.

They push people away from the message of compassion while offending them at the same time by employing misogynistic tactics that degrade women, which does nothing for animals, insulting everyone’s intelligence and flushing any credible message and argument down the drain rather than using rational thoughts or asking people to put on their critical thinking caps and ponder why pigs and cows are so different from dogs and cats, which is truly sad, mostly for the animals they’re claiming to help.

Total fail.