PETA's kill statistics for 2014 are now available. They're even uglier than last year's. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is once again poisoning over 88% of the dogs and cats entrusted to their care. Perhaps as high as 98%, if you factor in the dishonesty of their reporting, as pointed out by Nathan Winograd of the No Kill Advocacy Center.
This is especially abysmal for two reasons.
First, PETA had succeeded in keeping their hypodermic away from almost 18% of otherwise doomed pets in 2013 -- their kill rate was a mere 82.4%. This number was a disgrace by national standards, but for PETA it was an improvement -- it seemed as if Ingrid Newkirk's organization was trending slowly away from their All Kill policy. That trend was apparently a glitch -- a meaningless down-tick in their concerted slaughter.
The second reason is the context. Those of us who have been reporting on this for years have had all sorts of gruesome evidence that pets killed by PETA were often perfectly happy and healthy and capable of being re-homed. We've always known that their insistence upon killing only the sick and in pain was a complete fiction, that their so-called "Shelter of Last Resort" was little more than an abattoir. This year, however, the evidence is especially sickening, and has been witnessed nationwide: we have on videotape two PETA employees apparently stealing a perfectly healthy pet chihuahua from the porch of a residence near their headquarters in Virginia; and we know that this little girl's dog was killed soon after they made off with her.
In short: We have incontrovertible proof that PETA's current approach to killing overlooks such niceties as health and adoptability. If they get their hands on your pet, no matter what the animal's condition, the chances are overwhelming that it will be poisoned.
The statistics are here: In a report PETA is required to file with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. VDACS posts these numbers on their own site later in the year, but Nathan Winograd obtained the report in advance through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request done by No Kill Hampton Roads.
If you understandably have questions about why an organization like PETA would kill thousands of dogs and cats, I have addressed this in a series of articles, which begins with "PETA's Celebs: Naked in the Name of Mass Pet Slaughter." The New York Times has looked into this perplexing matter in "PETA Finds Itself on Receiving End of Others' Anger."
If you have been supporting PETA up until now, and understandably wish to divert your efforts to groups that work against shelter killing, I suggest you research the No Kill movement. Start here: "The Lie at the Heart of the Killing."
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UPDATE: BREAKING NEWS
The Virginia Senate will vote later this week on a bill aimed at refining the definition of "shelter," in an effort to stem the slaughter at PETA's headquarters.
A local news site reports that, "The bill would amend section 3.2-6500 of the Code of Virginia, adding language stating a private animal shelter "means a facility operated for the purpose of finding permanent adoptive homes and facilitating other lifesaving outcomes for animals."
Senator Lynwood Lewis, who represents the district, "voted in favor of the bill Thursday in the Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee, where it passed 10-3. Lewis will vote in the affirmative when the bill comes before the Senate, his legislative aide Charles Stanton said."