Man’s best friend is also man’s first and oldest friend
In other news: No Kill Sheltering Spring 2026. PETA: Community cats are better dead than fed. A failure of decency. No Kill Companion giveaway. The federal government loses a lawsuit over animal protections. Killing fewer animals.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
No Kill Sheltering Spring 2026
The Spring 2026 issue of No Kill Sheltering is available for subscribers of The No Kill Advocacy Center. As a thank you, it is also available to patron-level donors of my Substack page.
The current issue covers:
When it comes to rescued animals, little things mean a lot;
A victory for animals on death row;
A once-deadly feline disease has a cure;
Protecting pets from tainted products;
How technology is helping find lost pets;
Misrepresenting bite data puts lives at risk;
No Kill Companion 2026;
No Kill is about programs, not geography;
And more.
PETA: Community cats are better dead than fed
As it has so many times before, PETA is once again fighting efforts to keep cats out of pounds where they face death. It is asking its members and supporters to email Maryland legislators and urge them to vote no on HB0912, a community cat bill that encourages sterilization as an alternative to impounding and killing and gives ear-tipped/sterilized cats a free ticket out of the pound and back to their habitats.
In the past, PETA was not shy about encouraging the killing of these cats, but since that argument earned it rebuke, it now couches its opposition to community cat programs as an effort to protect cats and “native wildlife.” The outcome is the same. None of this should be surprising.
In 2025, PETA reported killing 938 cats. Another 179 were transferred, primarily to pounds that also kill animals. Historically, many of the kittens and cats PETA has taken to those pounds have been killed, often within minutes, even if young (as young as six weeks old) and healthy. And despite millions of “animal-loving” supporters, a staff of hundreds, and annual revenues of over $85 million, PETA also admitted that they found homes for only 14 — an adoption rate of less than 1%.
To date, PETA has killed 52,694 animals that we know of. The number may be many times higher. According to a former employee whose job it was to acquire animals to kill,
I was told regularly to not enter animals into the log, or to euthanize off-site in order to prevent animals from even entering the building. I was told regularly to greatly overestimate the weight of animals whose euthanasia we recorded, in order to account for what would have otherwise been missing ‘blue juice’ (the chemical used to euthanize); because that allowed us to euthanize animals off the books.
Not only does PETA run the functional equivalent of a slaughterhouse, but they also demonize community cats to get counties to round up and kill them, too. Per PETA, cats smell, are a nuisance, make too much noise, are a public health and rabies threat, transmit diseases and parasites, including “roundworms, hookworms, and even plague,” and “terrorize and kill” 15 billion other animals a year. This type of hyperbole hardly represents the sentiments of animal lovers. And it begs the question: Why should anyone listen to PETA?
Thankfully, Maryland legislators are not listening: HB0912 passed the House unanimously. It is now before the Senate.
Note: If you want to learn more, Why PETA Kills, my book, is based on interviews with PETA employees, documents from civil and criminal court cases against PETA, photos of animals killed by PETA, state inspection reports, as well as admissions of killing and support for killing by PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk.
West Virginia again fails to outlaw bestiality
As occurs every year, a bill to outlaw bestiality was introduced in West Virginia. West Virginia is the only state that does not explicitly criminalize the sexual abuse of animals.
The law failed to pass in past years, often failing to get a hearing, because opponents claimed it was already illegal under the more general animal cruelty statute. But this may not be accurate. And given that explicitly banning it would resolve any ambiguity, its failure to pass remained inexplicable. This year appeared to be different because it passed the House by a vote of 93-1. Unfortunately, in a profound failure of decency, it died in a Senate committee, and the West Virginia legislature adjourned for the year.
No Kill Companion giveaway
The 2026 edition of The No Kill Companion is now available.