This Week in Animal Protection
News and headlines for December 7 - 19, 2024
In the news: Animal killers protest other animal killers. Three recalls and warnings about deadly pet products. Cats at risk from raw milk and meat. A “gotcha day” for millions of animals. Do you have what it takes to save lives? Communities are looking for someone to run their animal shelters. Dogs should not be punished for people’s crimes. Puppy mills and their enablers are at it again. Michael Vick is no role model.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
Animal killers protest other animal killers
PETA’s “Hell on Wheels” truck — which is “plastered with images of turkeys bound for slaughter” and “blares the sounds of birds in distress” — is protesting in front of the ASPCA to condemn its support of a factory farm where workers have abused animals. According to PETA, despite the ASPCA’s promotion of the factory farm as “humane,” workers there have been “charged with six felonies and a total of 141 counts of cruelty to animals — the largest number in any factory-farmed animal case in U.S. history — and 10 former workers have been convicted so far.”
Like a broken clock twice a day, PETA is right on this issue: “humane” certifications are a scam. They still grind baby animals alive shortly after birth, slit the throats of millions of animals, and abuse them in countless other ways. Indeed, as I have written so many times before, raising and killing animals for food we could get from plants represents the greatest cause of human-induced suffering on the planet. From the moment they are born to the moment they are killed, most animals raised for food will experience unremitting torment. They will not know contentment, safety, happiness, or kindness. Instead, they will live short lives characterized by inescapable discomfort, social deprivation, and constant stress, all punctuated by moments of pain, fear, and, eventually, a brutal and untimely death. And that is true with or without a “humane certified” label.
But despite being right on this issue, PETA also operates as the functional equivalent of a slaughterhouse. Last year, PETA staff killed, on average, more than seven animals a day, every day for the entire year. That is thousands of animals (2,559), a significant increase from the prior year.
All told, PETA put to death 1,527 out of 1,888 cats in 2023. Another 341 went 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, despite being young (as young as six weeks old) and healthy. They only adopted out 20 cats, an adoption rate of 1% despite millions of “animal loving” supporters, a staff of hundreds, and revenues of over $82 million.
Dogs did not fare much better, as 944 out of 1,243 were killed. Only 18 were adopted out — a little over 1%. PETA staff also killed 94% of other animal companions, such as rabbits: 31 out of 33. Only two found homes. They also killed most of the chickens, “farmed” animals, and wildlife they took in or sought out.
To date, PETA has killed 48,835 dogs and cats and sent thousands more to be killed at local pounds that we know of. The number may be many times higher. According to an 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.
A second PETA field worker also admitted that PETA routinely rounded up and killed healthy animals, including lying to people to acquire their animals.
Like their “Hell on Wheels” truck, PETA once also operated its own hellish vehicle, killing animals in the back of a van — a donor-funded slaughterhouse on wheels — and then dumping their bodies into supermarket garbage cans, despite promising to find those animals homes.
The ASPCA should protest PETA right back, but they won’t because they are dog and cat killers, too.
Learn more:
Three recalls and warnings about deadly pet products
