For a little lost cat, it’s always sunny in Philadelphia.
News and headlines for October 18 - November 1, 2024
In the news: A somber anniversary. State Supreme Court rules a cat is a cat. Dogs can smile. Can cats? Woe to him who crosses a crow. Do you have what it takes to save lives? Communities are looking for people to run their animal shelters. Good for animals, good for people, good for the planet. Humane golden arches. Animals? Yes. People? No. The first No Kill community suffers a devastating setback. For a little lost cat, it’s always sunny in Philadelphia.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
A somber anniversary
We observed the 10th anniversary of PETA’s theft and killing of Maya, a family’s dog.
On October 18, 2014, two PETA representatives backed their van up to a home in Parksley, VA, and threw biscuits to Maya, who was sitting on her porch. They hoped to coax her off her property and allow PETA to claim she was a stray dog “at large” whom they could legally impound.
Maya refused to stay off the property and, after grabbing the biscuit, ran back to the safety of her porch. One of the PETA representatives went onto the property and took Maya. Within hours, Maya was dead, illegally killed with a lethal dose of poison.
A PETA spokesperson claimed Maya was killed by “mistake,” and defying credulity, explained that the same PETA representative who had earlier sat on the porch with Maya’s family talking to them about her care and who was filmed taking Maya from that same porch mistook her for a different dog. The “apology” was not only a devastating admission of guilt but evidence that killing healthy animals was business as usual for PETA employees — so commonplace that the only excuse PETA could offer for Maya’s death was that in taking her life, PETA officials had mistaken her for another healthy animal they had decided to kill. Was it likewise a “mistake” that five other animals ended up dead in the same trailer park and on the same day, too?
State Supreme Court rules a cat is a cat
The Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ruled that all cats, not just “pet cats,” are protected against cruelty under the law. This is a big win for prosecutors who appealed a court of appeal decision that reversed the conviction of a man who poured bleach on a stray cat.