I recently stumbled upon an article about PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and its ‘nefarious’ history of killing animals, and I just couldn’t believe it.
In 2011, a report from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) showed that the animal rights group has euthanized majority of the cats and dogs they welcomed into their shelters. Out of the 760 dogs that were impounded, 713 were killed, 19 were arranged for adoption, and 36 were farmed out to other shelters. For the cats, 1,211 were impounded, 1,198 were euthanized, eight got transferred, and only five were adopted by loving homes. The report also cited that PETA took in 58 other companion animals but killed 54 of them. This makes their kill rate amount to a whopping 84 percent.
When The Atlantic tried to reach PETA to get a comment regarding the report, spokesperson Amanda Schinke explained that “euthanasia is a product of love for animals who have nobody to love them.” She even called the act a ‘tragic reality,’ and added that “sometimes [animals] need the comfort of being put out of their misery—a painless release from the world in which they were abused and unwanted.”
Now wait a minute—since when did euthanasia become an act of love? I try to be as objective as possible when dealing with issues like this but it’s making me upset that an animal rights organization, one that’s supposed to show compassion and support to animals, has a kill rate of almost 100 percent of its rescues. Unbelievable.
Is it valid to say that just because PETA accepts so many dire animal cases every day makes killing some of them OK? Do the ends justify the means? I don’t think so. I know PETA can be aggressive at times, given their controversial ads and campaigns in the past, but I never thought of them as a group of supposedly ‘compassionate’ individuals that can easily euthanize a large number of animals under their care.
This made me think about the local animal shelters we have here in the Philippines. Could they be killing animals they can no longer accommodate as well? I can only pray to the heavens that they won’t.
Writer: BEA LLAGAS
