Animal Rights Groups Attack PETA for Killing Animals

Animal rights groups are attacking PETA for continuing to kill “an average of about 2,000 dogs and cats each year at its animal shelter” according to a report. 

As the New York Times notes, the shelter “does few adoptions — 19 cats and dogs in 2012 and 24 in 2011, according to state records” in Virginia. 

As has been documented, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which hails itself as an animal rights group, has campaigned against animals being used for coats, “urges Americans not to eat turkey” on Thanksgiving, and has “run highly publicized campaigns targeting corporations for the way they treat animals, taking aim at Ringling Brothers (circus elephants), McDonald’s (chickens) and General Motors (test crash pigs).”

Now, the “no-kill” movement, which tries to get animal shelters to get 90% of their cats and dogs up for adoption, is targeting PETA. 

Joan E. Shaffner, an animal rights lawyer and an associate professor at the George Washington University Law School, said she could “never support” PETA on this policy and did not understand it. 

Even though PETA officials “say the animals it rescues are in such bad shape from mistreatment and neglect that they are often better off dead than living in misery on the streets or with abusive owners,” no-kill activists have blasted PETA for “its long and sordid tradition of undermining the movement to end shelter killing.”

Richard Avanzino, who directs Maddie’s Fund, a “no-kill” group with a $300 million endowment, told the Times that the “no-kill” movement teaches “the shelters that old and uglies are not discards” and that PETA’s policy of killing thousands of dogs and cats a year is “outdated” and “absolute idiocy.”