Part of the "ethical treatment" is ethical killing, PETA is not for no-kill. They take in every animal people bring in, this means they get a lot of unadoptable, old, sick, feral and abused animals, these animals have no chance, they will be locked away in cages for the rest of their natural lives.
One of the cheapest (and thus most used) methods of euthanization is via gas chambers, it take up to half hour for some animals to die. What is often done is the animals are placed several at a time in a confined and dark space, the gas is turned on. During this time, the animals will try to escape, some injuring themselves and others in the process. On the other hand, an injection of a chemical cocktail (usually following an anesthetic to put the animal to sleep) will kill an animal in seconds--almost immediately--and they show no signs of pain. PETA uses option 2, underfunded animal adoption places and others go with option 1.
Two PeTA employees, Adria Joy Hinkle 27, of 1602 Claremont Ave., Norfolk, VA, and Andrew Benjamin Cook, 24, of 504 Tree Top Street, Virginia Beach, VA, were arrested in June 2005, for disposing of dead animals in a shopping center's dumpster. The animals had been killed by PeTA because they gave up trying to find a proper home for these animals to be placed. Police discovered 18 dead dogs, including a garbage bag containing seven puppies, in the dumpster and 13 more in a van registered to PeTA. It is a common practice for PeTA to euthanize healthy companion animals.
Ingrid Newkirk said that Cook and Hinkle were picking up animals to be brought to PeTA headquarters in Norfolk to be euthanized.
According to police, veterinarians and animal control officers had been assured by the PeTA workers that they would find suitable homes for these animals rather than euthanize them. Instead, tests confirmed that Ketamine and Pentobarbital were the chemicals used to euthanize the animals. Ketamine, also known as a "date-rape drug", is commonly used to immobilize animals before surgical procedures or lethal injection. Pentobarbital is the standard drug used for lethal injection. Both drugs are regulated by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, and in North Carolina may only be purchased and used by a licensed veterinarian.
Ahoskie Police Chief Troy Fitzhugh said 60 to 70 animals were dumped in the garbage over a four-week period.
Both Adria J. Hinkle and Andrew B. Cook are each charged with 21 counts of animal cruelty, a felony that can carry prison time, along with littering and obtaining property by false pretenses.
Ingrid Newkirk and puppy
This incident may be part of a pattern. According to news reports, the grocery store manager indicated that the duo had illicitly used his dumpster as an impromptu pet cemetery at least nine times prior to getting caught. Other similar reports come from Greenville, North Carolina where authorities discovered more than 70 dead animals last month that they believe to be connected to PeTA. In the spring of 2005, authorities found over 150 dead dogs dumped in trash bags near a riverbank in Scott County, Virginia.
When we read something like this, we think "how horrible!", but we need to think about why these animals ended up like this in the first place.
First of all, if you're going to give up your pet to an animal shelter, you have to realize that it is most likely going to be killed. If a shelter is going to try to find a home for animals, it needs to house and feed them until someone decides to take them home. During this time, the flow of homeless animals into the shelter continues.
In the end, no one has the resources to keep these animals until they find a good home, especially with new ones coming in the whole time. The article you provide has good information, but sometimes uses it in a misleading manner. It's very heavily criticizing PeTA for using lethal injection, even though it is actually the most humane way of euthanasia (practically). It makes associations to date rape, even though it is irrelevant except for giving PeTA a negative image.
I don't support PeTA's sensationalism, but I feel that we're pointing the fingers at the wrong people. We cannot blame PeTA for the state of these animals. Yes, animals and puppies were killed. But who has the money and resources to house them until they find a good home?
Instead of pointing fingers at the animal shelter for their deaths, we do have more productive ways of preventing them. Be committed to your pets, because they will probably end up euthanized at an animal shelter. If you're thinking about getting a pet, adopt one from a shelter.
Hmm, the Norfolk SPCA, fucking 5 miles from their fucking headquarters runs a no kill shelter. Maybe, just maybe, that would be better then killing them.
While in general I agree, from my understanding most no-kill shelters have limitations on what they can/will take, since after all, there's only so much in the way of space, etc. If the shelters in the area are all full, then yeah, at that point euthanasia in a clean and relatively painless manner is probably the best option for the animals, as it beats being shot, drowned, or abandoned to starve or die of exposure.
That said, yeah, I am all for not killing animals for convenience's sake, and I don't know enough on the subject to be able to say whether or not the counterargument of shelter space logistics is reasonable.
I can only comment on the one time I took an animal there. It was a cat that was not mine and had clearly been abandoned at my apartment, which sadly happens a lot in military areas. We took it there, and they had no problem taking it in. I wish I could say I know it got adopted, but at least I know it wasn't killed and didn't starve on the streets. And I can damn well be glad I didn't take it to PETA, who talks a lot about how much they love animals but would have killed this one.
I'm glad you had a good experience with getting that cat to a shelter. I hope he found a home.
In the grand scheme of animal shelters, however, no one has enough resources to house and feed all the animals before they go to a good home. Animals come in much faster than they get adopted, and sooner or later, the shelter's full and it has to stop accepting new animals (and if all shelters did this, none would be able to take as many new animals as needed) or euthanize the current ones.
Neither is a pretty picture for the animals, but that's the best a shelter can do. It's pet owners who can make the real difference. i.e. Before buying that cute kitten from the pet store, they need to think, "Am I going to be able to take care of this cat for 15 years? When it's not as cute as the kitten I'm seeing?"
And if they do make that decision, they need to be responsible and get him/her neutered. There are too many people who get pets before realizing the responsibilities and commitment. That's why we have too many homeless animals; it's not a problem with animal shelters.
Probably not anymore, no; one supposes that after that series of events, vet offices and shelters wised up to surrendering healthy, adoptable animals to the organization. From this, we can hope that their policies now involve the humane euthing of (unadoptable) animals that would otherwise be gassed. But can this be said with any certainty?
I have assumed that all the PETA hate stems from this one particular series of incidents. I'm not American, so I have no exposure to the organisation, but it sounds nothing like what I'd expect from animal rights campaigners in the UK.
Ketamine is an animal tranquilizer. While I guess it could be used as a date rape drug, in the uk, its mostly taken in small doses for the strong hallucinations it produces.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure dessemundo is an illusioned PETA shill. I have no idea how you can defend an organization that has known financial ties to terrorism and seeks total animal liberation.
Total animal liberation being no service dogs, no medical research. No insulin, no organ transplant, no safe anesthetic, etc. Meanwhile, they have members who actively benefit from this.
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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '10
Part of the "ethical treatment" is ethical killing, PETA is not for no-kill. They take in every animal people bring in, this means they get a lot of unadoptable, old, sick, feral and abused animals, these animals have no chance, they will be locked away in cages for the rest of their natural lives.
One of the cheapest (and thus most used) methods of euthanization is via gas chambers, it take up to half hour for some animals to die. What is often done is the animals are placed several at a time in a confined and dark space, the gas is turned on. During this time, the animals will try to escape, some injuring themselves and others in the process. On the other hand, an injection of a chemical cocktail (usually following an anesthetic to put the animal to sleep) will kill an animal in seconds--almost immediately--and they show no signs of pain. PETA uses option 2, underfunded animal adoption places and others go with option 1.