For some bizarre reason, PETA has decided to blast its opposition to No Kill sheltering to Houstonians and their officials. They have even sent out an email asking Houstonians to oppose No Kill sheltering and instead demand Mandatory Spay/Neuter laws. It is beyond comprehension as to why PETA, an organization who claims to want to save all animals, would oppose efforts which could save thousands of pets in Houston each year.
And while mandatory spay/neuter laws may seem like the answer to lowering the kill rates in shelters, it is actually counter-intuitive. If PETA would research other cities that have passed mandatory spay/neuter laws, they would discover that these laws do NOT lower the kill rates. In fact, these laws are actually causing kill rates to RISE in those communities. There are links to several articles on this topic on our website which explain why this is occurring. Please research and decide for yourself before sending any letters to your city officials requesting these arcane, ineffective and impossible to enforce laws.
And before we take advice from PETA regarding what are really successful No Kill models, let's look at PETA's own record when it comes to protecting companion animals. In fact there are NO protections at PETA. Their literature would suggest that they protect every animal on earth, but it is not so for companion animals. In 2006, PETA killed an astonishing 97% of the animals they impounded, finding homes for only 12 of the 3,043 animals they claimed to rescue. This is 97% of the animals left in their care, according to PETA's own records they supplied to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. By comparison, the Virginia Society for the Protection of Animals (which operates in Norfolk, Virginia, as does PETA) euthanized less than 2.5% of the 1,404 animals placed with them in 2006. PETA's kill rate is higher than any shelter in the country.
While PETA collects tens of millions in donations by claiming to advocate for the welfare of animals, the group has actually killed 17,400 pets since 1998. That is only 3% less than every slaughterhouse they protest or the chicken houses they compare to Nazi death camps. Ingrid Newkirk has never denied this statement. In fact, she has stated that PETA has never hid the fact that most animals are euthanized as a matter of policy.
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/peta.htm
While claiming to oppose cruel methods of killing animals, PETA is the last major animal advocacy group in the U.S. that overtly opposes neuter/return feral cat control and no-kill sheltering. For example, in September 2003, PETA tried to block a neuter/return program proposed to the city of Newport News by Cat Rescue Inc., the Animal Resource Foundation, and Meower Power Feral Cat Coalition.
ANIMAL PEOPLE in mid-2004 received detailed complaints from several North Carolina no-kill shelter volunteers and one ex-PETA employee who charged that PETA was taking animals from them who had been sterilized and vaccinated in preparation for adoption, promising to place them in homes, and then refused to account for them. The volunteers believed the animals were being killed. The ex-PETA employee affirmed their suspicions.
Newkirk confirmed to Michael Barakat of Associated Press in July 2000 that her staff killed 1,325 of the 2,103 dogs and cats they received in 1999��63%, above the regional animal control norm of 58%.
I think it�s obvious that PETA knows nothing on the subject of saving the lives of companion animals in shelters. I would suggest that people do some research before blindly following anything PETA recommends. I believe we should all follow approaches that have been PROVEN to be successful in saving animals. Personally, I will not listen or follow to the recommendations of PETA while they continue to kill thousands of animals, and attack methods and people that are actually saving lives.
Please tell PETA to focus their efforts on farm animals and leave the lives of companion animals to the real experts. Experts, like Nathan Winograd have proven that shelters can SAVE 100% of healthy and treatable animals. And, contrary to what PETA states, Nathan Winograd's methods do NOT promote hoarding. Instead, his methods include successfully finding homes for all animals.
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