PETA has roughly 187 employees in addition to interns and volunteers. The group has 2 million supporters. If we make the assumption that PETA is like most organizations who kill pets, we can assume that employees, interns, volunteers and supporters will, on occasion, save a pet from being killed by adopting that pet themselves. This is common practice and easily understandable – people who work with pets, even shelter staff who kill them, often have a fondness for them and keep pets themselves.
In 2009, PETA took in 2366 animals. Of those, they adopted out 8. That’s a .34% adoption rate. I can’t help wondering if, given the number of staff, interns and volunteers at PETA, they couldn’t have adopted out more pets to themselves. It’s not realistic to think every staffer could adopt a pet every year but it certainly seems like they could have found homes for more than 8 pets among their ranks. I wonder too if they could have appealed to their 2 million supporters for homes for these 2366 animals. Many killing “shelters” utilize their own websites, along with other online resources such as Petfinder, to try to find homes for the pets in their care. In this way, their potential reach is greatly expanded and they don’t have to rely solely on staff or supporters to adopt the pets in their care. Where were these 2366 animals PETA took in listed? Or did they not even try to find homes for them?
As longtime PETA staffer Daphna Nachminovitch testified at the 2007 Piggly Wiggly dumpster trial:
“PETA does not maintain an animal shelter. PETA has a couple — we call them ‘quarantine rooms’ — which are used to house animals that are held for one reason or another. And animals who are, who have a chance for adoption, are usually fostered in private homes. We do not have a public facility that’s open to the public where people can stroll through and pick an animal. That’s not a service that we are able to provide. We’re an office building.”
Did you ever hear anyone who supposedly cares about animals make pet adoption sound so dirty? “…[P]eople can stroll through and pick an animal” – eww, those filthy people who want to adopt pets. Look how they stroll though like they have some kind of right to save a pet. And then they pick an animal they want to care for and love. It makes me sick!
The question that makes me sick: How does killing 97% of the animals in your care, apparently without even trying to find homes for them, jive with the phrase “ethical treatment of animals“? Killing healthy/treatable pets is not ethical. Duping the public to the tune of millions of dollars with the notion that your group helps animals is not ethical. Operating a pet slaughterhouse while filing as a tax-exempt charity organization is not ethical.
Pet friends don’t let pet friends donate to PETA. Find your local no kill shelter and make a donation there instead. It’s the ethical thing to do.