[ed. See also: PETA launches annual campaign against the Iditirod]
The group euthanized 2,454 of its 3,369 cats and dogs, the vast majority of which were "owner surrenders," meaning that they'd been relinquished to the group voluntarily. Just 23 dogs and 16 cats were adopted.
These figures aren't shocking to PETA's long-time critics -- who have for years pointed out the discrepancy between how this prominent animal rights group is perceived, and what they actually do -- but they are leading to a renewed call from no-kill advocates to put the shelter out of business.
Here's how long-time PETA critic Nathan Winograd, a well-known shelter reform advocate, recently put it on his Facebook page:
How much money did PETA take in last year from unsuspecting donors who helped pay for this mass carnage? $51,933,001: $50,449,023 in contributions, $627,336 in merchandise sales, and $856,642 in interest and dividends. They finished the year with $4,551,786 more in the bank than they started, after expenses. They did not see fit to use some of that to comprehensively promote animals for adoption or to provide veterinary care for the animals who needed it.
By contrast, the Lynchburg Humane Society, also in Virginia, took in about the same number of animals as PETA but saved 94% and without PETA’s millions. Seagoville Animal Services in Texas took in 1/3 of the numbers (about 700 animals) but only 1/20th of 1% of the amount of money that PETA did, saving 99% of them on a paltry $29,700 budget. In fact, hundreds of cities and towns across America are saving over 90% of the animals and doing so on a fraction of PETA’s wealth.VDACS collects and publishes information about how many animals are taken in and what becomes of them, for every public and private shelter, humane society, pound and other sort of animal rescue group in the state.
Indeed, as can be seen in this chart, Virginia as a whole has far lower euthanasia rates. And while PETA says it must euthanize animals because it's an "open-admissions" shelter -- meaning that it will accept any animal brought to it -- other such Virginia shelters, like the Lynchburg Humane Society, present far differently:
The initial figures for PETA's 2014 numbers were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Winograd, a leader in the "no-kill" movement, which aims to reduce (or, even better, eliminate) the number of shelter animals that are put down every year.
VDACS spokeswoman Elaine Lidholm told The Huffington Post the figures may be amended before the final report is published online. The numbers, however, are in line with those from previous years -- numbers that have earned the high-profile animal rights group a significant amount of criticism.
by Arin Greenwoood, Huffington Post | Read more:
Image: PETA via Wikipedia
