Earlier this week, the student-run Kansas State University newspaper published an article proclaiming support for pounds that kill and questioning the ethics of No Kill shelters. It used the very same debunked excuses for killing that PETA routinely uses: open admission shelters can’t be No Kill (they can and there are many that are), everyone who works at a pound loves animals (they don’t all love animals), and No Kill equals hoarding (it doesn’t). It even quoted PETA.
A couple of days later, the student-run Georgia Tech newspaper did an eerily similar piece in an article entitled, “Embracing local ‘kill shelters.'”
Perhaps it is just a coincidence. Perhaps. But as one advocated asked me, “Is PETA seeding colleges?”
Here’s why it wouldn’t surprise me. A college student who recently wrote a piece about embracing a vegan diet for their campus newspaper received an email from PETA — actually from PETA2, the “PETA Youth” organization — asking that student to join and help proselytize PETA’s message. That student declined, for reasons having to do with the fact that PETA kills animals. Lots of animals.
In 2018, only 1% of cats PETA impounded were adopted. The vast majority, upwards of 99%, were killed or went to kill pounds. Likewise, only 2% of dogs were adopted out.
These harrowing statistics are preceded by evidence of PETA misdeeds such as:
- The round up and killing of healthy young cats and kittens;
- The taking of Maya, a family’s dog, from her property and illegally killing her that very day;
- Reports by a former employee that she was instructed to lie to people in order to acquire their animals to kill and to underreport the amount of barbiturates she used to kill animals so PETA could kill more animals “off books”;
- Another whistleblower account that called PETA a “terrifying” and “desensitizing cult”;
- The call to kill all dogs deemed “pit bulls” in every pound in the country;
- Taking animals under false pretenses by promising to find them homes only to put them to death in the back of a van within minutes;
- The defense of even abusive “shelters”;
And more.
In many ways, PETA’s embrace of killing when it comes to dogs and cats has a shelf-life. As an increasing number of communities embrace the No Kill philosophy and the programs that make it possible, as shelters across the nation replace killing and quickly achieve placement rates of 99% and higher, as people now consider dogs and cats “surrogate children” and keep them for life, and as animals are more fully integrated into society, younger generations are becoming too savvy to accept PETA’s excuses and too humane to embrace their killing. As such, PETA will lose support unless it evolves to no longer champion the needless and systematic killing of our best friends and family members. And that, PETA so far refuses to do.
Using the Youth organization to spread propaganda in favor of killing animals through college student newspapers might just be an attempt to fend off the inevitable demise of their murderous ideology.
Or it could all just be one big coincidence.
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