Best Friends Statement On PETA Killing Animals
Many of you have called and e-mailed Best Friends to express your views and ask our opinion on the recent arrest of two PETA employees on charges of animal abuse.
Since these two people will be going to trial, it would be inappropriate for us to comment on their particular situation. However, we can certainly comment on the policies of PETA and their public remarks and actions.
PETA runs some very effective campaigns and we support much of what they've done to help bring an end to some of the worst abuses of animals in laboratories, factory farms, "sporting" events, and fur farms.
But in the area of companion animals, we have some fundamental disagreements.
At a press conference following the arrest of those two employees, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said, "PETA believes euthanasia is the kindest gift to a dog or cat unwanted and unloved." We simply couldn't disagree
more. The kindest gift to a homeless animal is a good home. The kindest gift to an unloved dog or cat is a loving, caring place to go.
We know perfectly well that there are still more homeless animals each year than shelters feel capable of placing in new homes. But the number of animals being killed in shelters has dropped from about 17 million just 15 years ago to less than 5 million today. And we can now look forward to a day, quite soon, when there will be No More Homeless Pets in this
country.
This remarkable goal is being accomplished through the work of increasingly progressive humane groups and shelters, where good people are working to save lives, not destroy them. Any organization that's aspiring to aleadership role in relation to companion animals needs to be encouraging people to save more lives, rather than to go on repeating the failed policies and practices that helped create the problem in the first place.
So we consider it to be extraordinarily irresponsible for a single animal rights group with a loud voice and a reputation for protecting animals to grab the headlines and tell the world that the best thing we can do for
homeless pets is kill them. While PETA is in the forefront of many animal-related issues, they are way behind the times when it comes to companion animals. We would hope that they will continue to lead in the areas where they do well, and to stay out of areas in which, by their own words and deeds, they have no positive contribution to make.
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