PETA Kills More Than 1,600 Cats And Dogs In 2012—Almost 90 Percent Of Animals Handed Over To Charity’s American Shelter

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — PETA — says in their mission statement that they’re for “total animal liberation.”

I guess PETA meant to leave “liberation” to interpretation because it obviously means a ton of death in this situation, since last year alone it killed more than 1,600 animals that were placed in its care that needed homes. That brings the death toll to something like 30,000 in the last decade and a half.

Now let’s get something out of the way here before you just automatically assume that PETA is, as an organization, a bastard. First, you need to know that PETA doesn’t believe in rescues or no-kill shelters (which is more like a low-kill shelter). PETA claims that no-kill shelters “warehouse animals in cages for years” (which… isn’t true) and that rescues who put animals in foster homes instead “avoid the cruelty of constant confinement but unintentionally encourage fighting and the spread of disease among animals.”

Oh wait, I guess that kind of does make PETA a bastard.

So basically, PETA says that since animals shouldn’t wait more than four freaking days for a home that it’s OK to kill them after that. You may ask why at this point. Well, my friends, that’s because PETA finds that animals are miserable in cages for more than a few hours and that, because of this, they should die instead.

I work rescue. I am part of a rescue. And I can tell you that many animals don’t mind being in a cage for a few weeks if it means finding a forever home. And I can tell you something else, too: A walk a day or some play with a cat makes a HUGE difference. Since PETA is for ethical treatment of animals, and it even says on its Web site that they find euthanasia “appalling,” then why doesn’t it BUY SOME LEASHES AND TAKE THE DOGS AT ITS POUND FOR A WALK. Oh, no. Why would it ever put any effort into actually caring for its animals? I guess doing that is too much work, and killing them after a short break in the shelter is so much better.

Don’t get me wrong: I live in an area with tons of animal shelters that are very, very high-kill, and I’d be pretty horrified to see the numbers at these shelters for last year. They’re probably much worse than PETA’s. But rescues work with these shelters, and the number of rescued and re-homed animals is rising. It may take a month or two to find a home for a cat or a dog, but they’re happy in a home in the meantime. There’s no “spread of disease.” So PETA should do that too, right?

Nah, PETA says eff that. It’s also against rescues. It’s so against them, actually, that it doesn’t let rescues network the pets at its facility. So last year, it only adopted seven cats out of its facility. It euthanized 1,045.

Twelve dogs found themselves homes; 602 were euthanized.

What the hell, PETA?

I hope someone walks into PETA’s shelter, deems it too small or confining for the humans who work there, and euthanizes a couple of them.

[Images via s_bukley/Shutterstock]