When the No Kill shelter in Shelby County, Kentucky, recently announced that they had run out of space -- and were hence going to have to start killing healthy dogs and cats -- officials received a nice basket of gourmet cookies, with a note signed by PETA: "Thank you for doing the right thing for animals."
Surely I'm joking here. This must be a weak stab at satire. Many people have written about Ingrid Newkirk's vicious pet-killing program -- her organization has personally liquidated over 27,000 animals -- but PETA has always responded with hurt and outrage (and lawyers). People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals don't celebrate killing, goes the lie -- they see it as a regrettable necessity.
Surely Newkirk wouldn't be so foolish as to express her ghoulish agenda in this way, as a naked statement accompanied by a gift. No group of self-styled vegans would publicly wed their name to the Pro-Kill Equation: butchery = the right thing.
Well, Nathan Winograd (who developed the somewhat different No Kill Equation) reported on this in detail, and I suggest you examine his photographic evidence. A lovely basket of "Allison's Gourmet Cookies" -- shipped fresh from California -- with a handwritten note signed: "The PETA Staff." If you'd like further evidence, and to read the reverse side of this charming note, Shelby County No Kill Mission has produced an affecting video about the episode.
To understand just how grotesque this is, you have to know a little bit about Shelby. This is not simply one of America's fifty-one No Kill communities. It has a special significance: Last year's save rate sent Shelby County to the top -- it is now one of the most successful examples of No Kill in the nation.
The last animal killed for lack of space in Shelby County was on May 27, 2008. Since then, they've enjoyed a save rate that is almost precisely the inverse of PETA's kill rate. Whereas PETA slaughters 97% of the pets delivered to their hellish "Shelter of Last Resort," in 2011 Shelby saved 98.52% of the cats and 94.46% of the dogs in their care.
Shelby County runs an open admission shelter: They do not turn animals away. They have an impeccable history -- despite PETA's dire predictions, their No Kill community has never been associated with hoarding or animal abuse of any kind. (In fact, none of the legitimate No Kill organizations has been guilty of these crimes, but that's another story.) The Shelby program has a tiny budget: $147,000. Compare that to PETA's annual plunder: over $32.3 million from unsuspecting donors.
While we're talking numbers, I should mention Shelby's 2011 live release rate for creatures other than dogs and cats (rabbits, etc.): a sterling 99.5%. This is a relatively small category -- just a handful of animals -- but I'm one of those people who believes that even a single rabbit matters. And in this category, PETA managed a live release rate of 7%. (For the mathematically challenged, that means that in 2011, 93% of these animals did not survive their visit to PETA's headquarters in Norfolk.)
This underfunded county in Kentucky is PETA's worst nightmare. Shelby has proven that even in the most difficult circumstances, Ingrid Newkirk's blood-drenched program is completely unnecessary.
In short, Shelby matters.
Hence the grateful cookie basket: If this county starts killing again, PETA is made to look like a respectable organization -- one that embraces hard but necessary choices -- as opposed to a cult of eager and unrepentant pet killers.
Now, in some respects Shelby County has deviated from the No Kill Equation as defined by Nathan Winograd. Notably, whenever the shelter has become full, Shelby has responded by presenting the community with deadlines: Unless a certain number of animals are adopted by this date, the shelter will be forced to kill. The tactic has worked thus far, but goes contrary to what the No Kill Community stands for, which is to eliminate even the threat of violence towards animals.
Worse: it brings out the vampires.
The occasion of PETA's celebration was the most credible threat thus far: the prospect of a particularly impressive No Kill shelter failing, and reverting to the barbarism of the status quo. Behold! No Kill is a utopian illusion, and we are righteous vegans with hypodermics. Have some cookies.
I looked into Allison's Gourmet, by the way, to determine just how much a basket of their vegan delicacies would set you back. This is not to suggest that the company is complicit in this revolting display: They seem like sincere people who genuinely care about animals; I like to think they had no idea that their product was being used as a prize for killing pets.
Allison's pastries look pretty great, in fact: "Exquisite Treats for Gourmet Palates." As you can imagine, they are not inexpensive.
A basket of Allison's vegan cookies and candies costs between $85 (for the "Classic Elegance Gift Basket)" and $415 (for the "Ultimate Nirvana Gift Basket.") Shipping is between $16.95 and $60.65. Add a $4 chill pack, to keep things fresh.
It is just the kind of expansive gesture you can expect from Ingrid Antoinette, who famously knows some of the world's most special and well-heeled vegan celebrities. Let them eat cookies.
I do hope that PETA includes this expense in their annual budget. Thankfully, not all of the cash milked from innocent donors goes towards butchering animals. Some of that 32.3 million goes towards pastries that celebrate other people butchering animals. It's important for you to know this, if you're planning on sending Ingrid a cheque.
PETA's kill propaganda can be extraordinarily effective, but this particular horror story has a happy ending. Thanks in large part to the aid of Shelby County No Kill Mission, a private group, the shelter did not kill even one creature: Despite their announcement, they found a place for every single pet.
Oh, and Shelby officials have decided to discontinue the shock tactic of threatening that animals will be killed if homes aren't found. This is a welcome decision. Of course the most important thing is to stop killing, but it's also crucial to point out that PETA's vicious practice is not even an option. It is not something you contemplate, much less threaten. The decent citizens of Shelby do not kill dogs and cats for this simple reason: They are not the kind of people who butcher pets.
The shelter in Shelby, by the way, is hindered not only by their shoe-string budget, but by their relatively inaccessible location. If you appreciate what Shelby County is accomplishing -- against all odds, for some of the nation's most vulnerable shelter animals -- I strongly suggest that you send a donation to Shelby County No Kill Mission.
The shelter does not in fact require exquisite gourmet cookies, but they could desperately use pet food, bedding, cat litter, laundry detergent. That hundred dollars you'd spend on even the cheapest basket of vegan delicacies could buy, for instance, four microwavable heating discs -- crucial for keeping puppies warm on cold nights, after they haven't been killed. Send a healthy contribution to the good people of Shelby, and attach a note saying, "Thank you for doing the right thing."
You are no doubt wondering what happened to PETA's expensive gift. This I am happy to report. In a rare and inspired act, where justice does in fact rise to the level of poetry, the cookies were given to adopters as a token of thanks.
Can't you just imagine Ingrid seething? All of that good money -- precious donations, for God's sake -- put towards saving shelter animals.
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PETA does some good work, but their extreme position--that having pets is immoral and that killing unwanted pets is humane-- is hypocritical and damages their reputation.
Maybe hunters should just tell PETA nuts that they are "saving" deer and other animals by shooting them so they don't have to suffer dying from starvation or being eaten by wolves or cougars.
How does this relate to the No Kill model? For every animal not euthanized at a No Kill Shelter, another one lives an almost certainly miserable life on the streets. And most of those lives don't end well: they are run over, abused, poisoned, drowned or fatally wounded. To make matters worse, a lot of these animals are able to reproduce before they die.
From an utilitarian point of view, it would be more ethical to painlessly kill a healthy animal, than to allow a feral one to live a miserable life and procreate. If, however, there is a way to get shelter pets adopted at a faster rate than feral ones reproduce, the No Kill model would have quite more on its favor. But I don't see this happening very soon. If we are ever to achieve this, a lot more resources should be spent on Spay and Neuter programs instead of shelter expansion.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/douglas-anthony-cooper/peta-animal-rights_b_1636097.html
You're absolutely right about the philosophical underpinnings, but you have much more respect for them than I do: I've identified them as "the bastard spawn of the most vulgar and simplistic utilitarians."
I urge you to read it, and respond.
Your first critique is just as applicable to any animal rights philosophy that ever allows the euthanasia of animals as it is to PETA's. The No Kill movement you promote does allow the euthanasia of very ill or unadoptable animals - how is this not deciding when and how an animal should die? Do the animals ask you to be euthanized? If not, and I know they don't because even if they could talk they have no concept of euthanasia, then you are deciding when and how animals should die.
People also naturally assume we have to eat meat to live, and yet we do not. A lot of people assume animal rights' supporters think animals are the same as humans, which is also wrong (at least for utilitarians). People assume lots of wrong stuff about other people's ideas, and that's a problem of the people who assume, not of the ones having ideas. You could argue PETA is not transparent about its animal rights philosophy not being an extension of human rights, but anyone who reads PETA's "Our views" or "FAQ" sections of their website, knows they are.
"Slavery, they would have argued, is cruel. (Decent people agree.) Hence, the enslaved are better off dead. (Decent people part ways here.)" PETA does not argue keeping pets is inherently cruel, and they do not advocate the killing of pets http://www.peta.org/about/why-peta/pets.aspx I have received many action alerts and newsletters from PETA and not once did they advocate anything like that.
And if you don't, then perhaps you ought to ask yourself: why precisely am I defending this loathsome organization?
I hope for their sake nobody in your family ever becomes sick or disabled or feeble.
As for the bakery's page: yes, I spoke in defense of Allison, but I haven't calculated the for/against comments. And neither, I suspect, have you.
Most people, by the way, consider animal-killers mean. And on Mary Tully's blog, she cheerfully identifies herself as a mean vegan.
Congratulations though, you sure know how to clear a room.....
Farewell to thee.....
"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents." Robert F. Kennedy
http://www.lairdwilcox.com/news/hoaxerproject.html
Sure some dogs and cats get killed living in the wild but so do rats and mice. Rats and mice get killed by traps, poisons, etc. but they learn from observing other mice and rats get killed by these things and they learn not to go near traps and poisons. White tail deer are the same, they learn by observing how other deer get killed by vehicles while crossing the roads, etc. Not all dogs and all cats get killed by being released out into the wild near bodies of water, some, if not most, do survive.
Our dogs and cat would probably survive, by finding other people to look after them. The fact is that most people living "in the country" have animals released in their area all the time. Cats, kittens, dogs, puppies. One friend of mine has more than 2 dozen "barn" cats because they keep finding them on the roadside. She takes them all to get fixed to prevent litters, but kitties still arrive by the box load. Her two current dogs were roadside finds and a few of the cats have become house cats.
One of our dogs was a roadside find. Someone picked her up during a horrible wind/rain storm after they realized she had been sitting in the same spot for 2 days. She'd had puppies at some previous point, her feet were swollen and sore and she was exhausted. She was also going into heat. We took her, paid nearly $1000 for medicine, tests and spaying. She hated going out at night, but overcame that, but she won't go out in wind and rain no matter what time it is.
Your solution is costly in animal lives and to others who want to do right by the animals.
https://www.facebook.com/WDRBNews/posts/352269841520968
"I went to the Shelby Co. AnimalShelter ( not to be confused with the humane society) earlier in the year. I was disgusting and appalled by the living conditions of the animals. The state needs to intervene. I cried when I left it was so horrible!" - Louisville Resident
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/shelbyville-ky/TGUK7UKMMPO196M7B
Jul 22, 2012
I came to Shelby County to visit your "wonderful" no kill shelter that I have heard so much about but I was so dissappointed. I didnt see a no kill shelter but what I did see is a hoarding facility with 2-3 dogs in every kennel running in their own feces, dogs in a fenced in area outside and cats,cats, and more cats. I was even taken into what used to be the shelter directors office that has cage after cage of cats, many sick, and they had to move his desk out into the open area of the shelter to make more room. Listen, Im all about a no kill status as long as the animals are healthy, ...
In regard to "you PETA people", I'm not affiliated with PETA in any manner, and I think it's amusing that the no-kill movement always tries to infer that only 1 or 2 people object to the heavy handed tactics of no-kill, but I can assure you I'm not Alleged Mary.
While I'm not affiliated with PETA, I support their objection to shelters continually being over capacity, and am alarmed by policies that leave countless numbers of cats on the street to die and suffer under these policies codified under no-kill's CAPA.
http://delawarecapa.blogspot.com/2012/08/passing-buck-cruelest-state-in-nation.html
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Cats-Found-Emaciated--Near-Death---Rescued-by-Neighbors.html?soid=1102184342461&aid=B688ctYUQF0
No-kill advocates can keep claiming no-kill will not cost communities, but numbers don't lie. And as you can see from the stories above, the cost is not limited to dollars, it's also the number of animals suffering as a result.
http://delawarecapa.blogspot.com/2012/04/millions-of-dollars-common-sense.html
In fact, rather than even attempting to find homes, Adria killed them all in the back of the PETA van.
Mary Tully, stop using lies to defend PETA's twisted agenda. We all know what the truth is (even you, I'm sure of it). It's very unfortunate that PETA's missteps have given those with an anti-AR agenda so much ammunition. Your time would be much better spent petitioning PETA to stop rounding up healthy, adoptable animals and killing them. It would be good for the AR movement and good for the animals. They have no business taking in healthy animals if they are not willing to find homes for them. Ask them to focus on those animals who are truly suffering and leave the healthy animals to those shelters and rescues that are committed to giving them a second chance at life. Not death.
I'm a stickler for facts, too, Mary, and I tend to believe those who have actually worked at PETA and have no reason to lie, as well as those who have testified under oath regarding the animals they relinquished to PETA with the understanding that PETA would try to find them homes, not immediately kill them in the back of a van before even leaving the county.
Bertie County animal control officer Berry Anderson: "They came to the shelter to take all the dogs that were not being quarantined or on hold for any reason and take them back to Virginia. My understanding was that if it's an animal that's good or adoptable, you try to find homes for them. Especially the two Dalmatians that were running around. And I asked her [Hinkle] if she thinks that those two dogs were adoptable. And she said yes, you know, she thought that they shouldn't have a problem at all finding homes for those Dalmatians."
Testimony given in the Hinkle and Cook trial in 2005, is not testimony that PeTA euthanizes healthy animals in Virginia, here in 2012. The testimony to which you refer was insufficient to substantiate the charges that Hinkle and Cook had obtained the animals unlawfully. It didn't substantiate the charges against Hinkle and Cook then, and it does not substantiate your charges now.
You know, despite the fact that multiple witnesses from multiple institutions testified they were told the animals would be put up for adoption.
Mary, I just never get tired of how happy you are to take advantage of technicalities. No one cares about whether they were "unlawfully" obtained. They only care that they were adoptable. Considering that Hinkle didn't testify that the animals weren't adoptable, that multiple people testified that they WERE adoptable, and that the only post-mortem examination found the animal was in good condition, I think that saying all these guys were unadoptable is the less likely reality.
"I need to admit a mistake. Nathan Winograd was correct in stating that Hayden Law was amended to include the euthanasia of motherless newborn kittens and puppies. "
"I do not believe that Nathan Winograd is secretly plotting against tiny kittens and puppies"
"For my part, I won't be stooping to the very tactics I abhor in others, in the future"
I think that covered all the bases on that issue. I guess that New Year's resolution didn't work out.
http://www.facebook.com/officialpeta/posts/225815337540136
Can we now please have a promise that you won't in fact be stooping to this tactic? I don't want to hear this lie again. It's tiresome to refute it, but because it happens to be a particularly ugly lie -- one of the worst I've heard from PETA's team -- it's pretty much necessary to do so, every time it rears its ugly little head.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/97-98/bill/sen/sb_1751-1800/sb_1785_bill_19980923_chaptered.html
I regret associating myself with Douglas Anthony Cooper's tactics in that statement. I should never have considered trying to be as truthful as possible to be "stooping," on my part. It wasn't stooping then, and it's not stooping now.