NOTE: The letter from the PETA Foundation referred to below, by
General Council Jeffrey Kerr, can be found at;

http://www.petconnection.com/blog/wp-con...ri-00007563.PDF


Pet Connection (Blog)
A few thoughts on the PETA letter: What's right and what's fair
By Gina Spadafori
March 28, 2008
http://www.petconnection.com/blog/2008/03/28/petakerr/

(Revised from original to add a letter to PETA from the Commonwealth of Virginia regarding the adoptability of animals taken in by the group, plus context of that letter with regards to the legal definition in that state of a "shelter.")



I've been a journalist almost 30 years, and yesterday's letter from PETA wasn't the first such and I'm sure it won't be the last. When you're an ethical, responsible journalist, the first thing you do when you get something like that is to ask yourself:

Was I wrong?

Was I fair?

If you can't say "no" to the first and "yes" to the second, you need to fix things. Not because of the possibility of a lawsuit, but because it's the right thing to do.

Let's start with what I am absolutely not wrong about, which is
something most people do not seem to know about PETA: That the
animal-rights group kills almost all the pets surrendered to it,
almost 3,000 killed in 2006 alone. This information comes from PETA itself, as reported to the Commonwealth of Virginia in a report required of all the state's shelters. More than nine of 10 pets who end up at PETA are killed there.

PETA does not dispute this.

The letter from the PETA Foundation attorney says I was wrong in
assuming that an animal-rights group such as PETA would be trying to find new homes for the animals who were killed at PETA. The phrase he takes issue with is that the animals were there "in search of new homes." Putting aside the matter of how, exactly, PETA's attorney is able to divine what these animals truly were in search of, then I'd like to know how, exactly, were the determinations made, that, as he put it:

These animals were brought to, or picked up by, PETA because they were unadoptable for a variety of reasons, and had been surrendered precisely because they were not adoptable. Many of these animals were sick, and euthanasia brought them a peaceful release from the suffering that they endured.

So, were there medical examinations by a veterinarian, and written records of the same for each animal killed? A behavioral analysis by a qualified behaviorist, and written records of the same for each animal killed? May we see them? Or were these determinations made by the animal's previous owners, and if so are there the signed forms standard at every veterinary office and shelter making sure the previous owner understands that they are turning the animal over to be killed? May we see those forms? Alternately, may we get the names of all the previous owners so we can ask each and every one of them if it was their understanding that they animal was unadoptable and would be
killed when they surrendered the animal? So we can ask, exactly, what they were told by PETA?


If PETA staff made these determinations that the animals were
unadoptable, may we have the names of these people and see their
qualification to perform such tasks? Are they veterinarians or
certified behaviorists? May we see the records of their medical and behavioral determinations that these animals were not adoptable? May we see PETA's guidelines for determining adoptability?

Honestly, it's impossible for me to determine if I was wrong without such documentation. PETA's kill rate seems awfully high, so it's natural we animal-lovers should wonder how it got that way. So show us those records, so we can understand. We want to understand.

I realize there must be a lot of records involved in the killing of 2,981 animals in 2006 as you reported to the Commonwealth of Virginia,so we'll wait while they are compiled. Just give us a time frame, so we can prepare for the work of making all these documents public on our Web site here.

So, that's the "was I wrong?" part. I have to admit the jury's still out. But of course until we see these documents, we have no way of knowing if the animals PETA reported that they had killed — animals "brought to, or picked up by" them, in the words of the attorney — at rates far, far in excess of a normal shelter, were killed because
nearly all of these animals were unadoptable for reasons PETA has not
volunteered, not because they were "in search of new homes."

Now, was I fair?

I'm simply not going to know that until we all see the documents
related to the "was I wrong?" part. Of course, I immediately tried to
be as fair as I could be by putting the PETA attorney's claim both on
the top of the blog and in the middle of the post he objected to.

How much more fair I can be will have to wait until PETA reveals how
it was determined that the animals surrendered to them were not "in
search of new homes" — the phrase their attorney says is wrong — and
how that determination of "unadoptability" was made. How fair PETA was
in killing these animals, and how unadoptable they truly were, we
cannot determine, although it's interesting to know that the
Commonwealth of Virginia:

[R]equires the record keeping and reporting of only those animals that are taken into custody by releasing agencies for the purpose of adoption.

Emphasis mine. That, by the way, is from a letter sent to PETA from the Commonwealth of Virginia, with a copy to the same attorney who sent a letter to me. You can read that letter from the Commonwealth of Virginia to PETA here.


http://www.petakillsanimals.com/downloads/PKA_Records_3.pdf.

(And
here's an expansion
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2008/03/people-euthanizing-thousands-of-animals.html-

Here are some replies to the above author who challenged PETA kill ratio and was in turn challenged by PETA's Lawyer.

REPLY (1)

thanks, Patrick — of what that letter means, with regard to the
animals surrendered to PETA.)

I'm going to put all these requests in a letter and send it to Mr. Kerr — to be fair, of course. I'll post that letter, and any response.

Update from Christie: Apparently Mr. Kerr's been busy telling bloggers to stop picking on PETA. Nathan Winograd got a letter, too (PDF) . And the Center For Consumer Freedom seems to have got wind of this: It's all over their sites. Here's the link to their article.

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3595

Update from Gina: More food for thought (thanks, Nancy). Why is anyone still listening to PETA?

http://www.nokillnow.com/PETAIngridNewkirkResign.htm

Great post thanks alot!!!

PETA can't stand the heat but they want to stay in the kitchen.

Great article and links Mira.

I found this one also in consumerfreedom.com

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/advertisements_detail.cfm/ad/49

Good stuff on that site.

i agree hawkeye