PETA's Dirty Secret

Hypocrisy is the mother of all credibility problems, and People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has it in spades. While loudly
complaining about the "unethical" treatment of animals by restaurant
owners, grocers, farmers, scientists, anglers, and countless other
Americans, the group has its own dirty little secret.

PETA kills animals. By the thousands.

From July 1998 through the end of 2004, PETA killed over 12,400 dogs,
cats, and other "companion animals" -- at its Norfolk, Virginia
headquarters. That's more than five defenseless animals every day. Not
counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put to
death over 85 percent of the animals it took in during 2003 alone. And
its angel-of-death pattern shows no sign of changing.

Year Received† Adopted Killed Transfer % Killed % Adopted
2004 2,640 361 2,278 1 86.3 13.7
2003 2,224 312 1,911 1 85.9 14.0
2002 2,680 382 2,298 2 85.7 14.3
2001 2,685 703 1,944 14 72.4 26.2
2000 2,684 624 2,029 28 75.6 23.2
1999 1,805 386 1,328 91 73.6 21.4
* 1998 943 133 685 125 72.6 14.1
Total 15,661 2,901 12,473 262 79.6 18.5

* figures represent the second half of 1998 only
† other than spay/neuter animals
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On its 2002 federal income-tax return, PETA claimed a $9,370 write-off
for a giant walk-in freezer, the kind most people use as a meat locker
or for ice-cream storage. But animal-rights activists don't eat meat or
dairy foods. So far, the group hasn't confirmed the obvious -- that it's
using the appliance to store the bodies of its victims.

In 2000, when the Associated Press first noted PETA's Kervorkian-esque
tendencies, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk complained that actually
taking care of animals costs more than killing them. "We could become a
no-kill shelter immediately," she admitted.

PETA kills animals. Because it has other financial priorities.

PETA raked in nearly $29 million last year in income, much of it raised
from pet owners who think their donations actually help animals.
Instead, the group spends huge sums on programs equating people who eat
chicken with Nazis, scaring young children away from drinking milk,
recruiting children into the radical animal-rights lifestyle, and
intimidating businessmen and their families in their own neighborhoods.
PETA has also spent tens of thousands of dollars defending arsonists and
other violent extremists.

PETA claims it engages in outrageous media-seeking stunts "for the
animals." But which animals? Carping about the value of future two-piece
dinners while administering lethal injections to puppies and kittens
isn't ethical. It's hypocritical -- with a death toll that PETA would
protest if it weren't their own doing.

PETA kills animals. And its leaders dare lecture the rest of us.