RE: Better Dead Than Fed, Op-Ed by Debra Saunders for the San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 2005

Why would a corporate lobbying firm like Berman & Co. who operates the Center for Consumer Freedom and a dozen or so other hack sites, suddenly wax concern, no... outrage!  Over the pet euthanasia? petakillsanimals.com is a negative ad campaign directed at an organization that promotes vegetarianism and compassion for animals.  Exposing the hidden cruelties of factory farming, slaughterhouses, cosmetics testing and the fur industries interferes with the financial interests of their corporate clients.  Paranoid, mega-rich, multinational corporate chains that do not wish to tarnish their often wholesome and family oriented images, conveniently (if not cowardly) use public relations firms.  Apparently, this was also the window of opportunity that Debra Saunders (syndicated token conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle) has been praying for.

On June 5, 2005 two PETA employees were arrested for dumping the bodies of eighteen dogs and cats wrapped in plastic bags in a parking lot dumpster in rural N. Carolina. The eighteen dogs and cats in question were released by a N. Carolina shelter to PETA employees to be given a lethal injection. The employees had dumped the bodies on the long drive back to Norfolk VA, because they had started to smell.  The parking lot had been staked out because of previous complaints of animal remains being dumped there. PETA began sending workers to the Bertie County animal shelter in 2000, when a police officer called the group to complain about shelter conditions.   At that time the shelter enclosure had no roof and dogs floated in flooded cages.  Another dog feasted on a dead cat. (1) Picking up animals for lethal injection is a compassionate service for animals who would normally be shot by a .22 or die painfully in a gas chamber where they are injected with a paralytic agent and left to suffocate, fully conscious while their organs seize up, in a cinder block cell.  Adoption was never discussed according Daphna Nachminovitch of PETA (2).  According to Jack Warmack, lawyer for the two employees:  Hinkle and Cook were doing the dirty work that others couldn't face: giving peaceful deaths to the legions of animals that North Carolina residents abandon each year.   Three defense lawyers said PETA had made no secret of its plans for the animals. On several occasions, the lawyers said, shelter employees watched Hinkle give animals injections.   The defense team said local residents lied about their beliefs that PETA was finding homes for animals, for fear of public outrage. (1)

PETA employees were eventually acquitted of the 31 charges of Animal Cruelty which Debra refers to and charged with littering. However, if the problem is a disrespect for the remains of an animal, Ms. Saunders need look no further than the grocery store (perhaps the Piggly Wiggly next to the dumpster) or her own refrigerator. Debra goes on to say:   PETA prefers to spend donations, apparently, not caring for flesh-and blood animals entrusted to it but on campaigns attacking medical researchers, meat-eaters or women wearing furs. It is as if PETA prefers the idea of animals to animals themselves." That's just the thing Debra, these aren't ideas of animas (fur, steak, monkeys in chains) they are animals!  Even if the only real flesh and blood animals were companion animals, what about the 9.6 million other animals put to death every year in shelters?  What about the 500 dogs, cats and monkeys live horrible lives and die lingering deaths every day at Huntington Life Sciences laboratories for Proctor & Gamble and other firms (3) some of which are represented by Rick Berman? Thanks to hack jobs like this that inspired a media frenzy, the shelter in question has resumed it's inhumane gassing. I suppose this is what Debra would refer to as ethics.  So, after the usual pointless comparisons and drivel about the effrontery of PETA for comparing a person to an animal in another (highly publicized but completely unrelated) incident; Ms. Saunders states in her final paragraph "Now you know. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals doesn't really like people. PETA has no use for ethics. And PETA kills animals."

The idea that homes could have been found for the animals, the lawyers argued, was silly. The animals came from a shelter where disease was rampant. Some were aggressive. Even for healthy animals, there aren't enough homes, the defense lawyers said.   Over the years, PETA workers picked up animals with infected gashes, tumors, even bullet wounds that were left untreated, defense lawyers said, showing graphic pictures.  The lawyers said PETA agreed to take animals to save them from terrifying deaths in gas chambers. The animals were killed instead with shots of sodium pentobarbital, which most vets use.  The defense also argued that law enforcement officials were more concerned with making a dramatic arrest involving a controversial group than with protecting animals.  After the verdict was announced PETA officials said they would return to their work, trying to protect animals in northeastern North Carolina. They said they would even be willing to take over euthanizing again. (1)

I happen to live in N. Carolina where this crime of the century took place and which happens to have the third highest pet euthanasia rate in the country. Some areas don't even have humane societies just a sheriff with a rifle.   Ms. Saunders, euthanasia is an unfortunate fact of life in this country.  It is not the fault of animal rights advocates but breeders, puppy mills and weak laws which do not protect animals.  All of the foster groups and humane societies (and there are many here) cannot take the place of good laws.  Furthermore, many of PETA's rescues are typically not owner surrenders or strays but rescues from laboratories, dog fighting rings, puppy-mills and overflow from shelters.  Dogs otherwise deemed unadoptable. (2) Have you ever seen a ten year old  dog  who has spent her entire life in a small cage, constantly impregnated; with no socialization or medical care? A local shelter less than 20 miles away from me was recently closed after a 7 month undercover PETA investigation which found animals with untreated injuries, vegetating in back room cages.  300 animals lived in this no-kill shelter and local residents had been complaining for seven years.

In the final foot note Ms. Saunders informs us that she is indeed the wife of the remarkable  Wesley J. Smith.  Mr. Smith is a senior fellow on animal rights at the Discovery Institute and a frequent contributor to such notably altruistic publications as the National Review.  He is the author of numerous essays slamming the animal rights movement (a predictable series of mind numbing carps on the sanctity of human life as narrowly defined by the Discovery Institute).  No doubt this is a frequent subject of discourse at the Smith-Saunders dinner table.

footnotes:

(1) Full Story in Raleigh Observer  

(2) PETA has no magic wand to place the droves of unwanted animals in loving homes. But we have prevented suffering by providing euthanasia services because before we did so, animals were shot with a .22, gassed in a windowless metal box, and injected with a paralytic agent that left them to suffocate, fully conscious as their organs seized up. We have also found homes for many animals, sterilized others free of charge, cleaned the shelters, sent wardens to training programs, and worked with local veterinarians. At the same time, we have pressed the counties to implement a spay/neuter program and an adoption program, to open during evening hours, and more, but so far this has not happened. 

A terrible mistake was made with the dead bodies, but no secret was made of the fact that PETA euthanizes animals and that the animals retrieved from the pounds would be provided with a humane death. In fact, it was I who met and spoke with officials, and not one of them ever even asked me about adoption. The pounds don't have an adoption program, an adoption rate, or even open hours, and never have. The animals PETA was picking up as a service to the counties were slated to die. Badly. Before PETA stepped in, the animals in Bertie County were shot and gassed in this rusty, windowless gas box: http://www.HelpingAnimals.com/photos/nc/600-Bertie07.jpg ; in Windsor, animals were shot; and in Northampton County, animals were gassed in a cinderblock cell (the use of which has been resumed due to the media frenzy that followed this incident) and injected with a paralytic agent that left them to suffocate, fully conscious as their organs seized up. Photos of these facilities can be seen at http://www.HelpingAnimals.com/f-nc.asp .  Most people don't realize such pounds and gas chambers even exist in this day and age.  Daphna Nachminovitch, Director; Domestic Animals and Wildlife Rescue & Information (PETA)

(3) HLS kills an astonishing average of 500 animals a day (180,000 a year) for tests “only reliable 5 to 25% of the time” one HLS record contends.   In one $50,000.00 settlement with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, HLS was charged with 20+ counts of violating anti-cruelty laws.