I think Morgyn meant “breeds”.
Uhm, yeah. That’s what I meant. Boy, sometimes those typos really get away from me.
:o
OK, I got nothing.
No, you’re not understanding her correctly. She says she someday wants to see a world without pets. She’s not talking about killing all the pets currently alive. Just not breeding them anymore, and perhaps freeing them. I loathe PETA, but if Newkirk said “all pets should be killed” even I’d be shocked at the stupidity.
To be clear, I was responding to this:
While I was technically wrong (PETA does want to see companion animals “phased out”), the rationale PETA uses for this phaseout would in on way lead to euthanizing animals without authorization. PETA wants to see companion animals cease to exist through attrition, not through killing all current ones; their stated motives wouldn’t lead to euthanizing otherwise adoptable animals.
My apologies for my poor phrasing above. I don’t like a lot of what PETA does, but they do some good work in addition to their crazy work, and it annoys me to see people treat them like demons.
Daniel
So true. I think a lot of people misinterpret them – their main message is to do the least harm possible. Not that people are going to burn in a fiery hell for eating a burger, or wearing leather, or using medicine that was tested on animals. PeTA would like to see us, as humans, try our best to treat animals as humanely as possible. Sure, their methods are wacky as hell sometimes, but their heart is in the right place and they do help a lot of animals.
I’m inclined to say that’s utter bullshit. Their position is to do the least harm possible to animals regardless of what benefits humans may gain.
Medical testing is a good example. There position isn’t “medical testing on animals is morally acceptable, provided the animals are treated humanely when possible” it’s “medical testing on animals is always wrong and must be stopped”.
There methods are fucked up. There philosophy is fucked up. They are fucked up. The interests of animals are not and should not be equal to the interests of people.
There’s a glut of animal-related charities out there that aren’t grounded in utter fucking lunacy I have no problem writing PETA and there supporters off.
And yes, I know about the difference between “there” and “their.” I just forgot about it when I was writing that post. I blame the PETA website, which warped and dulled my mind as I was reading it to make sure they were still as batshit insane as they were the last time I looked at them.
PETA is also the organization that promotes feeding pets a vegan diet, despite that fact that to many animals-especially cats, this is unhealthy. Cats are carnivores and MUST have meat to survive.
I’m not saying she is talking about killing all pets. I’m saying that stopping reproduction of “companion animals” by sterilization will, eventually, result in the extinction of several hundred breeds* of animals, and that advocating this as a more ethical treatment than keeping them as pets seems to be a bit of a logical disconnect.
IMHO.
*Got it right this time!
I so abhor these lunatics, and going to their website gives me a pounding headache and an appreciable rise in blood pressure, but when I see them being whitewashed, even ever so slightly, I am compelled to provide reference to the facts concerning peta’s stance on “companion animals”*, which is evident by the following quotes by some of their members:
“The cat, like the dog, must disappear… We should cut the domestic cat free from our dominance by neutering, neutering, and more neutering, until our pathetic version of the cat ceases to exist.”
-John Bryant, Fettered Kingdoms: An Examination of a Changing Ethic, PETA 1982, p.15.
“The bottom line is that people don’t have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats … If people want toys they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship they should seek it with their own kind.”
-Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA, “Animals,” May/June 1993
“You don’t have to own squirrels and starlings to get enjoyment from them … One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild … they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV.”
-Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA, Chicago Daily Herald, March 1, 1990.
“Pet ownership is an abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.”
-Ingrid Newkirk, President, PETA, Washingtonian, August 1986
While acknowledging puppy/kitten/bird/rodent/etc. mills, inhumane treatment at the hands of unscrupulous handlers in zoos and other exhibits, as well as hoping that medical researchers would do their best to make the animals in their care comfortable and unfearful, I will never be able to either condone or stomach the actions of peta.
*I will say that I consider my pets as companions, and assert that what we have is a mutually beneficial relationship!
Sheeeeit, our family doesn’t own any cats. But the cats that live in our house have a very devoted staff on call.
hehehe…I frequently cook for my cats and pomeranians, and when I had cockatiels I cooked for them daily. My cats and poms are getting salmon on a regular basis these days! Poor poor things… 
Don’t you know that’s cruel!?! If a cat in the wild wanted salmon, she’d have to get wet! And you, you nasty, nasty human are depriving her of the experience of what her wild relatives have! Shame on you! 
Eh…they (the cats) wander the 1/2 city block length to the beach all the time, and there is a flourishing salmon stream, so who knows, maybe they are getting even more fish than I know. However, their more primitive urges have been expressed against mice, rats, and the occasional song bird. I leave both a door and a window open, and they keep coming back, so I assume they want to be here…
And yes, I remember the debates on cats killing songbirds. However, my cats are targets for all the bloody eagles around here, as are my poms, not to mention the freaking bears! I guess I may have a different view on this sort of topic, considering my location!
So, if we want to honor animal rights, what about my rights to not have to sleep in crunchy sheets because the cats have walked their sandy claws up on the covers???
hehehe…santy clause…
Let’s review, shall we?
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PETA, an organization that abhors animal cruelty, wants pets to “die out,” for their own good.
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This organization with “Ethical” in their name, lies to animal shelters and vets saying they want to “find homes” for animals, when following their own protocol, after the lie are to take the animals to their headquarters and kill them, so they won’t be killed at the shelter…?
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Some of the PETA workers assigned the task of lying and diverting animals, are diverting them again and killing them… So… they won’t be killed at the PETA headquarters…OR… the animal shelter… ?
And someone said they were wingnuts…
So what is their stand on Area 51?
She did say they routinely kill pets!
Those are some big freakin’ eagles you got up there. They take on cats, poms, and bears?
This has stayed a top story in the news outlets down here. In This thread I originally said that I thought this was just a couple of rogues inside an already loony organization. But after the reports I seen in the last two days, I’m thinking that this is business as normal.
Okay, Ahoskie is in Hertford County, NC. At work today I’ll see if I can track down their intake/outcome stats for 2003 (the latest year for which I’ll be able to obtain them). Until then, I’ll bet anyone here that Ahoskie’s euthanasia statistics for that year exceeded 85% of their intake animals, not the least bit unusual for a rural Southern county.
I’ll double-or-nothing that bet that Ahoskie uses some form of euthanasia other than sodium pentobarbitol.
…
Actually, I take that back. As near as I can tell, Hertford County’s animal control consists of one employee. That employee lacks an email address. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that, since getting the PETA connection, they’ve stopped euthanizing animals at all.
Time will tell, though.
Daniel
As to whether PETA told Ahoskie that they ewre
PETA is against pets because they see it as a slave=owner dynamic. They believe animals are the complete equal of humans (Newkirk’s famous “a boy is the same as a rat” quote speaks to that). As such, humans shouldn’t be able to own animals, they should never be seen as property in any form. I guess that when you see a happy pet, a PETA believer would see an Uncle Tom. So they don’t dislike dogs and cats, per se, just the institution of pet ownership.
It’s a reason some states are considering replacing the word “owner” with “gaurdian” in their animal laws. Somebody was/is able to dress up Peta’s agenda in enough pretty clothes that law makers don’t see this and passed what they believed was an meaningless change. For a large number of legal reasons they are not even remotely the same.
An owner of an animal can refuse life-saving veterinary care because they can’t afford it, but could an animals guardian do the same without intervention from the court system? Until it’s tested we won’t know.
Euthanizing the animals is completely consistent with the value system of many humane society workers and animal-lovers of that ilk. They believe that an animal is better off dead than in less than ideal circumstances. Last weekend I was at a meeting for humane shelter workers. One of the speakers said that his shelter euthanizes all pit bull type dogs (despite their temperatment, etc. etc.) because that way he KNOWS they won’t get into the wrong hands. Of course, he also does a really good job of ensuring that the dog can never get into the right hands, but that isn’t part of the equation.
Good point.