We have all been horrified reading about the extrememly large number of pets euthenized by PETA last year. There are ads about this "PETA kills animals" on many of the blogs I go to. I started wondering who was paying for all of these ads- it can't be cheap- and also how PETA could possibly attempt to explain the brutal numbers.
I know many here are anti-PETA and I'm not a huge PETA supporter myself. I think they have done a lot of good but unfortunately, like most activist or even special interest groups, got too radical and militant for the average person to relate too. Once you go that far, it is very hard to be effective any longer. I will say the PETA is an amazing resource for information. My daughter uses it a lot. She doesn't want to use PETA as a resource so after she finds what she needs, she finds other more mainstream sources on the information to use as her official "source". So while she wont cite them or give them credit usually, they are still one of the best places to go to find anything you need to know about animal rights.
So having said all that, here is what I found out. I'm still not 100% sure how I feel but it makes a certain amount of sense and I'm going to take some time to digest it. My mind is definitely not as made up as I thought it was.
PETA's response to the ad campaingns-
http://www.peta.org/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1341 PETA makes no secret of having to euthanize most of the animals we take in. Although we do not run an adoption facility (we refer most adoptable animals to well-known shelters with a high rate of public traffic), we have managed to place animals in excellent, lifelong homes. For many of the animals we do accept-such as those who are injured, elderly, aggressive, or otherwise unadoptable-we are a "shelter of last resort," offering a humane death to those who would otherwise suffer a slow and painful end.
Unlike "no-kill" shelters, PETA does not refuse animals simply because euthanasia is the only humane option for them. Many of the animals we take in are brought to us because they have been rejected by other facilities. PETA receives calls every week from people who request that we euthanize their animals because they cannot afford to have them euthanized by a vet or because the animals would suffer excessive stress and pain if transported. PETA will not turn its back on these animals simply because they might make our "numbers" look bad.
The best way to save the lives of homeless animals is through spaying and neutering. PETA's mobile spay-and-neuter clinic focuses much of its work in disadvantaged neighborhoods, where we offer free and low-cost surgeries. To date, our clinic has sterilized tens of thousands of animals. With $45, a person could either care for a dog in a "no-kill" shelter for about three days or sterilize one animal, preventing the births of at least eight animals from that animal and her offspring in just one year as well as preventing the births of as many as 67,000 dogs in six years and 420,000 cats in seven years.
The scope of the companion animal overpopulation crisis is truly staggering: Every year, 3 to 4 million of the 6 to 8 million unwanted animals abandoned at animal shelters in the U.S. must be put to death because there are no suitable homes for them. People who are outraged by this deadly epidemic-and we all should be-can easily help by spaying or neutering their animal companions.
The company reponsible for the ad campaign is the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF).
This is the link PETA supplies on who the CCF is-
http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?tit...nsumer_Freedom The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) (formerly called the "Guest Choice Network") is a front group for the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries. It runs media campaigns which oppose the efforts of scientists, doctors, health advocates, environmentalists and groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, calling them "the Nanny Culture -- the growing fraternity of food cops, health care enforcers, anti-meat activists, and meddling bureaucrats who 'know what's best for you.' "
Over 40 of the group's 2005 expenditure was paid to Rick Berman's PR company, Berman & Co. for "management services. [1] As part of its operations CCF runs a series of attack websites, including "consumerfreedom.com, activistcash.com, cspiscam.com, animal-scam.com, fishscam.com, obesitymyths.com, physiciansscam.com [and] petalkillsanimals.com".
Here is a link to the official website-http://www.consumerfreedom.com/about.cfm
The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.
The growing cabal of "food cops," health care enforcers, militant activists, meddling bureaucrats, and violent radicals who think they know "what's best for you" are pushing against our basic freedoms. We're here to push back.
I think the whole thing is pretty suspect. I'm not really thrilled with being told how to think regardless of who's doing the telling. I think if more people knew who was supplying the information they would want to know more before making up their minds.