godders
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2014
- Messages
- 1,002
PETA is an animal RIGHTS organisation and often those beliefs can clash with what most people would consider a happy life for an animal, for example the mass euthanasia of feral cats rather than catch and release programmes....in some situations sure but as a blanket wide policy I would certainly have a problem with it and would be interested to hear their arguments for it (I'm sure there is a quality of life argument in there somewhere). The issues highlighted in the articles are horrible and certainly animal cruelty arguments could be made and it just shows you how different the animal community can be. There is often a divergence between animal rights vs animal welfare vs animal conservation. Honestly it is a wonder that anything is ever achieved!
That being said:
Unfortunately the mass euthanasia of healthy, rehomeable animals is the reality of working in the animal welfare sector. No-kill shelters are few and far between but until pet owners take proper responsibility for their animals and get all of them neutered in a timely manner then it is likely to continue. I believe the stats here in the UK for the cat population is animal charities (including the big ones such as RSPCA) and responsible owners neuter about 7% of cats and to get a handle on the problem we need to be neutering 70%. Similarly the popularity of pedigree dogs/cats just exacerbates the problem and leads to even more animals ending up in shelters. There are just too many animals and not enough room/money and even at the small no-kill shelter I used to work at (where we rehomed roughly 300 cats a year) we used to get anything up to 20/30 calls a day about taking in animals. Now turn that up to a nationally known animal rescue such as RSPCA or PETA and the calls logs are even greater. This means larger shelters have to give the animals only a limited number of days to be rehomed or they have to put them down to allow new animals to come in. Do I wish it weren't the case...of course! As I'm sure people at PETA and local shelters also wish (ok maybe not everyone at PETA). Putting a healthy animal down, simply because there is not enough room is absolutely heartbreaking and I really hope non of you ever have to be in that position. It can be very traumatic for the people involved.
It also comes down to money. A huge organisation like PETA has a lot of draws on their funding including campaigns/lobbying on a variety of issues which means there is less money to be put into their animal shelters. It is one of the issues with large charities and you never know where the money you give them is actually going.
However I will say, organisations like PETA/RSPCA and many zoos/aquariums do have a lack of transparency when it comes to euthanasia rates and such which is why when articles such as the ones posted come out it causes a huge stink. Arguably they could use the information to campaign for greater neutering and things but it could be a very hit or miss campaign.
The reality of working in a shelter having to say no to someone wanting to bring an animal in is often followed with threat of "I'll just dump it then" or "if you don't take it I'm taking it to the vets to be put to sleep." This is on top of a waiting list of people who maybe waiting 4-6 months to get the animal in. Unfortunately it is the way the world is and I will say for every animal we could we squeezed them in somewhere, often having animals in all the offices (which was against the rules), in every pen and with as many fosterers as we could get but it still wasn't enough.
