PETA Loses, and Virginia's REAL Shelters Win

PETA has LOST in Virginia by a vote of 95-2. The era of wanton killing by the narcissistic sociopath Ingrid Newkirk is (hopefully) over.

Prior to the vote, the Richmond RSPCA web site noted:

David and Goliath scenario to protect Virginia's dogs and cats

It is a David and Goliath scenario if there ever was one. We and other folks in Virginia who are sick and tired of PETA's massive slaughter of innocent animals in Norfolk are trying to get the General Assembly to pass a very simple bill, Senate Bill 1381. It would simply say that private animals shelters in our state should have a purpose of trying to get the homeless animals in their care adopted. This would seem to be self evident to most people and certainly to most donors. In fact it would seem to be the ethical thing for shelters to be doing. But to PETA it is anathema. And PETA is a huge, rich, mean bully.

They are unwilling to have to make even the most minimal effort to get animals adopted. They take them into their facility in Norfolk by the thousands annually and kill about 90% of them. They make no effort to get them adopted, and they are wild now at the suggestion that maybe they should even try. They want no impediment to their killing. So wild in fact that, once they got the hint that we might be succeeding a bit with our little bill, they hired a very expensive and very influential lobbyist. His name is Steve Haner and he is a very well connected Republican. In fact, he is the kind of Republican who would dislike and disparage PETA if it were not for the fact that they are now paying him a lot of money. Money, I might mention that comes from the donations that people make to them.

Over at The Huffington Post, Douglas Anthony Cooper writes:

This is a truly thrilling accomplishment. It's been a long hard road: advocates for living animals have spent a lot of time; and PETA has spent a lot of money. And, after numerous votes in the Senate and the House, we've arrived at a position of decency and sanity: a shelter in Virginia is now an actual shelter, as opposed to a cynical "shelter of last resort.

Not said: The notion that PETA was running a shelter in violation of Virginia law originated on this blog. Back in 2009 I wrote a post entitled PETA's Slaughterhouse for Dogs and Cats in which I noted:

PETA's license to handle powerful killing chemicals did not say it was running an office building, but that it was running an animal shelter or humane society.

Under Virginia law, an animal shelter means "a facility, other than a private residential dwelling and its surrounding grounds, that is used to house or contain animals and that is owned, operated, or maintained by a nongovernmental entity including, but not limited to, a humane society, animal welfare organization, society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, or any other organization operating for the purpose of finding permanent adoptive homes for animals."

Under Virginia law, a humane society means "any incorporated, nonprofit organization that is organized for the purposes of preventing cruelty to animals and promoting humane care and treatment or adoptions of animals."

Under Virginia law, adoption means "the transfer of ownership of a dog or a cat, or any other companion animal, from a releasing agency to an individual."

In short, PETA is not running a legal shelter or humane society (as Ms. Nachminovitch conceded in court), and therefore their licensed access to killing chemicals should be revoked by the state.

PETA can then re-apply with the Virginia Department of Agriculture to run a slaughter house if they so choose.

And no, the slaughter house designation is not hyperbole.

In 2008, PETA's shelter in Norfolk, Virginia took possession of 2,216 dogs, cats, and other “companion animals” and killed all but 7 of them -- a 95.8 percent kill rate once the transfers are accounted for.

What's that look like? Well, if the average dog/cat weighs 30 pounds, that works out to be about 30 TONS of dead animals coming out of PETA's shelter every year.

Graphically, it look a bit like this, with the white-on-black animals being those that PETA killed, and the black-on-white animals being the ones they actually found homes for and did not kill.