Of course I would get this response. If it were you or anyone else posting this, there'd already be a plethora of comments coming forward.
Get the chip off your shoulder. DB is right - this is unrelated to a zoo, so placing the thread in the "Zoo Discussion" area is incorrect. Moving this thread to Zoo Cafe.
Okay, PETA has done some extremely crazy things, but come on STEALING A FAMILY PET AND MURDERING IT!(Im not even going to say euthanized, because what they did was steal the poor dog, and murder it) They have officially crossed the line from Extremely Crazy to EVIL.
I'm pretty sure they're supervillains. Like in that Pokemon game where the villains are Pokemon rights activists and the members want to free all the Pokemon, but then it turns out that the leader only wants to do all that so he'd be the only one with Pokemon and thus, the only one with power. This is exactly what is happening here and no one can convince me otherwise. In all seriousness... If they did this to my dog I would show no mercy. I can't believe the group gets so much celebrity support. They DO realize that PETA is more than just anti-fur, right?
Yep, PETA is the real life version of Team Plasma (The Black and White one, not Black and White 2) Also, I bet if more people heard that PETA Euthanizes about 98% of the animals they get, they wouldnt get that much support. Also what's next? PETA members breaking into a supermarket, stealing the lobsters, and then throwing them into the ocean
Three questions: 1. Can any US members comment on the integrity of the news source (I accept that even tabloid stories can be true, I'm just trying to a better "feel" for the story); 2. Has the story been reported elsewhere? I'm surprised it's not a "cause célèbre"; 3. Have PETA commented or responded in any way to this accusation?
Ignore me, I've just searched a little more and found the answers to most of the above in a Huffington Post article (maybe I should have done that first ).
PETa are on record as saying that No animals should be kept by man for any reason unless the animal initiates the process. We in the UK had a similar thing with the Rspca demanding a family's pet cat be put down as it had matted hair, despite the families vet stating the cat had to be sedated to do it. Due to it's age the vet had said it wasn't worth the risk but the animal charity decided to act any way. and threatened to prosecute the owners for cruelty if they didn't have their pet put to sleep. They are all the same these AR groups, it has gone beyond caring into banning animal keeping, money and power
Weird thing is, many researchers believe that domestication of cats and dogs WAS initiated by the animals. Which makes sense, I mean, I seriously doubt that some cavemen picked out some wolf pups and said "Let's selectively breed these things for several generations until we have animals that can do stuff with us!". With this information, can the keeping of them really be considered a wrong, terrible thing that humans forced on the animals? I don't really think there's much of a money and power thing involved. I think it's more that people take the rhetoric and become more concerned with enforcing it rather than caring about effects. Like those guys who released all those minks from a fur farm and most of the animals died quickly because they didn't know how to avoid cars or anything like that. I don't doubt that the guys had good intentions, but they were willing to put those intentions over basic logic. I dunno, I think a big thing that bugs me about PETA is that they're this big organization that gets a lot of attention. I bet they could legitimately help a lot of animals if they wanted to. Like, they think lab animals are wrong, they can build a sanctuary and offer to take in any lab animals. Even if I still don't agree with their philosophy, I wouldn't deny that opening a sanctuary for the animals is a good, noble thing to do.
I agree with the cats idea, I tried to tame a farmcat when we first moved here 12 yrs ago, eventually we had 3 cats including our neighbors who's cat left home and moved into our garage and eventually the house. In fact all sorts of animals turn up here including over 30 domestic pigeons, no one else in the village has them just us. I recently found 2 very small hedgehogs on our lawn, sadly they both died. I think animals some how know who will care for them and turn up here. My clients call me gardener Doolittle as their cats and dogs spend the day with me when ever I am at their houses. On the mink front, not only did the activists not think about the effect on semi domesticated mink they didn't think about the wildlife that the mink would go on to slaughter. Same with the wild boar that escaped" from a farm last year, and are now running wild in Gloucestershire eating all and sundry I suppose. yet the press still call them escapees rather than liberated.
I've often wondered whether like, in the very far future, some common city-dwelling animals could become domesticated. It's speculated that cats and dogs domesticated themselves by hanging out near human settlements to take advantage of food scraps and the rodents we attracted. The animals that were tame with people had an advantage. They got closer and closer until we ended up with animals that were willing to interact with people directly. Wouldn't it be crazy if like, deer or raccoons went the same way after a long period of time? Apparently a similar situation with domestic cats has happened with the ring tailed cat, who moved into miner settlements and were allowed to stay because they kept out pests. (on that topic, given this history I'm surprised they never became a trendy exotic pet) My family got our first dog from one that wandered into our yard looking for attention. (prior to this, we had no interest in a pet dog, largely because I was afraid of them) It seemed the next-door neighbors moved away and left this dog behind. We felt bad and fed it hot dogs for a while, (in hindsight, the dog didn't look hungry; she might've been killing stuff to keep herself fed. She loved to kill, as we later learned. But she still wanted companionship) and when it was time to visit grandma for the summer, we didn't want to leave the dog alone. So we kept it. I don't think many of the mink in the situation survived, (the ones that weren't immediately killed by cars and predators were rounded up, though a lot of them ended up killing each other...) unless I'm missing part of the story, but yeah, "liberating" animals can have a pretty bad effect on the environment. I'm writing a futuristic story about a company that creates all sorts of crazy creatures using genetic engineering and other techniques; I should consider a subplot where a PETA-like group releases a bunch of such creatures and they wreak havoc on the environment. (along with human settlements) That would be so awesome.
I bet of the Dog's family had been white they would have prosecuted them. They would have prosecuted peta that is.
killing a dog is not murder, whatever the circumstances. Pretending it is makes a person sound as crackpot as PETA members.
@themightyorca The mink I was referring too were released from British fur farms by the then Animal liberation Front and have since gone on to kill our native water voles and water birds driving the former to be classed as endangered. But that didn't bother the liberators. Fur farming in the UK was outlawed in the last decade or so, and I believe the breeders moved to Europe instead. Sadly the liberated mink stayed here.
I'm not sure what the exact status of Mink is now, but I believe the continued comeback/spread of the European Otter in the UK nowadays, is having some effect on the numbers of Mink, as Otters will kill Mink and their kits. Its a form of rough justice really, as when Mink first became established here they took over(partially) the niche vacated by the drastic decline of our Otters.
The unbending/inflexible stance of the RSPCA has always bothered me. They seem unable to distinguish between real cruelty and cases where there are mitigating circumstances, or cruelty is perceived but not proven. They are too keen to prosecute every single case they come across,whether justified or not.
