PETA Employees charged with animal cruelty

Disgusting...how nice of them to take "adoptable pets" and just kill them and dump them in a garbage bin! Sad!

That is bad. I'm not defending them, but there has to be more to this story. I wonder if PETA higher ups knew what was going on.

Honestly, animal shelters euthanize adoptable pets all the time due to lack of kennel space and adopters. They are disposed of in similar manners.

Maybe in some misguided way they thought they were doing a greater good. I'm not trying to defend them, just trying to understand.

At least they didn't freeze them to death or put them in black bags to slowly die.

The van they were driving was registered to PETA and they identified themselves as members of PETA to the shelter. We don't know yet that they really are, but how can the shelter deny culpability? You just don't hand over animals without rescue paperwork, or asking questions. Too bad most shelters will just hand over animals to whoever walks in the door since they just want them gone.

Many shelters also don't have thier paper work in order. They *think* the paper work they found was for the piggie I adopted. Many of the clip boards were also on the wrong cages. I adopted a sow and ended up with a boar.

Frankly, I don't really care if they euthanized them in a "humane" way. The fact is that the people working for this organization are suppose to be loving and caring towards all animals and protect their best interests. I cannot speak for everyone else, but I certainly would not dump my animals or any other animal into a dumpster. Animals deserve better than this, dead or alive.

I understand the argument that shelters must euthanize adoptable pets all the time, but the fact is that many of these animals were given to PETA with the belief that they would at least try to be adopted out, not killed after a few hours or days. Personally, I am beginning to lose a little respect for this organization or at least the people they have working for them. Their goal anbd message is great, but their actions are speaking a little louder at this point in time.

2 people does not an orginization make. Untill I hear of wide spread abuse this won't change my opinion of PETA, just those 2 people.

I am not loosing respect for the organization itself, but for their practices when it comes to volunteers and employees. Don't get me wrong, I love PETA, but I personally find it way to easy to get involved in these types of organizations. For example, a few months back a YMCA in the city next to me discovered that they had a sex offender volunteering with them. There are hundreds of children that go there. Again this is an example of organizations with strict beliefs not being strict enough with who represents those beliefs. PETA is always talking about better controls in place in slaughter houses, pet stores, ect...so they should take their own advice and put better controls and safety measures in place when it comes to their employees, representatives and volunteers. I could see if this was just a fairly simple matter of a PETA member wearing fur or something like that, but these people were 'allegedly" directly involved in the maltreated of numerous animals. I'm sorry, but to me disposing of an animal in this fashion is absolutely disgusting an shows a total disrespect for all life, human and animal.

It is too bad that this happend.. I have not lost respect for PETA, I just want more information about the story.

Too be frank, I don't think I ever really had a good opinion of PETA in the first place. Yes, I know they're working towards the greater good, and I would love a cruelty-free world for animals, but it just seems to me that some things they do are radical, and they just seemed a little fishy to me. Hopefully I don't get yelled at for saying these things. I just don't quite trust 'em. But on-topic, this is something that really scares me. You don't really know who you can trust with what now, do you?

Radical does not equal bad. Many things were seen as radical way back when, like women's rights, and treating people of other cultures and races as equal and I don't think you'd see those things as radical or bad now.

Animal rights, to me, is just another form of civil rights. But animals have treated me better then some of the humans in my life.

^ I see your point. I don't know exactly what my opinion of them is, I guess I would have to do more research to actually form a valid one.

I've always been suspectful of PETA since they sold out to Petco and said it was okay for petco to sell small animals and birds provided they didn't sell large birds. Radical isn't bad by nature, but sometimes radical organizations lose sight of what they originally stood for and develop goals and methods that run counter to that original vision.

How does 2 people add up to all of this? I'm sure there are 2 bad cops in the world. 2 bad doctors, 2 bad teachers. 2 people do not represent all of PETA. One has already been suspended.

The big question right now is did PETA know. If they didn't, then how can you hold them acountable? People hire bad employees all the time. That's why you can fire employees.

Very sensible comment, Sabriel.

So they should just stay lab animals? They aren't supposed to be "pets." They should have never been bred or sold as lab rats.

I knew a scientist once who worked with a lab rabbit. It had been bred to have no natural immune system for drug tests. This rabbit was about the most expensive animal ever bred - £20,000 12 years ago, and was treated like a rabbit god. It wanted for nothing, had lots of company (human and the occasional "clean" lady rabbit) and was only used for harvesting tiny samples of cells for experiments. It was too valuable to experiment on directly.

One night this rabbit was "released from the brutality of vivisection" by the well-meaning animal rights activitists who had broken into the labs.

It was found dead the following morning - it had no chance with no immune system.

A separate example. A London University College was working on making computer simulations of drug/body interactions. The idea was to get the same results from the computer as you get from the animal, then you don't need to use the namials again. Obviously they had to do some animal experiments to make sure it all worked properly. The ALF were too stupid to understand what the scientists were trying to do, and destroyed 8 years work with a deliberate virus. The scientists were mostly PhD students, who would not have got their degrees without sufficient results, so they upped the number of animal experiments dramatically to pass their degrees.
In this case, the ALF caused the unneccessary deaths of hundreds of animals.

Yes, I have been a vivisectionist myself. I stand by my experiments as I was able to conclusively prove how a widely used drug could be easeliy improved to save lives, both human and animal. My own cat has since used the drug to save his life.

I trust that people who are against animal testing for drugs only ever use homeopathic medicine?

(I do only use non-animal tested cosmetics - it is a different situation.)

Here is another link with more information: (broken link removed)