no-kill

As you may have read in this week's Activist Alert Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is coming to Eugene to speak at 7 pm Monday, Nov. 17, at Borders in the Oakway Center.

I'm wondering if there will be a protest.

PETA is perhaps one of the most well-known animal rights organizations around, and I have to say it very often does good work exposing animal abuses. And Newkirk should find a good audience given all the animal lovers and activists we have in Eugene. But a lot of those animal lovers are pro no-kill and anti doggie-prejudice.

I was surprised to learn that PETA supports breed specific legislation (aka bans by cities and countries on owning specific types of dogs), a practice some animal advocates have linked to racism. Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer himself, told the EW that doggie prejudice and human racism aren't that far apart.

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk has written that she supports not only pit bull bans but killing pit bulls.

PETA is also anti no-kill and in fact euthanizes a large number of animals at their shelter in Norfolk, Va. In according to Newsweek, PETA has killed 85 percent of the animals it has taken in since 1998.

As Nathan Winograd, one of the founders of the no-kill movement points out in the Newsweek story, with a budget of over $30 million a year, PETA "could become no-kill in no time." He says PETA and the Humane Society of the United States "have become leading killers of cats and dogs, and the animal-loving public unwittingly foots the bill through taxes and donations."