Opinion

First, Let’s Kill All the Animals

What does PETA stand for, again?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, you say?

More like People Eradicating Thousands of Animals.

The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom last week reported that PETA slaughtered fully 95 percent of the stray dogs and cats it “rescued” in 2011.

And that’s par for the cat-killing course: Overall, PETA has killed more than 90 percent of the animals it’s taken in since 2005.

Bottom line: The organization that claims its members would “rather go naked than wear fur” prefers to kill dogs and cats rather than find homes for them.

Yes, making the effort to find homes for stray pets takes time — of which PETA apparently has precious little.

In 2010, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services discovered that fully 84 percent of the strays taken in by PETA were killed within 24 hours.

No wonder: The report concluded that PETA’s headquarters “does not contain sufficient animal enclosures to routinely house the number of animals annually reported as taken into custody.”

So, off they go to the gas chamber.

No surprise, though, that the organization is much more adept at fund-raising than it is at finding homes for kittens and puppies.

PETA’s annual budget is $37 million, “most,” it claims, coming from tax-deductible contributions from 2 million members.

But that is also considerably supplemented by foundation support: PETA has received some $18.7 million over the last three years from organizations like game-show host Bob Barker’s DJ&T Foundation.

Certainly PETA loves the outrageous.

Remember when the organization was after the upstate community of Fishkill to change its name to something a tad more ichthyologically sensitive? That pr masterstroke earned it international headlines.

And people certainly took note when PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk proclaimed “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.”

Except now, the dog is dead.

Better keep an eye on Junior.