PETA has attempted to defend its death rate on the ground that, unlike other shelters in Virginia, PETA takes in the hard cases that other shelters turn down.\u00a0 A recent blog post<\/a> attempted to explain why PETA kills animals at the rate that it does.\u00a0 According to PETA, \u201c[u]nlike selective admission shelters (often misleadingly referred to as \u2018no-kill\u2019 shelters) \u2026 PETA operates what could be called a \u2018shelter of last resort\u2019 \u2013 a safe place where no animal is turned away, ever.\u201d\u00a0 PETA also asserted that the \u201cno-kill\u201d shelters\u00a0 \u201creject unadoptable animals in order to keep their euthanasia statistics appealing (a gimmick you\u2019ll never catch PETA using).\u201d<\/p>\n If, as PETA stated in its 2019 VDACS filing<\/a>, it is an \u201copen admission\u201d shelter, that might explain the high death rate.\u00a0 An open admission shelter logically would have to dispose of more animals than a shelter that only takes in animals that can be adopted out.\u00a0 The problem with this, however, is that the numbers do not bear out PETA\u2019s claim.\u00a0 The 2019 VDACS reports show that, excluding PETA, at least forty-three (43) shelters in Virginia represented on their intake polices that are filed with VDACS that they are \u201copen admission\u201d like PETA claims it is or otherwise have no stated intake restrictions on the condition or temperment of the animal.\u00a0 These shelters likewise will take any animal, but these shelters, as a group, euthanized far fewer animals on average than PETA.<\/p>\n The graph below is based on the data reported on 2019 VDACS filings by the forty-three (43) shelters in Virginia that, according to their intake policies (on file with VDACS), have no intake restrictions on animal condition or are expressly \u201copen admission.\u201d\u00a0 The graph plots euthanized animals as a percentage of the total that were in the agencies\u2019 custody for three categories \u2013 all animals, dogs and cats.\u00a0 The no-restriction shelters are shown in green and PETA in red.<\/p>\n As can be seen, PETA\u2019s kill rate is more than four (4) times<\/span><\/strong> the no-restriction shelter rate for all animals, more than six (6) times<\/span><\/strong> the rate for dogs and more than three (3) times<\/strong><\/span> the rate for cats.<\/p>\n Even if the comparison is strictly limited to only those shelters that expressly describe themselves as \u201copen admission,\u201d the results are still startling.\u00a0 The graph below, also drawn from 2019 VDACS reports, compares the average \u201copen admission\u201d shelter euthanasia rate with PETA\u2019s.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2020\/11\/No-restriction-shelters-II.jpg\")
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