P.S.: I define "credible source" as a source that is disinterested in the issue (i.e., no substantial conflict of interest or financial motivation to say certain things, etc.) and uses multiple journalistic facts that can be independently verified or substantiated. Testimony from people who have worked closely with PETA (i.e., ex-PETA employees, officials whose shelters partnered with PETA, etc.) would also be compelling if it can be verified independently.

Wrong AGAIN. Malicious intent is not required for an animal cruelty charge in North Carolina. Malicious intent and/or severity of the act can bump an animal cruelty charge from a misdemeanor to a felony, but intentionally killing an animal without justification is enough for misdemeanor animal cruelty, which is what PETA employees were facing in the jury trial. By refusing to charge PETA employees with even misdemeanor animal cruelty, the jury found that the euthanization of the animals was intentional but it was also justified.

Seeing as you haven't cited any, despite repeatedly being asked, isn't that wild speculation on your part?

He wasn't credible to a judge and jury either, for a variety of reasons including several I've already discussed.

Wrong again. The acts that the PETA employees were accused of -- lying to gain possession of animals and unjustifiably killing animals -- are illegal as well as immoral. NC animal cruelty laws clearly state that it is illegal to perform "any act, omission, or neglect causing or permitting unjustifiable...death" of an animal and makes exceptions for "providing food for human or animal consumption," "activities conducted for lawful veterinary purposes," and "the lawful destruction of any animal for the purposes of protecting the public, other animals, property, or the public health."

If someone faces animal cruelty charges for killing animals, the burden of proof is on the defendant to show that they killed the animal(s) for one or more of those justifiable reasons, whereas prosecution must show that the killings not only happened, but were also unjustified. The court found that the PETA employees euthanized animals but were justified in doing so. Furthermore the court also found that the PETA workers did not mislead anyone to acquire the animals. The verdict, by the way, was unanimous.

I'm not sure you understand the severity of the problems with shelter overpopulation and overcrowding in North Carolina at that time, which would explain why no one was able to magically materialize homes for these animals. Case in point: those "highly adoptable" kittens? The vet hospital couldn't find homes for them even after weeks and weeks of trying. I’ll ask you again: if you believe it is wrong to euthanize any healthy animal, what is your solution to the problem of a supply of adoptable animals that far exceeds the public demand for them to the tune of several million?

It's obvious why you're done here. It's because I'm asking for verified evidence from a credible source. And asking, and asking, and asking.

Wrong. Misleading people in a bid to acquire their property is illegal. Killing dogs and cats except for very specific reasons is illegal. The court found that PETA didn't mislead anyone and didn't kill animals unlawfully. For the FOURTH time now, what do you know that the judge and jury didn’t?

What you don’t understand is that “healthy” doesn't mean that an animal can or will be adopted. Far from it. Every single year, the number of healthy animals in shelters is far higher than the number of people who come into shelters to adopt. Shelters in this nation are forced to kill several million healthy animals every year.

If you feel that it’s "murder" and morally wrong to euthanize any healthy animal, then what is your solution for a supply of healthy shelter animals that far exceeds the demand for them? You can’t force that demand to be any higher than it actually is. You can’t force several million people to come in and take animals. So what’s the solution?

The kittens were given far more time to find a home than stray animals typically get, and yet no one came forward to adopt them. If those kittens were so "highly adoptable," why did they live at the vet hospital for weeks until the vet finally gave up and got rid of them? If the vet wasn't successful, what makes you think that anyone else would have been?

The vet’s behavior was not that of someone who thought the cats could easily find homes – he didn’t take them to a shelter (ANY shelter) and didn’t provide the paperwork to legally transport/transfer them to another state, so he obviously didn’t think they were “adoptable.” Well, duh -- he’d just spent weeks trying to get them adopted himself, without success.

Not only am I NOT a PETA follower, here’s what I don’t understand: There are so many legitimate, independently verified, serious reasons to criticize PETA. You don't need to cling to sensationalist accusations that are unsubstantiated at best. The obvious and verified reasons to criticize PETA are more than enough to convince me (and plenty of other people) not to support or donate to PETA. So why even bother with sensationalist, unsupported claims from sources that aren't credible?

All I’ve been asking is for these claims to be verified and substantiated by a credible source. Not a lobbyist with an agenda. I’ve asked for that several times, in several places, and gotten bupkiss. No investigations or documentation by credible sources, no verified ex-PETA employees coming forward to expose their former employers, nothing. Nada.

You’re confusing evidence with accusations again. Do some research on Winograd and take a closer look at his website. The blatantly manipulative emotional rhetoric, weasel words, failure to substantiate his claims, and teaming up with corporate lobbyists are all a pretty good indication of just how “credible” he is. A sound argument and solid evidence would render these tactics unnecessary. I mean, compare the bombastic and squirrelly tone of his rhetoric to the rhetoric of a reputable person or organization, say, a respected scientist or an entity like the World Health Organization or the American Psychological Association. Does the WHO or APA use weasel words or refer to opponents as butchers, serial killers, and liars? No, because they have verified and well-supported evidence on their side and don’t need to lean on chicanery to make a point.

The irony of you comparing PETA to the Holocaust is not lost on me.

PETA does not own an animal shelter. They operate a free euthanasia clinic. They aren't the only organization that has a free/low-cost euthanasia clinic. This isn't a novel idea or something only PETA does. Euthanizing most animals that come in the door is kinda exactly what happens at a free euthanasia clinic.

The records only show that that a certain number of animals were euthanized annually. No one has produced proof that these numbers do not represent animals that were sick, injured, dying, behaviorally unsound, or other justifiable euthanasias.

It's easy to see that PETA doesn't advertise or operate their headquarters as an “animal shelter” or even a place to surrender pets for rehoming. They don't have a listing in the phone book under “animal shelters” (or any similar category) and they aren't advertising as a place for people to surrender pets for adoption. PETA refers adoptable animals to local shelters -- at least one nearby shelter (Virginia Beach SPCA) has confirmed in writing that they receive animals/referrals from PETA. The city’s official shelter, Norfolk Animal Care, has a link to PETA on their web page, indicating an endorsement.

That's not what the court found. For the third time, what do you know that the judge and jury didn't?

Berman and Winograd claimed that PETA euthanizes the majority of "adoptable" animals in their care in Norfolk. However, there is evidence of only half of this claim, and not the half that matters -- the word "adoptable." So what PROOF do you have that these numbers do not represent justifiable euthanasias? And in fact, what proof of any of this is there from a source that is credible, independently verified, and substantiated, not a lobbying firm with massive and obvious credibility problems?

So let me get this straight: euthanizing pets by lethal injection is like "Treblinka" but not mass suffocation in a gas chamber or being tied to a pole and shot to death? After parting ways with PETA, that shelter continued to use the gas chamber to mass-kill animals for at least nine more years, and you haven't breathed one word about that. This is so clearly not about what's cruel for animals, it's about maintaining your image of PETA as a front for psychopathic animal killers regardless of how flimsy (or nonexistent) the evidence is.

I'd love to know where you're getting your "facts" from. The vet testified that he signed the animals over to PETA because he, and I quote, "[did] not want to keep a lot of stray animals in my office." He told PETA to come and remove the cats, not the other way around. That's a fact and he admitted it. If he thought he could find a home for the cats, why didn't he find a home for the cats? If he thought they should go to another local shelter, why didn't he do it himself? If he thought the cats would have better luck in another state, why didn't he prepare the paperwork needed to legally "live transport" and transfer them out of state, something he easily could have done? Why didn't he offer to house the cats himself while PETA attempted to find homes for them?

Gee, I can't imagine why he wouldn't surrender them to a pound that killed animals with gas chambers and guns. As for why he didn't euthanize them himself, there are plenty of reasons. Maybe he didn't want to deal with it, pay for the euthanasia, or subject himself or his staff to the burden of putting down kittens. If he foisted them off onto PETA, then he could remain in denial about what happened to the kittens and claim the moral high road for himself. So-called "no-kill" shelters pull this crap all the time. In any event, the judge and jury heard all of his testimony. He had ample chance to prove his case, and the judge and jury didn't buy it. Any of it. PETA was exonerated in basically every aspect of this case. So my question, again, is what do you know that the judge and jury didn't know?

PETA accepts animals at its headquarters 24/7 for no-cost immediate euthanasia including terminally ill pets and strays with horrible wounds. Some “death squad.”

You continue to allege, with a remarkable lack of substance, that PETA goes out of its way to kill adoptable animals and misleads the public about it, that this is practically a secret mission of theirs. Buck up. What PROOF of this do you have from reliable sources? Why can't you (or Berman or Winograd) find anyone on the gound -- ex-PETA employees, other local shelters, etc. -- to testify to this? Where's the beef?

I love how your version of the story is subtly changing at this point.

"Trail of death?" Give me a break. The animals that PETA acquired were death row animals at a city shelter where pets were killed by mass suffocation in a gas chamber and big dogs were killed by being tied to a pole and shot in the head. PETA got involved because a police officer who volunteered there sent them testimony of how bad the conditions were and asked for help. That is not under dispute. PETA put thousands of dollars and volunteer man-hours into improving the shelter (not under dispute) and had a clear contract with both the shelter and the vet to euthanize animals' whose time had run out by lethal injection so they wouldn't be killed by gas or gun (also not under dispute). At that point, those "death row" animals' chances of survival were 0% (because in the real world, it turns out that you cannot FORCE the public to adopt all unwanted animals) and they were slated to be killed by gassing or gunshot, both of which are inhumane and unacceptable. PETA found homes for several of these death row animals (you can verify this with some research if only you'd bother) and euthanized the others by lethal injection. So let's recap: until PETA got involved, death row animals at that shelter had a zero percent chance of survival and faced inhumane death by gassing or gunshot. PETA put thousands of dollars into improving the shelter, slightly improved the death row animals' chances of survival, and euthanized the others by lethal injection. As for the cat and two kittens? They'd been living at the vet hospital for weeks while the vet tried, unsuccessfully, to find them a home. He signed them over to PETA because he couldn't find homes for them and didn't want them in his office anymore. He admitted that in the trial. It's not like PETA promised to find homes for them and then surreptitiously killed them.

Putting the euthanized animals in the garbage was against PETA policy so the culpability for that rests with the employees. The court found that PETA did NOT mislead anyone or kill animals they'd promised to find a home for. THAT is a distortion manufactured by lobbyists with major conflicts of interest and known histories of fabrication and you've lapped it right up like the pap it is. Admit it: neither the Norfolk euthanasia clinic nor the North Carolina case is even close to what it has been made out to be by Berman or Winograd. PETA's Norfolk shelter doesn't solicit adoptable animals from the public, doesn't masquerade as a conventional shelter, doesn't kill animals it promised to find a home for, and appears to refer adoptable animals to other local shelters insofar as possible. And again, you can verify this with some research like blogger Mary Tully (who I see has been lazily accused of being my sock puppet) has done. Or I guess you can believe that PETA employees are giggling animal murderers because...I don't know at this point, you like that story better? More fun? You tell me. There all all kinds of legitimate reasons to criticize PETA (I listed several) but this just isn't one of them. Maybe this will be the nail in the coffin: PETA has millions of dollars and worldwide resources. If they wanted to kill pets, why only five a day? Why is it pretty easy to find ex-PETA employees or people/organizations who've worked with PETA at the local level (such as Virginia Beach SPCA) who can verify PETA's story, but a conspicuous absence of people at the local level who can back up what Winograd or Berman says?

"IF we get them and CAN'T FIND A HOME....that's why I'm so against breeding..." Yeah, what a monster. Like every animal shelter in the nation (except the ones that refuse animals when full, thereby referring them to shelters that do euthanize). This is it? Really? This is your slam dunk?

So what should PETA or animal shelters do with animals they can't find homes for? What are the options when someone puts a pet up for adoption but no one comes to get him or her?

I have something to tell you about that magical "farm in the country" that mom and dad sent Rex to.

Except that the PETA employees were CLEARED of these charges by a court of law. The PETA employees were accused of animal cruelty, acquiring property (animals) by false pretense, and wrongfully killing animals -- all unlawful. However, most of these charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence before the trial even reached the jury. The jury found the PETA employees not guilty of the remaining charges (except for littering) and the charge of littering was eventually thrown out in an appeal, which was also found in PETA’s favor. The judge and jury heard the evidence and returned “not guilty” verdicts for the PETA employees. So tell me, how exactly does this trial – which was ruled in favor of PETA -- stand as “proof” of Winograd’s extraordinary claims? The only way that someone could twist this around is to deliberately omit and misrepresent the facts of the trial, and that’s exactly what has happened, as evidenced by this totally bizarre interpretation of a “not guilty” verdict.

PETA employees euthanized animals and disposed of them, against PETA policy, in a dumpster – no argument there. However, the jury ruled that PETA was not guilty of misleading the shelter, the vet, the public, or the city about their intentions and actions. PETA had an ongoing relationship with this shelter in order to prevent animals from being euthanized there by gas chamber and gunshot. The animals they euthanized were from the shelter’s death row (and PETA did in fact find homes for some of them). The jury believed that the veterinarian was fully aware that the kittens would be euthanized. The kittens were not fresh surrenders that hadn’t had a chance to get adopted. In fact, they lived at the vet’s office for several weeks while he attempted to find homes for them, and he wasn't able to. He signed them over to PETA and stated during the trial that he did so because he didn’t want “stray animals” in his office anymore. The jury got an earful of his “I didn’t know” testimony and wasn’t convinced. So, my question at this point: What do you know about this trial that not even the judge or jury knew?

First, do you have proof that PETA euthanized wanted, healthy puppies and kittens as a matter of course, and not just the kittens that the vet wasn't able to rehome and therefore signed over to PETA? Secondly, the conflation of “healthy” with “adoptable” is rather naive. “Adoptable” isn’t a certain age, breed, appearance, or health status. All “adoptable” means, realistically, is that someone will adopt that pet in time for the shelter to keep up with its intake. Being surrendered at a shelter is a chance, not a guarantee, even for a healthy pet. It’s an even smaller chance at an open-admission, rural, and/or struggling shelter. So what’s a shelter to do when animals, but not adopters, keep coming through the doors? The shelter can either make room by euthanizing or turn animals away, both of which have obvious negative outcomes. It can’t grow indefinitely.

I wholeheartedly agree that it is both a tragedy and a crime that healthy animals died (and continue to die every day due to unchecked production and lack of adopters). If you want to blame anyone in this equation, blame the people who breed and treat animals as though they were disposable, thus forcing someone, eventually, to dispose of them. Blame shelters whose operations and policies turn people away and make it harder to choose adoption. Blame lobbyists that oppose animal protection reforms. Blame people who shop instead of adopt. Blame breeders that mislead the public about the cats and dogs they sell. Maybe, someday, society will get to a place where we realize that the people responsible for the euthanasia of “adoptable” animals are the people who carelessly breed and fail them in the first place.

Let's try this. Do you have proof of this from a source that isn't either 1) a lobbyist with obvious conflict-of-interest problems and a documented history of lies by omission or 2) a secondhand regurgitation from the same? Any undercover investigations from reliable sources? Any trustworthy testimonies from officials? Any trustworthy testimonies from shelters or organizations that worked with PETA on the local on-the-ground level? Any verified ex-PETA employees coming forward to testify to being bullied into killing adoptable animals? Any reliable documents or court findings proving that PETA 1) euthanized WANTED animals for whom there were other immediate options and 2) solicits the surrender of adoptable animals from the public specifically for euthanasia and 3) lies about it? ANYTHING?

PETA employees were found not guilty of animal cruelty and not guilty of obtaining property under false pretenses. The littering charge was overturned on appeal. So the court of law disagrees with your interpretation of the case, which appears to be based on Rick Berman's and Nathan Winograd's propaganda. The animals that PETA killed were unwanted and unclaimed animals from the city shelter. They weren't animals surrendered to PETA for adoption. The Ahoskie shelter killed animals by mass gas chamber. The gas chamber and poor conditions at this shelter were notorious. whypetaeuthanizes.com contains evidence, including court documents, that throws the Winograd/Berman spin into question, to say the least. Winograd and Berman both have a clear conflict of interest here and are well known to choose and abuse their facts. Their portrayal of the Ashokie case does not match up with the court findings and selectively omits contextualizing information. I find it highly dubious at best.

Did you somehow miss the part where PETA got involved because Ashokie, NC was mass killing animals by gas chamber? So it's OK for animals to suffocate to death crammed by the dozens into a metal box, but not OK for PETA to euthanize by injection? Those animals weren't surrendered to PETA under the pretense that PETA would find them a home. They weren't ripped from loving arms. They were "unadoptable" animals that didn't get adopted, taken out of a city shelter that killed animals by mass gassing them to death, and killed instead by lethal injection. This case went to trial and the court documents do not add up with Winograd's claims. PETA employees were tried on a number of charges, misdemeanor and felony. They were found not guilty of animal cruelty and not guilty of obtaining property under false pretenses. Even the "littering" charge was overturned on appeal. So who do we believe? A court of law? Or sensational claims originating from a pack of dog breeder, beef industry, and corn syrup apologists who all have a clear and vested interest in taking animal rights down a notch?

That would appear to be an intentional distortion by Winograd. As near as I can tell, PETA doesn't advertise their headquarters as an animal shelter except as a "shelter of last resort" and they appear to be quite up front about that "last resort" part. They don't have a website for their "shelter." They don't have a listing in the Norfolk phone book under animal shelters. They don't have a listing on Petfinder.com. They aren't advertising as a place for people to surrender adoptable pets. They aren't offering adoptable pets. They aren't acting as a conventional shelter in any meaningful way, and given all of the above, I'm not sure how anyone could be confused about what PETA does at this point -- unless of course, they're intentionally obfuscating and trying to make a point. In his HuffPo piece, Winograd was forced to admit that PETA does not act as a conventional animal shelter, although he omits the fact that PETA isn't even trying to operate a conventional shelter. His claim that PETA euthanizes the vast majority adoptable animals would appear to be either an error or misrepresentation on his part. The word "adoptable" is key. While I might disagree with either Winograd's or PETA's definition of "adoptable," (since it's highly subjective) there's a big difference between "euthanizing a majority of animals taken into custody" and "euthanizing a majority of adoptable animals taken into custody." If PETA sends adoptable animals to other shelters (and it appears they do), and euthanizes the sick, injured, aggressive, or those otherwise deemed not adoptable, then that's pretty far removed from the picture Winograd is trying to paint. PETA is listed as a shelter in state documents because the state calls them a shelter. That is the state of Virginia's definition, not PETA's. The state is obviously aware of what PETA does and still lists them as a "shelter" for regulation purposes. The Virginia state veterinarian stated as recently as February 2013 that his office wasn't aware of any consumer complaints about PETA misrepresenting their services.

This is not true. Not all animal control agencies are open-admission and often the ones that claim to be open-admission aren't truly open-admission, because they charge surrender fees or only accept pets from residents of that city, not the surrounding area. PETA's headquarters are located in Norfolk, VA. Norfolk's government animal shelter, the Norfolk Animal Care Center, is "open door" but they only accept animals from residents of Norfolk (not the surrounding area), and they charge a surrender fee of $15 per animal. Are there people who cannot afford that or who would refuse to pay that? Absolutely.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. I cannot find any current material from PETA stating that PETA endorses the killing of pit bulls based on breed nor can I find evidence that PETA uses "breed-specific" euthanization policies in their own intake. Current material from PETA (such as this: http://www.peta2.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/PETAandPitbulls.pdf) appears to oppose mandatory euthanasia and the killing of pit bulls by shelters, and endorses mandatory spay-neuter to prevent it. If PETA does (or did at one time) endorse killing dogs based on breed, then that's another point on which I disagree with them. I support pit bull spay/neuter laws but not mandatory euthanasia. Pit bulls are not "fine." U.S. shelters kill upwards of 800,000 of them annually. With the advent of the pit bull "advocacy" movement, pit bull euthanasias have doubled and tripled even as overall euthanasias for every other breed have plummeted. Clearly, the dogs need additional legislative protection from dogfighters and backyard breeders. http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/anp/2011/11/19/editorial-the-shelter-killing-of-pit-bulls/ http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/anp/2012/10/19/editorial-pit-bulls-political-recklessness/ San Francisco's mandatory spay and neuter law for pit bulls works. The local SPCA opposed this law as a knee-jerk reaction simply because it was breed-specific. The law ended up cutting pit bull euthanasia by 33% after it was enacted. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Pit-bull-factions-find-peace-in-S-F-neuter-law-3257850.php Pit bulls represent 5-7% of the canine population but account for two-thirds of all severe and fatal dog attacks in recent years, and half of all fatal attacks over the past 30 years. Let's take the first 5 months of 2013 as an example. Out of 14 fatal dog attacks, 13 were caused by pit bulls. Of at least 130 reported severe attacks that left the victim permanently disfigured or dismembered, at least 114 were caused by pit bulls. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bxm2rT0Rp7ZrSk1LbXRxS3E3ZGs/edit?usp=drive_web&pli=1 These statistics do not include dog attacks involving guard dogs, junkyard dogs, or fighting dogs. That is NOT to say that all or even most pit bulls are dangerous -- quite the opposite -- but there is clearly a problem with pit bulls and severe dog attacks, almost certainly due to the leaking of genetic idiopathic aggression from fighting dog lines into the pet population.