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<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="mainContent" -->PETA's Dirty Secret

Hypocrisy is the mother of all credibility problems, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has it in spades. While loudly complaining about the "unethical" treatment of animals by restaurant owners, grocers, farmers, scientists, anglers, and countless other Americans, the group has its own dirty little secret.

PETA kills animals. By the thousands.

From July 1998 through the end of 2005, PETA killed over 14,400 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals" -- at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That's more than five defenseless animals every day. Not counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put to death over 90 percent of the animals it took in during 2005 alone. And its angel-of-death pattern shows no sign of changing.

<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="450"> <tbody> <tr> <td align="right">Year</td> <td align="right">Received†</td> <td align="right">Adopted</td> <td align="right">Killed</td> <td align="right">Transferred</td> <td align="right">% Killed</td> <td align="right">% Adopted</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right">2005</td> <td align="right">2,145</td> <td align="right">146</td> <td align="right">1,946</td> <td align="right">69</td> <td align="right">90.7</td> <td align="right">6.8</td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="#efefef"> <td align="right">2004</td> <td align="right">2,640</td> <td align="right">361</td> <td align="right">2,278</td> <td align="right">1</td> <td align="right">86.3</td> <td align="right">13.7</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right">2003</td> <td align="right">2,224</td> <td align="right">312</td> <td align="right">1,911</td> <td align="right">1</td> <td align="right">85.9</td> <td align="right">14.0</td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="#efefef"> <td align="right">2002</td> <td align="right">2,680</td> <td align="right">382</td> <td align="right">2,298</td> <td align="right">2</td> <td align="right">85.7</td> <td align="right">14.3</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right">2001</td> <td align="right">2,685</td> <td align="right">703</td> <td align="right">1,944</td> <td align="right">14</td> <td align="right">72.4</td> <td align="right">26.2</td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="#efefef"> <td align="right">2000</td> <td align="right">2,684</td> <td align="right">624</td> <td align="right">2,029</td> <td align="right">28</td> <td align="right">75.6</td> <td align="right">23.2</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right">1999</td> <td align="right">1,805</td> <td align="right">386</td> <td align="right">1,328</td> <td align="right">91</td> <td align="right">73.6</td> <td align="right">21.4</td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="#efefef"> <td align="right">* 1998</td> <td align="right">943</td> <td align="right">133</td> <td align="right">685</td> <td align="right">125</td> <td align="right">72.6</td> <td align="right">14.1</td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="#cccccc"> <td align="right">Total</td> <td align="right">17,806</td> <td align="right">3,047</td> <td align="right">14,419</td> <td align="right">331</td> <td align="right">80.1</td> <td align="right">17.1</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="7">
* figures represent the second half of 1998 only
† other than spay/neuter animals
» skeptical? click here to see the proof </td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

On its 2002 federal income-tax return, PETA claimed a $9,370 write-off for a giant walk-in freezer, the kind most people use as a meat locker or for ice-cream storage. But animal-rights activists don't eat meat or dairy foods. So far, the group hasn't confirmed the obvious -- that it's using the appliance to store the bodies of its victims.

In 2000, when the Associated Press first noted PETA's Kervorkian-esque tendencies, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk complained that actually taking care of animals costs more than killing them. "We could become a no-kill shelter immediately," she admitted.

PETA kills animals. Because it has other financial priorities.

PETA raked in nearly $29 million last year in income, much of it raised from pet owners who think their donations actually help animals. Instead, the group spends huge sums on programs equating people who eat chicken with Nazis, scaring young children away from drinking milk, recruiting children into the radical animal-rights lifestyle, and intimidating businessmen and their families in their own neighborhoods. PETA has also spent tens of thousands of dollars defending arsonists and other violent extremists.

PETA claims it engages in outrageous media-seeking stunts "for the animals." But which animals? Carping about the value of future two-piece dinners while administering lethal injections to puppies and kittens isn't ethical. It's hypocritical -- with a death toll that PETA would protest if it weren't their own doing.

PETA kills animals. And its leaders dare lecture the rest of us.