On prior occasions (here and here), we have written about the loftier charge per unit at which animal rights system People for the Upstanding Treatment of Animals (PETA) euthanizes the animals that it takes in at its Norfolk, Virginia animal "shelter." All public and private fauna shelters and other animal releasing agencies in the Commonwealth of Virginia are required to submit an annual summary of their animal custody records to the Virginia Section of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS). PETA's study for 2020 recently filed with VDACS reveals that PETA's death rate still outpaces the average rate at which other shelters in Virginia euthanize animals.

The get-go ii graphs beneath were synthetic from data gear up forth past PETA on its annual reports for 2019 and 2020 as filed with VDACS which are available publicly on the agency'southward website. The report format requires the shelter to quantify the various animals that it took into its custody during the calendar year and to report what happened to them by group.

As the graph below shows, PETA continues to euthanize the majority of the dogs and cats that it takes into custody.

Furthermore, PETA's 2020 euthanization rate for dogs, cats, dogs and cats combined and all animals combined shows petty change from 2019 and continues to range from 57 to 73 percentage:

What is more troubling — which continues a trend that has been apparent for several years — is that the rate at which PETA euthanized dogs and cats in 2020 vastly exceeded the charge per unit at which dogs and cats were euthanized by other shelters in Virginia in 2020. The following three graphs compare PETA'southward 2020 euthanasia rate for dogs, cats and dogs and cats combined with the 2020 euthanasia rates for private shelters, public shelters and all agencies combined in Virginia. The percentages were caluclated from the data reported by VDACS on its website.

Contemporaneously with the filing of PETA's 2020 VDACS study, a senior online news content producer for PETA attempted to defend PETA'southward high death rate in an commodity for One Green Planet entitled "What PETA Has to Say Almost Animals Euthanized at Their Shelter." This article largely recycled the arguments that we analyzed last November and found to be unconvincing, including PETA's attempts to defend its euthanasia statistics with a handful of examples of animals that have terminal illnesses beyond veterinary help or personality issues that make adoption an impossibility. No one could seriously contest that euthanasia was the appropriately humane consequence for the examples that PETA chose to rely on. But this is a tiny number of cases out of the thousands of dogs and cats euthanized by PETA. And are these carefully selected examples actually representative of the typical dog or true cat that PETA puts downwardly?

The I Green Planet commodity argues that the number of animals PETA euthanized in 2020 — 1,763 — is "roughly vii%" of "the more 26,000 animals PETA's fieldworkers helped in 2020." But PETA doesn't really explicate what goes into the category of "helped" animals, and "helped" animals is non the relevant comparing to begin with. The relevant point of comparison is the fact that PETA took in ii,650 animals in 2020 and euthanized 67% of them (1,763). Was every single animate being that PETA killed hopelessly sick or absolutely unadoptable? PETA doesn't say. Nor does PETA offer whatsoever real explanation for why its euthanasia rate drastically outstrips the rates of other pubic shelters in Virginia, many of which are "open admission" just equally PETA claims to be.

Interestingly plenty, a recent Newsweek article fact-checked the proposition, avant-garde in a number of tweets, that PETA is responsible for the deaths of thousands of animals. Newsweek's ruling, after analysis of the VDACS statistics: "Generally True."

If, as the One Greenish Planet article asserts, PETA has "nothing to hibernate," then PETA should forthrightly state whether each and every one of the i,763 animals that it euthanized in 2020 was either beyond medical attention and suffering unnecessaily or was unadoptable. If that is the example, then surely PETA can say it. If that is non the instance, so PETA should explicate why this is non "needless killing" which PETA claims to be against.