ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997 TAG: 9704210113
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUSAN E. PARIS
FOR THE amount of money raised and spent by U.S. animal-rights groups, every cat and dog in America ought to have its own condominium. Why then, do more than 15 million pets a year end up in underfunded local humane shelters with overworked staff who are frustrated that they cannot even adequately feed and care for them?
And why are 11 million of these animals - three out of every four cats and two out of every three dogs - destroyed for lack of a home?
The true measure of the success or failure of the animal-rights movement in America ought to be the number and condition of animals in local humane shelters. Animal-rights groups claim to corner the market on compassion for animals, so what more valuable a service could they provide? What more deserving an animal than one that has no home, food and medical care?
Scores of news stories from around the country attest to the deplorable condition of local animal shelters. Among the problems cited: food shortages; overcrowding; open sewage pits of animal waste; rodent, ant and cockroach infestation; and lack of medical treatment. At least one shelter, due to a lack of funds, had been forced to destroy unwanted animals using an old carbon monoxide chamber, or worse, because of difficulties obtaining the drug needed for a less painful death. Euthanizing an animal using carbon monoxide is considered inhumane because it is often a prolonged death that causes fear and suffering to the animal.
In a 1995 direct-mail solicitation, the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Ingrid Newkirk, wrote about the condition of one local humane shelter. She noted that the animals ``suffered from overcrowding, lack of regular food and water, and a failure to provide veterinary care.'' Newkirk wrote that, ``Shelter services have been drastically curtailed to the point where ... people with animals have been turned away at the door.''
So what has PETA done to help these homeless, hungry and sick animals and others that suffer and die in shelters each year?
According to its FY 1995 tax documents, next to nothing. Less than $5,000, or 0.03 percent, of PETA's $13.4million budget was allocated to shelter or spay and neuter programs in the United States. Ninety percent of the $1,485,076 PETA donated, or $1.3million, went to itself - that is, PETA's satellite offices in Germany, the Netherlands and England. The next largest donation, $45,200, was sent to animal-rights terrorist Rodney Coronado to help him avoid going to jail for firebombing medical research facilities. Coronado is now serving a 57-month jail sentence.
The Humane Society of the United States, for its part, raises and spends close to $50 million, enough to bankroll at least one well-run animal shelter in every state and have enough left over to spay, neuter, feed and save the lives of tens of thousands of dogs and cats every year. So how many HSUS-run animal shelters benefit from the HSUS budget? None. Yet the HSUS managed to pinch enough of its precious pennies to pay its president, Paul Irwin, $237,831 and its chief executive officer, John Hoyt, $209,051, in addition to providing tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses to the pair.
What programs did the HSUS fund, besides the Paul Irwin and John Hoyt ``Luxury Living Fund''? Legislative initiatives to ban horse tripping, a national effort to ban bear wrestling and contraception programs for elephants and deer.
Why do animal-rights groups refuse to help shelter animals, who need it most? Why attack scientists for working with fewer than 150,000 dogs and cats, which live in comfortable surroundings and receive the best medical care, and yet do nothing for the 11 million hungry, sick animals that are destroyed in animal shelters each year?
The animal-rights movement's main goal is not, and never has been, to save or help individual animals. Its mission is to market its philosophy and lifestyle to the American public - a lifestyle which is predicated on the belief that the life of a rodent deserves the same moral consideration as the life of a child. This sales pitch is most effectively done through massive media events, attention-grabbing legislative initiatives and fancy Hollywood galas. Shelter animals are sacrificed in the short term so that animal-rights groups can gain the money, power and influence needed to sell their view in the long term.
Animal-rights activists cannot blame researchers, hunters, circus owners, meat-eaters, fur- and leather-wearers, fishermen or zoo keepers for the sorry condition of shelter animals. It is the animal-rights movement that has turned its back on the suffering of these animals. Every local humane shelter should demand that animal-rights groups show them the money. And every animal-rights donor should find a local humane shelter to support rather than PETA's ``naked celebrity'' campaign or some executive's bank account.
SUSAN E. PARIS is president of Americans for Medical Progress in Alexandria.
- KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
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