PETA: People Exterminating Tame Animals

Ran across this item today on the Dallas observer's blog and every time I read about "PETA bigwigs" like Debby Leahy telling folks they shouldn't hunt, fish, eat meat or fish, or go to zoos and circuses I'm reminded of PETA members Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook who were charged awhile back in Norfolk, Va., with 31 counts of animal cruelty and eight counts of illegally disposing of dead animals.

Hinkle and Cook, you see, thought that what's even worse than zoos, circuses and Mexican safari parks were animal shelters. So Hinkle and Cook decided to liberate all the animals from animals shelters in an around Norfolk. They went to the shelters and told the folks there that PETA wanted to give all these animals a good home and that they had come to deliver these animals to the cat and dog version of that elephant nirvana in Tennessee. Only what they actually did was load the animals in the back of their windowless, cage-lined van where they killed them with drugs the PETA pair were not legally authorized or trained to dispense. Then they stuffed the carcuses in garbage bags and tossed them in shopping center dumpsters.

PETA says it will use money collected through their "animal rights" fundraisers to pay for the legal defense of Hinkle and Cook. You see, PETA thinks its OK to slaughter dogs and cats they take under false pretenses from animal shelters but it's criminal for organizations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the American Cancer Society to use animals for research designed to save human lives. PETA president Ingrid Newkirk has said repeatedly "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we would be against it."

So here's hoping that someone -- anyone -- who goes to this PETA sponsored "Save Jenny" rally at the Dallas Zoo Sunday has the gumption to ask the PETA people there about Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook and then question why they support their extermination and unceremonious dumping of thousands of domestic cats and dogs every year yet have a problem with efforts to help an elephant retire to Mexico.