The American Spectator

p> SHOOT FIRST br> Re: Scotty Uhrich’s letter (under “Hands On With Animals”) in Reader Mail’s Empty Tanks and R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s The American Circus : /p>

PETA doesn’t hesitate to roll up our sleeves and help animals in need, even when that means providing severely ill or injured animals, or those for whom no good home can be found, with a painless, peaceful death. When we discovered that certain pounds in northeastern North Carolina were cramming animals into a rusty, windowless box and gassing them, shooting animals, and injecting animals with a paralytic agent that slowly suffocated them, we worked with those localities to arrange for painless euthanasia by injection for those unwanted animals who were already slated to die. Our involvement spared those homeless animals untold suffering.

A loving home doesn’t exist for every homeless animal. That is why PETA operates a spay/neuter clinic that recently performed its 30,000th surgery. But for those unwanted animals already discarded, euthanasia is a kindness. The same can’t be said for factory farms’ practice of cutting off animals’ beaks, tails, and testicles without painkillers, or scalding and dismembering animals while they’re still alive, as frequently happens in slaughterhouses, or beating, chaining, and shocking animals to force them to perform in circuses.

p>To learn more about PETA’s work to help animals, visit HelpingAnimals.com . br> — Daphna Nachminovitch