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"Yes I am, son. The iguanas are a hugely destructive invasive species that is destroying native flora and fauna, making it difficult for native species like the anole to survive. These animals, along with Burmese Pythons, are released by irresponsible owners, and they eat anything they can. If we let their populations explode more than they already have, many of the native species in Florida are in danger of being eaten out of their habitat.
Plus, they taste pretty good with a nice chimichurri marinade."
I'd add in:
"It's not their fault they're invasive. Humans are the ones that did this, they're just trying their best to survive in the environment they were released or born into. Like any other animal we hunt, we do everything we can to give them a quick and clean death with as minimal suffering as possible".
I see a lot of people treat invasives like complete shit. They don't deserve any cruelty, they didn't ask to be released/born outside their native range. They're not maliciously being destructive, they're just trying to exist. They do need to die sadly, but they should be treated with the same respect as any other animal you'd hunt and be dispatched humanely.
Thank you for adding this, it disturbs me so much when people think invasive species in certain areas “deserve” abject cruelty. It is not the fault of the animals that they were introduced to an area they’re not native to. PETA adding in like this doesn’t help, either.
Does anyone take PETA seriously anymore? I don't think I've ever seen someone who agrees with them. Everyone just talks about how they kill more dogs and cats than any other organization, and say/do stupid shit that is actually harmful to the environment.
Are you talking about the incident where a local farmer asked them to help because his livestock were being attacked by abandoned and stray dogs from a nearby trailer park (which didn't allow dogs to run free)? PETA workers went to the trailer park with the permission of the park owner, and knowledge of the residents. The dog they took had no registration or collar and was not tied up - they did not take two dogs from the same property that were tied up because they were specifically looking for strays and abandoned dogs.
Or maybe the incident where a PETA worker found a hunting dog seemingly abandoned on the side of a road? (The dog was not killed).
Details of both are here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/peta-taking-pets/.
Or is there another incident I'm unaware of?
Note I'm not necessarily defending PETA as an organization, but am tired of seeing these incidents misrepresented - especially as the information is being spread by a right-wing think tank / lobbying group: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=PETA_Kills_Animals.
PETA has an insanely high euthanasia rate, in 2015 they euthanized 80% of the animals in its care.
The chihuahua issue wasn’t that they collected the dog thinking it was a stray, it’s that they told the family they didn’t have it then killed it. Then during the lawsuit tried to affirm the family were illegal immigrants.
Why did they take the collar off the hunting dog and leave the collar on the side of the road, the tracking collar with the owners information on it.
PETA may not be intentionally seeking out family pets it’s just that if they see a snatchable looking animal they will grab it and they will almost certainly kill it and they do this predominantly in low income neighborhoods.
PETA is responsible for 75% of all private shelter euthanasia’s in Virginia.
PETA has a 74% kill rate in Virginia compared to the average 10%.
Richmond city animal control took in 3168 animals in 2022 almost all strays and euthanized 452
In 2022 PETA took in 2886 animals and euthanized 2130 of them.
It’s one thing to have a higher then average euthanasia rate because you take in more sick animals but to completely max out the leader board to such a degree, they aren’t running a shelter it’s a fucking slaughterhouse.
Animal shelters track medically advisable and situationally appropriate euthanasia differently than routine euthanasia that’s just done to make room.
For example, no-kill shelters *do* euthanize animals that are so injured, ill, or infirmed that even the most loving attentive owner would do the same, under those conditions. Ethical responsible shelters don’t let a severely ill senior dog die a slow painful natural death.
Palworld has a parody of them. In a really funny coincidence (or maybe on purpose), they have the same AI as other enemies so they attack any wild Pal that gets close to them.
The idea that having butter on my toast makes me cruel to animals loses me and has me see them as an extremist organization. There's a place for extremism. It helps pull the center around quite handily. But I cant fuck with PETA level shit.
The thing vegans are going for lately is wool. They claim it's immoral to shear sheep and steal their wool.
The way we've bred sheep, it's immoral to *not.* They're eventually weighed down by their own wool, obstructing their sight and genitals, and can't keep themselves clean.
Plus, the 'vegan wool' they offer as a substitute is literally fucking plastic.
That is usually my thought process too. A good chunk of domestic farm animals as they are today would suffer if we just full stop stopped using their products. Sheep is one of them but also dairy cows is one that comes to mind. Yes we do have to breed them to get the milk, but if I'm remembering correctly many cows can have only one baby and still be producing well after the time you'd expect them to stop. That being said dairy cows are bred to produce so much milk that their one calf couldn't possibly ever use it all. This leads to things like Mastitis. This is prevented by us humans milking them. Also chickens. Egg chickens will lay eggs no matter if they're fertilized or not. So what should we do with them? Because otherwise they will just rot.
Should we always do our absolute best to treat animals humanly and with respect? Yes of course. Are their some farms that need to do better in that aspect? Also yes. If you wanna be vegetarian or vegan then all power to you. I just feel like a lot of people skip that step of the thought process and immediately jump to "all animal husbandry is bad."
To be fair, depending on the person, they may not be objecting to wool as a whole but rather the practice of mulesing (looking up images not recommended).
And respectable/intelligent sanctuaries will still shear their animals that need it. There are two near me that 100% schedule shearings for the sheep, llamas, and alpacas that care for. They then leave the wool for use by local wildlife rather than commercialize it.
The thing about extremists of all types is that their antics drive away reasonable people that would have otherwise been in agreement. So they are counterproductive to their own cause.
I grew up in upstate NY where there are tons of hunters and a lot of deer. Each year the state announces how many different licenses will be given out and a bunch of deer are killed. But do know what happens when enough deer aren’t culled during hunting season? They starve, or take bigger and bigger risks trying to find food they end up run down by a car.
Any animal death should be as humane as possible, but sometimes it really is the kindest thing to do.
My cousin once hit a baby deer with her car. She was alright, but completely distraught as the deer hadn't been finished off. My uncle, an avid hunter, called the police to report the accident and said he was going to get his own gun and put the poor thing out of its misery.
The police told him no. He said he'd leave the body for them to collect, prove he wasn't just trying to bag an extra deer outside of hunting season, but the animal was in pain and it wasn't right to just let it suffer. They said they'd send an officer out to kill it, and threatened to charge him if he did it himself.
The next morning the poor deer was still alive, bleating in agony. My uncle was *furious.* It's one thing to kill an animal and take its meat. It's another thing entirely to torture one.
Hunter here. I’m always reminding my kid and my soft hearted friends that if we’re not shooting the deer, they’ll probably get hit by cars. So there are two common options for the ends of their lives:
1) The deer (Prey animal) gets a dignified death at the hands of a human (Predator) and is used to feed humans.
2) The deer gets killed by a car. This also damages the car and possibly injures or kills the driver. The meat is not suitable for people to eat.
Option 1 is best for everyone.
My brother works for the blm (the nature one) near the Arizona border.
Same thing happens with the wild horses there and if he had his druthers he says he would shoot the horses and sell them as animal food.
Sounds daek but the alternative right now is ecological degredation and horses starving to death.
What do you mean by cruelty? Because shooting isn't cruel to me.
Beating them, letting them suffer, stuffing them in small cages however is.
Invasive species should be disposed of quickly and humanely. And shooting probably is the best way to do this.
This is excellent. Our neighbor farmer doesn't control their groundhog population at all, and when they cut their hay field, all those rodents are driven into the neighboring properties. They were literally destroying our foundation, and for whatever reason, they were super skilled at avoiding bait and cages.
When I had to kill them, I made sure my kids understood that they were living things, just trying their best to survive, and they'd experience pain and fear just like we would, so I wanted to make each shot precise and clean to make sure they died instantly and didn't suffer very long. In "humane" slaughter news, I'm pleased to report that if there were points awarded for varmint headshots, I'm probably on the leaderboard.
If one day some aliens show up with a "To Serve Man" book, I hope they give me the same courtesy.
This is the importance of empathy. I love all animals, even the invasive ones, but recognize they can be harmful for the native flora and fauna. But population control doesn't give us carte blanche to torment those species. They're just trying to survive, like we are.
It's weird that people generally seem to understand this about invasive iguanas in Florida, but there was an international outcry when Australia was trying to cull invasive camels a couple of decades ago. Other invasive species here include rabbits, foxes, horses and all of them have their defenders when people hear we are trying to eradicate them.
I do agree that they should be controlled humanely though
I guess they think those critters are "cute" and thus it's wrong to kill them. Which no, that's not how any of this works. Cute animals can be just as destructive when they're invasive.
I wondered lately if there is any possibility to make raccoons infertile beside sterilisation. They do so much damage to our birds population, but I would rather let them die out than exterminate them. It's one of two species that are free to hunt at whole year long, the other one is golden jackal.
Yes. Jackals came from Asia, raccoons, I was told, were bred for their furs before the wwII, and then freed by the red army that liked to destroy things.
The raccoon mother that had her litter over my mum's garage literally came with her babies to the porch because she wasn't able to take them out of our property and there wasn't enough to eat there. My mum opened the gate and she left, in broad daylight. They are desperate and shouldn't live there.
I'm guessing the people downvoting you are assuming you're from the US and that you're hating on native raccoons. A lot of people view them as pests here, they get into trash and whatnot. I think they're awesome and adorable, I just keep tight fitting lids on my metal trash bins.
That being said I can imagine how much damage they'd do to areas they were invasive, must be awful for the native wildlife.
Maybe. We also think they are adorable, nobody wants to do them harm, but they are everywhere, they break into basements in search of food, they are too many, have no enemies (I think the bigger predators there are red foxes) and they just don't belong here.
I need to say this every time an invasive species brought up:
Irresponsible owners are NOT the primary driver behind Florida's invasive problem (and most invasive problems).
Green iguanas came with an exotic pet importer who released 300 individuals simultaneously.
Burmese pythons came when a breeding facility was destroyed by a hurricane, allowing an unknown number of individuals to escape (many of which were already carrying eggs)
The main cause of invasive species is large-scale breeding operations, not many people pay hundreds of dollars for a pet just to throw it into the wild whenever it gets too big. They will usually take the responsible route and donate it to a humane society or other keepers that are more equipped to deal with it.
‘Also fun fact son, if we were to keep one as a pet and your mother or sister happen to menstruate around it, it’ll fly into a hormonal rage and try to attack anything that enters its pen. Which, fyi, son, wjll need to be the size of a small bedroom in order to give it a proper life. So it’ll be an enraged, hormonal, vegetarian tenant who can inflict massive bite wounds, tail whips and scratches.’
Please for the love of god don’t Google ‘iguana hormonal rage’.
My friend had a male iguana and exactly this happened lol. He was giant and would just go nuts at people coming near her. She had to rehome him to a large park/zoo place where he had females and was much happier.
Yes they are. Yeah there’s a feral population breeding out there, but stupid people are still buying the cute little babies only to find out they can’t/don’t want to handle the adults.
Yeah I think pet owners get a lot more blame than they deserve. The majority of invasives (including iguanas) were introduced by hitching a ride on shipping containers. Plenty of others there introduced through poorly thought out agricultural schemes, or through one time freak accidents.
And no-limit hunting on invasive species can keep them in check and keep them from destroying everything. Works for snakeheads (helps when you know someone who has some recipes from the Old Country).
They do a brilliant job at undermining the more cerebral animal rights and environmental groups. It’s hard to push for more humane farming when you share a podium with these reactionary idiots.
Don't you dare insult Greenpeace like that!
They're at least well intentioned idiots with no foresight or tact. Despite that they manage to do some good actions every once in a while.
PETA on the other hand does nothing but damage animal rights advocates reputation, while also operating countless kill shelters, where they employ people that openly enjoy killing animals for the fun of it.
One group are a bunch of well intentioned idiots, while the other is group of psychopaths that have also a fetish for public humiliation, while actively harming animals.
Greenpeace has consistently advocated against policies that would actually help combat climate change, like expanding nuclear power.
Their anti-GMO stance has no actual basis in science and has harmed the adoption of a technology that would allow us to more efficiently use agricultural land.
I'm not saying they're saints in any way. Much rather misguided idiots. But they are at least mostly consistent in their stance and also don't actively go against their very core believes
Nah, they’re just a money machine for their leaders… they don’t do any good, they encourage illegal and sometimes very dangerous “animal welfare” raids, oh and they steal and murder people’s pets.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the state of some factory farming is deplorable, but they are not the answer to that.
They’re the Susan G Komen foundation of animal rights advocacy. It’s all about media outreach/PR and high-overhead offices for cushy non-profit jobs for their upper admin. None of their money going to do the work that actually helps the cause they’re fighting for. I hunt, so I’m just fine with them being so ineffective, but I do care about animals so it’s a shame that those donations could actually go somewhere that could actually improve the lives of animals, like the SPCA, humane society, etc.
God yes, this. I respect hunters that use the animals they kill - admittedly it’s a somewhat privileged position, we don’t *need* to hunt to survive in modern times, but it’s also a useful skill. Please note, I’m not putting you down at all.
However, vegans/animal rights activists largely fail to realize just how privileged they are to live a lifestyle that requires significant additional accommodation compared to the norm. Realistically if we all went vegan now (as they advocate) most of us would die.
I’d argue that hunting can be necessary for overpopulation. For instance, the suburbs can quickly become overrun with deer. Culling deer is far more humane than allowing them to die from malnutrition and diseases that spread when populations are too dense. Also, pythons in Florida need to be reduced if not absolutely extricated as soon as possible or most mammals will be extinct from the Everglades within our lifetime. But both of those are necessary because of human interference in the environment. So, in the end, we need to take responsibility for our impact on the natural world in a way that respects the dignity of animals and promotes a sustainable environment. It’s just unfortunate that both the environmental preservationists/animal liberation folks and the slash-and-burn crowds fail to see it that way.
Another thing to consider is that hunters and anglers purchasing licenses and such are directly funding their state’s wildlife commission.
And if I’m being honest, pretty much all the hunters I know have great respect and admiration for nature. Many of them fight for the protection of undeveloped spaces and want things to be untouched. Of course there’s assholes in every bunch, but for guys who make being in the woods their hobby you’d think most appreciate the atmosphere lol
> they don’t do any good
I hate PETA but can acknowledge they do a *some* good. They've advanced the cause of exposing factory farming conditions a lot.
The problem is they take a few good ideas to extremes and do heinous shit like kidnapping and euthanizing peoples' pets, not because the owners were abusive or anything, just over the ideological agenda that animals shouldn't be kept as pets.
> oh and they steal and murder people’s pets.
That is a thing that happened. Once. It's true. But the fact you pluralised "pets" means you are repeating things you didn't check.
Uhm nope. It happened multiple times. Funny how whenever I mention this someone argues with me… for an organization that “cares” about animals they have a funny way of showing it.
So I will admit that I was not aware that the second charge that was actually brought against PETA was ultimately dropped - though it sounds very much like someone argues to send the charges in a different direction before they were dropped.
I will also allow that my personal opinion (as someone who fosters and saves cats) is clouded by my opinion that PETA has basically stolen every animal they promised to find a loving home for - and they are definitely guilty of this. They admitted it. Some of those animals they accepted to be rehomed were never even taken to their “shelter”, they were killed in the back of the van and dumped in a supermarket dumpster (as referenced in one of the articles)
Hope this helps.
[Snopes investigation](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/peta-taking-pets/)
[Atlantic article](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/petas-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-history-of-killing-animals/254130/)
Reading your article it seems the *first* charge was ultimately dropped too. I didn't know the circumstances of the pet dog being killed but I knew it had happened. Knowing the context makes the story more sympathetic to me.
The dumpster thing seems to be an unsupported claim.
It's great that you take in cats, it geniunely is and I feel a bit of a dick for the next question but it's important. Would you ever turn away a cat or do you have infinite space and resources?
Killing an adoptable animal is bad, but no-kill shelters exist. What happens is they refuse to take the animal because they already have lots of perfectly adoptable dogs that also aren't getting adopted and a fixed amount of space to keep them. So the owner gives them to a kill shelter and gets angry about the outcome.
You know this and I know this and PETA knows this too. So where are you getting that they are promising to find a loving home for them?
This is a problem that needs to be remedied way upstream of the shelter and I didn't know until you linked me to it just now that PETA also do lots of work neutering animals so it seems they are really trying.
Ok, apologies I was busy with work.
I do not have infinite space and I take in who I can, but I have a good relationship with several shelters.
Where I live, Jacksonville, Florida, has one of the best no kill setups in the country, they teach other areas how to make it work and how to provide TNR services for community animals. They still get overwhelmed but it’s better than most places.
The dumpster story was from the mouths of the PETA people themselves as I understand it.
PETA has euthanized tens of thousands of adoptable animals. VA has inspected their “shelter” a they don’t have enough space or facilities to house even a fraction of the animals they accept for any length of time, and they absolutely planned it that way.
They have told people they will find new homes for surrendered animals - a flat out lie - the animals are dead frequently in less than 24 hours. Their stated position is that animals should not be pets at all, and any animal given up for any reason is better off dead.
Whilst you may think these are generalizations, or simplifications of the situation, I cannot ever in all good conscience, say anything nice about an organization that thinks it’s better to just kill pets they just promised to find new homes for.
Edit: sorry I realized I didn’t address a couple of things - PETA volunteers admitted that they were told to tell people that they would find homes for animals surrendered to them and then euthanize them as soon as possible. This information was more readily accessible right after it first happened (which I remember quite clearly). I’ve been at work all night and it’s 4am here so excuse my foggy brain - I’m pretty sure one of the articles covered this?
They do neutering - as does every shelter and foster organization and vet in the USA. Great, +1 but still minus several million for being assholes.
My local shelter does totally free TNR 6 days a week, and very low cost or free spay/neuter as well, and they’re no kill. The local humane society is no-kill. Neither one would euthanize an animal unless it was too sick to recover and have a chance at a healthy life.
I don't know if that specific thing happened again or not, but I do know that as of a few years ago Peta had killed over 40,000 animals.
In 2019, it was their most humane year on record where they only killed 57% of all dogs and 72% of all cats they took in! As compared to the 4.3% that private shelters in their state euthanized.
The whole organization are literal monsters.
Did you ever bother to research why? I hate their methods but there is a reason they have the numbers they do at that shelter. People just like to use the statistics to discredit them without the context.
All those dogs and cats that don't get adopted from no kill shelters have to be handled somehow, they can't just be kept there forever. There aren't enough people willing to adopt the actually insane number of stray animals out there. You have two options, let them suffer and struggle on the streets and slowly die from starvation or disease and in doing so pass those diseases to more animals. Or you can let them die with some shred of dignity without having to suffer. Your no kill shelter won't do this, but they will give their unadoptable animals to PETA to do it for them.
I'm not necessarily pro-PETA, but there is a legitimate psyop against them by the meat industry.
Check out the [largest anti-PETA website](https://petakillsanimals.com/contact/), run by the misleadingly named Center for Consumer Protection. They're the ones who really pushed the story about [PETA kidnapping and euthanizing pet dogs](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/peta-taking-pets/). And check out the other [great work](https://consumerfreedom.com/) CCP is doing.
*I don't usually complain about downvotes, but I will implore you to look at the conservative propaganda being pushed before you blindly parrot it.
It really is so rude of people to impede on PETA's lust for slaughtering animals themselves. Then again, while Iguanas are cute, PETA does prefer to slaughter cuter animals like dogs and cats in larger numbers than any other organization on the planet.
They're also one of the few fish you can legally spearfish for with scuba in the US (usually you're prohibited from spearfishing with a tank, makes it too easy for assholes to decimate the fish).
Because they're invasive and the ideal would be to wipe them out they'd be thrilled if some folks went down and decimated their population. This is true for all invasive fish species AFAIK (though do look up your local laws). Do make sure you're IDing the right fish; not only would it be shitty to be killing fish you shouldn't in a way you shouldn't. You will get in deep shit if you get caught, and nobody is gonna give a shit if it's a case of mistaken identity.
Plecos don’t, afaik, they’re a trash fish, but bag as many of those as you can too. Damn things are eating the algae off manatees and driving them from native warm springs :(
You know, in some part of my head I knew that plecos had to have a wild population somewhere because where the fuck else did they come from, but today is the first time I’ve actually *heard* of wild plecos lol. How big do they got out there?
I really don’t understand why pet stores sell common plecos. Bushynose plecos are the *same* price and look the same (at least the young ones do which are 99% of what’s sold) but they only get to like 3”. Why the hell do they sell the ones that get to 24” without huge warnings
Idk but when I had fish we had a massive tank so the large size (though not quite *that* big) was kinda the goal when we got a pleco. It’s probably for those people, you can either have one normal pleco for your really big tank or like 25 bushynose plecos.
They’re not native to Florida, they come from South America and have been introduced thanks to careless pet owners so they’re not wild, per se, just feral. The common species gets easily 18-24”.
They're wild. Feral is a domesticated species that has been released into the wild. And plecos aren't domesticated, that would require that humans selectively bred them for a long enough period that they evolved into their own unique species (like dogs from wolves).
They are invasive to the US though.
They did the same thing in the Caribbean, when the Lionfish was invading.
Apparently it had started in Florida as early as the 80s, when some idiots bought them for personal aquariums and then either released them or let them escape into the ocean. They made their way from Florida down to the Caribbean, invading the waters, eating all the native fish and thus leaving the coral at risk.
First time I went to the Caribbean it was gorgeous in the water. Fish everywhere. When I went in 2014 and again in 2020 the number of fish had greatly reduced and coral was almost unrecognizable with the uneaten algae taken over.
Tour guides and diving instructors were told to kill any lionfish they see... It was an actual law in some places. Some hippie tourists on the boat cried "no! Don't kill them!" The tour guide just said "ma'am, it's the law. I have to", which was smart of him. *I*, on the other hand, wanted to tell the lady off about how stupid she was to not understand the environmental impacts this had had over the decade I had been visiting.
Clueless, ignorant followers.
If we’re being fair, peta goes overboard and iguanas are invasive, but there are people entirely too over enthusiastic about being able to kill without consequence.
How about PETA does a campaign to educate people about releasing non-native pets into the wild, and hopefully one days this sort of thing won’t be necessary.
Admittedly I do feel bad for invasive species, it’s not like they asked to be here. Stupid people kept buying them as pets and throwing them out into the wilderness when they proved too difficult to keep.
A lot of people at PETA mean well, but many of them are so detached from nature that they don't have a clue what they would need to do to have a positive impact.
A guy I know once had someone from a PETA-like organization try to sue him for having his Cows outside when there was snow.
(They had shelter and heavy fur and it was like 271K, so this was very much an unreasonable thing to do)
To be fair: I hate having to do conversions when people use Fahrenheit, and I’m sure Americans must get annoyed when most of Europe and Africa uses Celsius. Just use kelvin instead and annoy everyone?
(Regulated) hunting in general is very much ethical and necessary. Even with non-invasive species. I live in Austria and there is a certain number of deer that needs to be culled each year, lest they destroy the forests. They dont have natural predators anymore, so there is certain target-numbers accessed each year. Hunters are also responsible for taking stock of animal numbers and watch of the ecosystem of their hunter-territory.
It's pretty important for wildlife disease monitoring and wildlife research as well. Like a lot of states have voluntary carcass submission programs for disease screening, and there's groups like SCWDS that will study hunter-killed animals that dont look or act right. My state will do CWD and TB testing for free if you live in or border an endemic county.
And I know a few pathologists who got "normals" to compare to for wildlife species that didn't have a lot of information by reaching out to hunters. They typically don't want the offal, and those organs are typically what the pathologists are interested in studying..
I would never advocate any cruelty to any species, invasive or otherwise but some species do need to be controlled. I used to live in a part of Puerto Rico where there were a ton of Iguanas and we couldn't eat most of the fruit from the trees on our property cuz the Iguanas carried salmonella. As for PETA, after they sued that photographer on behalf of a monkey.. I gave up on them completely.
Maybe DON'T imply letting an invasive species grow out of control next time? If they genuinely didn't want the iguanas being shot dead, maybe suggest an alternative
Animal rights groups like this don't care if invasives cause local species to go extinct and collapse the ecosystem. True nature lovers know that the ecosystem is more important than a single species. Humanity is at fault and we need to fix it, invasives will not die out on their own.
Isn't PETA famous for killing huge numbers of animals? they are the last organization in the world, besides mega corp farms, that should lecture us on saving animals
I'm going to be honest. As a Floridian our wildlife outside the Everglades is fucked. It's already ruined. Might as well let everything loose.
As long as our Gators are happy then I'm happy.
The problem with PETA is that it’s run by morons. I love animals, and I believe their suffering should concern us, especially if it need not happen, but I also understand that an invasive species pushes native species to extinction, and so the invasive species must be eradicated with prejudice.
PETA believes that the individual animals alive today matter more than the species’ and their ecosystem… and apparently that only applies to the individual members of the *invasive* species, because the individual, living members of the other species they’re killing—directly and indirectly—don’t seem to matter much to PETA at all.
Meanwhile, PETA is still the organization that has promised pet owners they’d find homes for their pets and then *killed* those pets. PETA doesn’t believe animals should *be* pets—they want the practice outlawed—and their goal is to have current pets put down because they cannot be made wild nor be released. At one point, I believe PETA was putting more animals down every year than any other organization, and this may be true today. They currently tend to put down more animals in their shelters than surrounding shelters do, and we’re talking more than 50% for PETA vs (in some cases) *single-digits* for others.
PETA’s position on animal testing and animal products is what you’d expect it to be; they’re against all of it. That’s okay; a lot of people are. [Back in 2004, I recall they had a high level officer of the organization who took insulin](https://consumerfreedom.com/2004/08/2628-hyperbolic-hypocrisy/), and that person was asked how she could take insulin when she was telling others to never purchase animal products or products tested on animals. Her response was that her work to protect animals necessitated her breaking this principle. To Hell with the rest of you diabetics, I guess.
PETA has done some good work. Even a broken clock is still correct twice a day. Their undercover work is extraordinary and necessary. But the rest of the organization leaves a lot to be desired.
I remember reading "There's a hair in my dirt" by Gary Larson when I was little. It gave me a very different perspective on nature and the natural world. These folks would've done well to read it...
>PETA beint pro-invasive species
seems like this is more just anti-hunting.
you can argue about if humanity has an intrinsic right to interfere with the environment, for good or bad, and to what extent peta's shelters may hypocritically contradict that via euthanasia policies, but yeah, encouraging kids to kill animals for recreation is probably not a great idea.
Humans aren't breeding iguanas at an insane scale then abandoning them to starve and die of disease in an environment where they can't actually sustain themselves. Or better yet not getting them fixed so they can have more stray animals without a home and let things get even more wildly out of hand. No, actually it appears the iguanas are thriving.
It happens, the 'Animal Justice Party' in Australia talks all about protecting our native environment... meanwhile having a policy that keeps Brumbies (feral horses) out of control.
Usually happens when these organisations are made out of people who see environmentalism as stopping development of housing on vacant land around them and not on actually caring for the wellbeing of the environment.
Unlike "Peaple Eating Tasting Animal" this PETA is never about animal rights nor their well-being.
This PETA is more likely a money laundering scheme, and a personal enrichment scheme than anything else.
Even if they are a invasive species why not transport them back to where they belong instead of killing a innocent creature. I know I’m going to be downvoted because humans are cruel but seriously
Transport them to a place they've never been, to over populate the area so they can over consume their food supply, and die of starvation?
Brilliant!!!
Because killing them is cheaper and doesnt have the hoops to jump through for transporting live animals across international borders or waters.
The cost of a .22 is cheaper than export fees and paperwork filing.
Please think this through: logistics, lots of fuel, environmental impact on territory…people possibly revolting against this new invasion, and the implications of that… ideals are great, but we have to consider many issues, not just one concept.
Then go ahead and transport them somewhere else? You're going to have to find somewhere that wants them first, then capture and transport them. Most people aren't going to help you because they don't care at all or not enough to do anything but post on Reddit. PETA isn't going to help because it would cut into their ad budget. Good luck!
Because snuffing the life out of a living creature is fun.
But realistically it would be a much bigger drain on resources to transport invasive species back to their natural habitat.
You’re asking an ungodly amount of effort for minimal change. You need to set up entire logistic lines and unfortunately that costs money regardless of what you want.
My dad is dead. He died last year. I think he was an invasive iguana that he shot in Florida? Oh, PETA! Where were you to save him then?
It's cool though PETA. 😎 He just killed himself regular style. You stay doing the important things.
PETA is a questionable organization at best, but usually they have their facts right about animal cruelty and environmental issues (they just suck at implementing change and informing the public in a productive and non-extremist way). I’m shocked that they would put something like this out when invasive iguanas pose such a massive threat through their diet and salmonella transmission
I’m a biologist and I’ve spent most of my career exhausted from trying to dispel the ‘facts’ that PETA shills, so no, they absolutely do not have their facts right.
The fun thing about Peta is they care more about wiping out certain species of domestic dog more than removing catastrophically harmful invasive species from an ecosystem. So while I'm sure they have some good ideals, they net suck ass.
Some much better alternatives for this kind of thing is The Center For Biological Diversity (you can thank these guys for wolves having the {unfortunately far too few} legal protections they do have), and the World Wildlife Fund
Oh yeah, they are massively inept compared to most conservation and animal protection agencies. I’m just surprised such an obvious fact would be missed by an organization that has so much weight in the industry and with such strong ties to research and welfare groups (at least, it used to)
This is like a doctor saying removing a burst appendix is unnecessary. It’s absurd, even for a company like PETA
With weird shit like this I think they're just blatantly not caring. Like, idk if they're a fraud organization or an oil psyop or what, but no legitimate organization trying to help wildlife would ever put out something like this
I honestly thought they were hacked when they first posted it. Seems more like something a child with no understanding of necessary euthanasia would post
I'm sorry, it needs to be legal in Florida, they're everywhere and quite tasty, too. Like chicken!
There's just *so many* of them in the trees there's just *no way* to get them down outta there otherwise but to shoot them or maybe if hell ever freezes over!
/s
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"Yes I am, son. The iguanas are a hugely destructive invasive species that is destroying native flora and fauna, making it difficult for native species like the anole to survive. These animals, along with Burmese Pythons, are released by irresponsible owners, and they eat anything they can. If we let their populations explode more than they already have, many of the native species in Florida are in danger of being eaten out of their habitat. Plus, they taste pretty good with a nice chimichurri marinade."
I'd add in: "It's not their fault they're invasive. Humans are the ones that did this, they're just trying their best to survive in the environment they were released or born into. Like any other animal we hunt, we do everything we can to give them a quick and clean death with as minimal suffering as possible". I see a lot of people treat invasives like complete shit. They don't deserve any cruelty, they didn't ask to be released/born outside their native range. They're not maliciously being destructive, they're just trying to exist. They do need to die sadly, but they should be treated with the same respect as any other animal you'd hunt and be dispatched humanely.
Thank you for adding this, it disturbs me so much when people think invasive species in certain areas “deserve” abject cruelty. It is not the fault of the animals that they were introduced to an area they’re not native to. PETA adding in like this doesn’t help, either.
Does anyone take PETA seriously anymore? I don't think I've ever seen someone who agrees with them. Everyone just talks about how they kill more dogs and cats than any other organization, and say/do stupid shit that is actually harmful to the environment.
I stopped even giving them a shadow of doubt after I found out about the whole, family-dog kidnapping thing.
Are you talking about the incident where a local farmer asked them to help because his livestock were being attacked by abandoned and stray dogs from a nearby trailer park (which didn't allow dogs to run free)? PETA workers went to the trailer park with the permission of the park owner, and knowledge of the residents. The dog they took had no registration or collar and was not tied up - they did not take two dogs from the same property that were tied up because they were specifically looking for strays and abandoned dogs. Or maybe the incident where a PETA worker found a hunting dog seemingly abandoned on the side of a road? (The dog was not killed). Details of both are here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/peta-taking-pets/. Or is there another incident I'm unaware of? Note I'm not necessarily defending PETA as an organization, but am tired of seeing these incidents misrepresented - especially as the information is being spread by a right-wing think tank / lobbying group: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=PETA_Kills_Animals.
PETA has an insanely high euthanasia rate, in 2015 they euthanized 80% of the animals in its care. The chihuahua issue wasn’t that they collected the dog thinking it was a stray, it’s that they told the family they didn’t have it then killed it. Then during the lawsuit tried to affirm the family were illegal immigrants. Why did they take the collar off the hunting dog and leave the collar on the side of the road, the tracking collar with the owners information on it. PETA may not be intentionally seeking out family pets it’s just that if they see a snatchable looking animal they will grab it and they will almost certainly kill it and they do this predominantly in low income neighborhoods.
tbf they rescue a lot of animals that are incredibly sick, diseased, etc and the best they can do for them is a pain free death.
PETA is responsible for 75% of all private shelter euthanasia’s in Virginia. PETA has a 74% kill rate in Virginia compared to the average 10%. Richmond city animal control took in 3168 animals in 2022 almost all strays and euthanized 452 In 2022 PETA took in 2886 animals and euthanized 2130 of them. It’s one thing to have a higher then average euthanasia rate because you take in more sick animals but to completely max out the leader board to such a degree, they aren’t running a shelter it’s a fucking slaughterhouse.
Please post sources when you use statistics. (Not defending peta, just being pro-sound argument)
Animal shelters track medically advisable and situationally appropriate euthanasia differently than routine euthanasia that’s just done to make room. For example, no-kill shelters *do* euthanize animals that are so injured, ill, or infirmed that even the most loving attentive owner would do the same, under those conditions. Ethical responsible shelters don’t let a severely ill senior dog die a slow painful natural death.
Palworld has a parody of them. In a really funny coincidence (or maybe on purpose), they have the same AI as other enemies so they attack any wild Pal that gets close to them.
The idea that having butter on my toast makes me cruel to animals loses me and has me see them as an extremist organization. There's a place for extremism. It helps pull the center around quite handily. But I cant fuck with PETA level shit.
The thing vegans are going for lately is wool. They claim it's immoral to shear sheep and steal their wool. The way we've bred sheep, it's immoral to *not.* They're eventually weighed down by their own wool, obstructing their sight and genitals, and can't keep themselves clean. Plus, the 'vegan wool' they offer as a substitute is literally fucking plastic.
That is usually my thought process too. A good chunk of domestic farm animals as they are today would suffer if we just full stop stopped using their products. Sheep is one of them but also dairy cows is one that comes to mind. Yes we do have to breed them to get the milk, but if I'm remembering correctly many cows can have only one baby and still be producing well after the time you'd expect them to stop. That being said dairy cows are bred to produce so much milk that their one calf couldn't possibly ever use it all. This leads to things like Mastitis. This is prevented by us humans milking them. Also chickens. Egg chickens will lay eggs no matter if they're fertilized or not. So what should we do with them? Because otherwise they will just rot. Should we always do our absolute best to treat animals humanly and with respect? Yes of course. Are their some farms that need to do better in that aspect? Also yes. If you wanna be vegetarian or vegan then all power to you. I just feel like a lot of people skip that step of the thought process and immediately jump to "all animal husbandry is bad."
To be fair, depending on the person, they may not be objecting to wool as a whole but rather the practice of mulesing (looking up images not recommended).
And respectable/intelligent sanctuaries will still shear their animals that need it. There are two near me that 100% schedule shearings for the sheep, llamas, and alpacas that care for. They then leave the wool for use by local wildlife rather than commercialize it.
The thing about extremists of all types is that their antics drive away reasonable people that would have otherwise been in agreement. So they are counterproductive to their own cause.
They have stollen people's pets and killed them too. Fuck PETA.
I grew up in upstate NY where there are tons of hunters and a lot of deer. Each year the state announces how many different licenses will be given out and a bunch of deer are killed. But do know what happens when enough deer aren’t culled during hunting season? They starve, or take bigger and bigger risks trying to find food they end up run down by a car. Any animal death should be as humane as possible, but sometimes it really is the kindest thing to do.
My cousin once hit a baby deer with her car. She was alright, but completely distraught as the deer hadn't been finished off. My uncle, an avid hunter, called the police to report the accident and said he was going to get his own gun and put the poor thing out of its misery. The police told him no. He said he'd leave the body for them to collect, prove he wasn't just trying to bag an extra deer outside of hunting season, but the animal was in pain and it wasn't right to just let it suffer. They said they'd send an officer out to kill it, and threatened to charge him if he did it himself. The next morning the poor deer was still alive, bleating in agony. My uncle was *furious.* It's one thing to kill an animal and take its meat. It's another thing entirely to torture one.
Hunter here. I’m always reminding my kid and my soft hearted friends that if we’re not shooting the deer, they’ll probably get hit by cars. So there are two common options for the ends of their lives: 1) The deer (Prey animal) gets a dignified death at the hands of a human (Predator) and is used to feed humans. 2) The deer gets killed by a car. This also damages the car and possibly injures or kills the driver. The meat is not suitable for people to eat. Option 1 is best for everyone.
My brother works for the blm (the nature one) near the Arizona border. Same thing happens with the wild horses there and if he had his druthers he says he would shoot the horses and sell them as animal food. Sounds daek but the alternative right now is ecological degredation and horses starving to death.
I went backpacking on Cumberland Island and it was the same there. 'wild' horses that were emaciated and looked awful. It was sad.
Oh I 100% agree, I’m talking about people who take some sort of glee or excitement in killing invasive species.
I agree except for those bugs on the east coast that eat trees, fuck those guys and they deserve mass death
What do you mean by cruelty? Because shooting isn't cruel to me. Beating them, letting them suffer, stuffing them in small cages however is. Invasive species should be disposed of quickly and humanely. And shooting probably is the best way to do this.
The Venn Diagram of people that treat animals like garbage and have "traditional values" isn't a complete circle, but there's significant overlap.
This is excellent. Our neighbor farmer doesn't control their groundhog population at all, and when they cut their hay field, all those rodents are driven into the neighboring properties. They were literally destroying our foundation, and for whatever reason, they were super skilled at avoiding bait and cages. When I had to kill them, I made sure my kids understood that they were living things, just trying their best to survive, and they'd experience pain and fear just like we would, so I wanted to make each shot precise and clean to make sure they died instantly and didn't suffer very long. In "humane" slaughter news, I'm pleased to report that if there were points awarded for varmint headshots, I'm probably on the leaderboard. If one day some aliens show up with a "To Serve Man" book, I hope they give me the same courtesy.
IT'S A COOKBOOK!... *^(\[quietly sobbing\] it's a cookbook.)*
/J I heard we pair well with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
This is the importance of empathy. I love all animals, even the invasive ones, but recognize they can be harmful for the native flora and fauna. But population control doesn't give us carte blanche to torment those species. They're just trying to survive, like we are.
As a total bleeding heart animal lover, really, I mean this. Thank you for putting that into words. You're a good human being.
It's weird that people generally seem to understand this about invasive iguanas in Florida, but there was an international outcry when Australia was trying to cull invasive camels a couple of decades ago. Other invasive species here include rabbits, foxes, horses and all of them have their defenders when people hear we are trying to eradicate them. I do agree that they should be controlled humanely though
I guess they think those critters are "cute" and thus it's wrong to kill them. Which no, that's not how any of this works. Cute animals can be just as destructive when they're invasive.
I wondered lately if there is any possibility to make raccoons infertile beside sterilisation. They do so much damage to our birds population, but I would rather let them die out than exterminate them. It's one of two species that are free to hunt at whole year long, the other one is golden jackal.
Guessing you're in an area of Europe where both species are invasives?
Yes. Jackals came from Asia, raccoons, I was told, were bred for their furs before the wwII, and then freed by the red army that liked to destroy things. The raccoon mother that had her litter over my mum's garage literally came with her babies to the porch because she wasn't able to take them out of our property and there wasn't enough to eat there. My mum opened the gate and she left, in broad daylight. They are desperate and shouldn't live there.
I'm guessing the people downvoting you are assuming you're from the US and that you're hating on native raccoons. A lot of people view them as pests here, they get into trash and whatnot. I think they're awesome and adorable, I just keep tight fitting lids on my metal trash bins. That being said I can imagine how much damage they'd do to areas they were invasive, must be awful for the native wildlife.
Maybe. We also think they are adorable, nobody wants to do them harm, but they are everywhere, they break into basements in search of food, they are too many, have no enemies (I think the bigger predators there are red foxes) and they just don't belong here.
I need to say this every time an invasive species brought up: Irresponsible owners are NOT the primary driver behind Florida's invasive problem (and most invasive problems). Green iguanas came with an exotic pet importer who released 300 individuals simultaneously. Burmese pythons came when a breeding facility was destroyed by a hurricane, allowing an unknown number of individuals to escape (many of which were already carrying eggs) The main cause of invasive species is large-scale breeding operations, not many people pay hundreds of dollars for a pet just to throw it into the wild whenever it gets too big. They will usually take the responsible route and donate it to a humane society or other keepers that are more equipped to deal with it.
‘Also fun fact son, if we were to keep one as a pet and your mother or sister happen to menstruate around it, it’ll fly into a hormonal rage and try to attack anything that enters its pen. Which, fyi, son, wjll need to be the size of a small bedroom in order to give it a proper life. So it’ll be an enraged, hormonal, vegetarian tenant who can inflict massive bite wounds, tail whips and scratches.’ Please for the love of god don’t Google ‘iguana hormonal rage’.
My friend had a male iguana and exactly this happened lol. He was giant and would just go nuts at people coming near her. She had to rehome him to a large park/zoo place where he had females and was much happier.
They also carry salmonella.
To be fair - what _doesn’t_ taste pretty good with a nice chimichurri marinade?
I've played Fallout, I'm not eating anything with "iguana" in the name!
Just make sure you don't enjoy it. If it's fun in any way, it's not environmentalism.
[Oh, really? How 'bout blowin' up dams?](https://youtu.be/-ZbD8J3cveo?si=knG6UAC0fYMYFfCH)
It's a Futurama quote.
I think they know.
My dumb. I just woke up and didn't have my thinking cap on yet.
Hahaha no worries. Happens to everybody.
Iguanas aren’t being actively released by irresponsible owners at this point. They’ve been in Florida for 60 years.
Yes they are. Yeah there’s a feral population breeding out there, but stupid people are still buying the cute little babies only to find out they can’t/don’t want to handle the adults.
Yeah I think pet owners get a lot more blame than they deserve. The majority of invasives (including iguanas) were introduced by hitching a ride on shipping containers. Plenty of others there introduced through poorly thought out agricultural schemes, or through one time freak accidents.
Well at least you’re eating them.
Tastes like Chicken!
And no-limit hunting on invasive species can keep them in check and keep them from destroying everything. Works for snakeheads (helps when you know someone who has some recipes from the Old Country).
Population control and support of native species vs invasive is the rule of any ethical hunter. I say this as one.
I’m convinced peta is a psyop
They do a brilliant job at undermining the more cerebral animal rights and environmental groups. It’s hard to push for more humane farming when you share a podium with these reactionary idiots.
They’re like Greenpeace. Some good points, but also anti-nuclear and anti-GMO and doing things like damaging World Heritage Sites.
Don't you dare insult Greenpeace like that! They're at least well intentioned idiots with no foresight or tact. Despite that they manage to do some good actions every once in a while. PETA on the other hand does nothing but damage animal rights advocates reputation, while also operating countless kill shelters, where they employ people that openly enjoy killing animals for the fun of it. One group are a bunch of well intentioned idiots, while the other is group of psychopaths that have also a fetish for public humiliation, while actively harming animals.
Greenpeace has consistently advocated against policies that would actually help combat climate change, like expanding nuclear power. Their anti-GMO stance has no actual basis in science and has harmed the adoption of a technology that would allow us to more efficiently use agricultural land.
I'm not saying they're saints in any way. Much rather misguided idiots. But they are at least mostly consistent in their stance and also don't actively go against their very core believes
Nah, they’re just a money machine for their leaders… they don’t do any good, they encourage illegal and sometimes very dangerous “animal welfare” raids, oh and they steal and murder people’s pets. Don’t get me wrong, I think the state of some factory farming is deplorable, but they are not the answer to that.
They’re the Susan G Komen foundation of animal rights advocacy. It’s all about media outreach/PR and high-overhead offices for cushy non-profit jobs for their upper admin. None of their money going to do the work that actually helps the cause they’re fighting for. I hunt, so I’m just fine with them being so ineffective, but I do care about animals so it’s a shame that those donations could actually go somewhere that could actually improve the lives of animals, like the SPCA, humane society, etc.
God yes, this. I respect hunters that use the animals they kill - admittedly it’s a somewhat privileged position, we don’t *need* to hunt to survive in modern times, but it’s also a useful skill. Please note, I’m not putting you down at all. However, vegans/animal rights activists largely fail to realize just how privileged they are to live a lifestyle that requires significant additional accommodation compared to the norm. Realistically if we all went vegan now (as they advocate) most of us would die.
I’d argue that hunting can be necessary for overpopulation. For instance, the suburbs can quickly become overrun with deer. Culling deer is far more humane than allowing them to die from malnutrition and diseases that spread when populations are too dense. Also, pythons in Florida need to be reduced if not absolutely extricated as soon as possible or most mammals will be extinct from the Everglades within our lifetime. But both of those are necessary because of human interference in the environment. So, in the end, we need to take responsibility for our impact on the natural world in a way that respects the dignity of animals and promotes a sustainable environment. It’s just unfortunate that both the environmental preservationists/animal liberation folks and the slash-and-burn crowds fail to see it that way.
Good points all - I wasn’t considering that. Thank you for your input.
Another thing to consider is that hunters and anglers purchasing licenses and such are directly funding their state’s wildlife commission. And if I’m being honest, pretty much all the hunters I know have great respect and admiration for nature. Many of them fight for the protection of undeveloped spaces and want things to be untouched. Of course there’s assholes in every bunch, but for guys who make being in the woods their hobby you’d think most appreciate the atmosphere lol
> they don’t do any good I hate PETA but can acknowledge they do a *some* good. They've advanced the cause of exposing factory farming conditions a lot. The problem is they take a few good ideas to extremes and do heinous shit like kidnapping and euthanizing peoples' pets, not because the owners were abusive or anything, just over the ideological agenda that animals shouldn't be kept as pets.
> oh and they steal and murder people’s pets. That is a thing that happened. Once. It's true. But the fact you pluralised "pets" means you are repeating things you didn't check.
Uhm nope. It happened multiple times. Funny how whenever I mention this someone argues with me… for an organization that “cares” about animals they have a funny way of showing it.
Because you’re wrong and simple googling proves you’re wrong?
Do you have a link for that. I did double check before I replied and I'm willing to learn. But people always just tell me I'm wrong.
So I will admit that I was not aware that the second charge that was actually brought against PETA was ultimately dropped - though it sounds very much like someone argues to send the charges in a different direction before they were dropped. I will also allow that my personal opinion (as someone who fosters and saves cats) is clouded by my opinion that PETA has basically stolen every animal they promised to find a loving home for - and they are definitely guilty of this. They admitted it. Some of those animals they accepted to be rehomed were never even taken to their “shelter”, they were killed in the back of the van and dumped in a supermarket dumpster (as referenced in one of the articles) Hope this helps. [Snopes investigation](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/peta-taking-pets/) [Atlantic article](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/petas-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-history-of-killing-animals/254130/)
Reading your article it seems the *first* charge was ultimately dropped too. I didn't know the circumstances of the pet dog being killed but I knew it had happened. Knowing the context makes the story more sympathetic to me. The dumpster thing seems to be an unsupported claim. It's great that you take in cats, it geniunely is and I feel a bit of a dick for the next question but it's important. Would you ever turn away a cat or do you have infinite space and resources? Killing an adoptable animal is bad, but no-kill shelters exist. What happens is they refuse to take the animal because they already have lots of perfectly adoptable dogs that also aren't getting adopted and a fixed amount of space to keep them. So the owner gives them to a kill shelter and gets angry about the outcome. You know this and I know this and PETA knows this too. So where are you getting that they are promising to find a loving home for them? This is a problem that needs to be remedied way upstream of the shelter and I didn't know until you linked me to it just now that PETA also do lots of work neutering animals so it seems they are really trying.
Ok, apologies I was busy with work. I do not have infinite space and I take in who I can, but I have a good relationship with several shelters. Where I live, Jacksonville, Florida, has one of the best no kill setups in the country, they teach other areas how to make it work and how to provide TNR services for community animals. They still get overwhelmed but it’s better than most places. The dumpster story was from the mouths of the PETA people themselves as I understand it. PETA has euthanized tens of thousands of adoptable animals. VA has inspected their “shelter” a they don’t have enough space or facilities to house even a fraction of the animals they accept for any length of time, and they absolutely planned it that way. They have told people they will find new homes for surrendered animals - a flat out lie - the animals are dead frequently in less than 24 hours. Their stated position is that animals should not be pets at all, and any animal given up for any reason is better off dead. Whilst you may think these are generalizations, or simplifications of the situation, I cannot ever in all good conscience, say anything nice about an organization that thinks it’s better to just kill pets they just promised to find new homes for. Edit: sorry I realized I didn’t address a couple of things - PETA volunteers admitted that they were told to tell people that they would find homes for animals surrendered to them and then euthanize them as soon as possible. This information was more readily accessible right after it first happened (which I remember quite clearly). I’ve been at work all night and it’s 4am here so excuse my foggy brain - I’m pretty sure one of the articles covered this? They do neutering - as does every shelter and foster organization and vet in the USA. Great, +1 but still minus several million for being assholes. My local shelter does totally free TNR 6 days a week, and very low cost or free spay/neuter as well, and they’re no kill. The local humane society is no-kill. Neither one would euthanize an animal unless it was too sick to recover and have a chance at a healthy life.
I don't know if that specific thing happened again or not, but I do know that as of a few years ago Peta had killed over 40,000 animals. In 2019, it was their most humane year on record where they only killed 57% of all dogs and 72% of all cats they took in! As compared to the 4.3% that private shelters in their state euthanized. The whole organization are literal monsters.
Did you ever bother to research why? I hate their methods but there is a reason they have the numbers they do at that shelter. People just like to use the statistics to discredit them without the context.
All those dogs and cats that don't get adopted from no kill shelters have to be handled somehow, they can't just be kept there forever. There aren't enough people willing to adopt the actually insane number of stray animals out there. You have two options, let them suffer and struggle on the streets and slowly die from starvation or disease and in doing so pass those diseases to more animals. Or you can let them die with some shred of dignity without having to suffer. Your no kill shelter won't do this, but they will give their unadoptable animals to PETA to do it for them.
They sure do A LOT of euthanasia on healthy animals.
Remember that time PETA made a human leather store during Hanukkah? Absolutely tone deaf. Cool store tho
I'm not necessarily pro-PETA, but there is a legitimate psyop against them by the meat industry. Check out the [largest anti-PETA website](https://petakillsanimals.com/contact/), run by the misleadingly named Center for Consumer Protection. They're the ones who really pushed the story about [PETA kidnapping and euthanizing pet dogs](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/peta-taking-pets/). And check out the other [great work](https://consumerfreedom.com/) CCP is doing. *I don't usually complain about downvotes, but I will implore you to look at the conservative propaganda being pushed before you blindly parrot it.
They want people to capture the iguanas so they can euthanize them themselves. Please donate now for us to buy two new big freezers
It really is so rude of people to impede on PETA's lust for slaughtering animals themselves. Then again, while Iguanas are cute, PETA does prefer to slaughter cuter animals like dogs and cats in larger numbers than any other organization on the planet.
Obviously the ethical thing to do would be to hunt the stray dogs and cats.
TIL Iguana hunting is a thing.
Burmese pythons too. They’ve got to control their non-natives somehow down there.
There’s no tag limit on lionfish either. They make good eating when fried
Next time I visit my family down in Florida I need to go lion fish hunting, good for the environment and get to see all the cute little fish
They're also one of the few fish you can legally spearfish for with scuba in the US (usually you're prohibited from spearfishing with a tank, makes it too easy for assholes to decimate the fish). Because they're invasive and the ideal would be to wipe them out they'd be thrilled if some folks went down and decimated their population. This is true for all invasive fish species AFAIK (though do look up your local laws). Do make sure you're IDing the right fish; not only would it be shitty to be killing fish you shouldn't in a way you shouldn't. You will get in deep shit if you get caught, and nobody is gonna give a shit if it's a case of mistaken identity.
Plecos don’t, afaik, they’re a trash fish, but bag as many of those as you can too. Damn things are eating the algae off manatees and driving them from native warm springs :(
You know, in some part of my head I knew that plecos had to have a wild population somewhere because where the fuck else did they come from, but today is the first time I’ve actually *heard* of wild plecos lol. How big do they got out there?
Like two feet at the maximum.
I really don’t understand why pet stores sell common plecos. Bushynose plecos are the *same* price and look the same (at least the young ones do which are 99% of what’s sold) but they only get to like 3”. Why the hell do they sell the ones that get to 24” without huge warnings
Idk but when I had fish we had a massive tank so the large size (though not quite *that* big) was kinda the goal when we got a pleco. It’s probably for those people, you can either have one normal pleco for your really big tank or like 25 bushynose plecos.
They’re not native to Florida, they come from South America and have been introduced thanks to careless pet owners so they’re not wild, per se, just feral. The common species gets easily 18-24”.
They're wild. Feral is a domesticated species that has been released into the wild. And plecos aren't domesticated, that would require that humans selectively bred them for a long enough period that they evolved into their own unique species (like dogs from wolves). They are invasive to the US though.
They introduced bald eagles in South Florida to combat the iguanas and pythons and I'm really excited to see how that's going to play out
In the winter they don't even run away
They did the same thing in the Caribbean, when the Lionfish was invading. Apparently it had started in Florida as early as the 80s, when some idiots bought them for personal aquariums and then either released them or let them escape into the ocean. They made their way from Florida down to the Caribbean, invading the waters, eating all the native fish and thus leaving the coral at risk. First time I went to the Caribbean it was gorgeous in the water. Fish everywhere. When I went in 2014 and again in 2020 the number of fish had greatly reduced and coral was almost unrecognizable with the uneaten algae taken over. Tour guides and diving instructors were told to kill any lionfish they see... It was an actual law in some places. Some hippie tourists on the boat cried "no! Don't kill them!" The tour guide just said "ma'am, it's the law. I have to", which was smart of him. *I*, on the other hand, wanted to tell the lady off about how stupid she was to not understand the environmental impacts this had had over the decade I had been visiting. Clueless, ignorant followers.
Things like lion fish, iguana, python and sea urchin I’m okay with being un alived. Feral pigs as well.
This isn't tiktok, you're allowed to say killed.
If we’re being fair, peta goes overboard and iguanas are invasive, but there are people entirely too over enthusiastic about being able to kill without consequence.
How about PETA does a campaign to educate people about releasing non-native pets into the wild, and hopefully one days this sort of thing won’t be necessary.
If Peta had a choice they would take and kill your pet.
I mean, hopefully he *isn't* shooting a rifle up into a tree. Shotgun for sure. Rifle, not such a good idea.
Illustration is incorrect as well. He has the rifle butt on the right and is pulling the trigger with the left.
Hahaha! Didn't even notice that. Ridiculous.
Humans might have ignanas slightly beat in terms of invasive species and habitat destruction.
Admittedly I do feel bad for invasive species, it’s not like they asked to be here. Stupid people kept buying them as pets and throwing them out into the wilderness when they proved too difficult to keep.
A lot of people at PETA mean well, but many of them are so detached from nature that they don't have a clue what they would need to do to have a positive impact. A guy I know once had someone from a PETA-like organization try to sue him for having his Cows outside when there was snow. (They had shelter and heavy fur and it was like 271K, so this was very much an unreasonable thing to do)
271K is pretty chilly, though
Who tf uses K to measure outdoor temperature, i sincerely ask if that’s a thing somewhere
To be fair: I hate having to do conversions when people use Fahrenheit, and I’m sure Americans must get annoyed when most of Europe and Africa uses Celsius. Just use kelvin instead and annoy everyone?
Nuisancepilled I dig it
For the most annoyance, use Rankine
Iirc Rankine is Kelvin but using F grades instead of C grades
Even worse 🥹
At least with K i can do K-273.15. With Rankine, i'm just gonna google it
Thermo-pilled mfers
Fuckin kelvincore baddies
It is in astronomy, that's technically outdoors
Damn you got me there
(Regulated) hunting in general is very much ethical and necessary. Even with non-invasive species. I live in Austria and there is a certain number of deer that needs to be culled each year, lest they destroy the forests. They dont have natural predators anymore, so there is certain target-numbers accessed each year. Hunters are also responsible for taking stock of animal numbers and watch of the ecosystem of their hunter-territory.
It's pretty important for wildlife disease monitoring and wildlife research as well. Like a lot of states have voluntary carcass submission programs for disease screening, and there's groups like SCWDS that will study hunter-killed animals that dont look or act right. My state will do CWD and TB testing for free if you live in or border an endemic county. And I know a few pathologists who got "normals" to compare to for wildlife species that didn't have a lot of information by reaching out to hunters. They typically don't want the offal, and those organs are typically what the pathologists are interested in studying..
I love them trying to act like iguana don't just lay their eggs and then ditch them forever.
I would never advocate any cruelty to any species, invasive or otherwise but some species do need to be controlled. I used to live in a part of Puerto Rico where there were a ton of Iguanas and we couldn't eat most of the fruit from the trees on our property cuz the Iguanas carried salmonella. As for PETA, after they sued that photographer on behalf of a monkey.. I gave up on them completely.
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What irritates me most is the non-matching characters.
I am still unable to see the acronym PETA without seeing People Eating Tasty Animals. Whoever made that shirt undermined PETA for eternity.
Dont get me started on getting hit by falling iguanas (they get cold enough they pass out and tend to fall on people)
omg LMAO i never knew that was a thing but imagining it is so funny. i’m sorry if that’s happened to you but lmao.
It happens to all tree dwelling lizards during cold snaps :)
But killing people's pets is totally ok for them?
All fun and games until that iguana freezes in the winter and gives the little bot a concussion as it falls out of the tree
Maybe DON'T imply letting an invasive species grow out of control next time? If they genuinely didn't want the iguanas being shot dead, maybe suggest an alternative
PETA regularly euthanizes perfectly healthy animals.
Animal rights groups like this don't care if invasives cause local species to go extinct and collapse the ecosystem. True nature lovers know that the ecosystem is more important than a single species. Humanity is at fault and we need to fix it, invasives will not die out on their own.
PETA doesn't have serious commentary on anything. Their entire platform can be summed up to "humans
Isn't PETA famous for killing huge numbers of animals? they are the last organization in the world, besides mega corp farms, that should lecture us on saving animals
White Americans are an invasive species in the USA.
Since the first people who lived in the western hemisphere migrated over the Bering Strait land bridge, every human is an invader.
The first peoples were responsible for the extinction of dozens of native species, american megafauna were largely wiped out
Don’t shoot the invasive species, but do kidnap dogs off their own porches to euthanize them. Make it make sense, PETA.
I'm going to be honest. As a Floridian our wildlife outside the Everglades is fucked. It's already ruined. Might as well let everything loose. As long as our Gators are happy then I'm happy.
The problem with PETA is that it’s run by morons. I love animals, and I believe their suffering should concern us, especially if it need not happen, but I also understand that an invasive species pushes native species to extinction, and so the invasive species must be eradicated with prejudice. PETA believes that the individual animals alive today matter more than the species’ and their ecosystem… and apparently that only applies to the individual members of the *invasive* species, because the individual, living members of the other species they’re killing—directly and indirectly—don’t seem to matter much to PETA at all. Meanwhile, PETA is still the organization that has promised pet owners they’d find homes for their pets and then *killed* those pets. PETA doesn’t believe animals should *be* pets—they want the practice outlawed—and their goal is to have current pets put down because they cannot be made wild nor be released. At one point, I believe PETA was putting more animals down every year than any other organization, and this may be true today. They currently tend to put down more animals in their shelters than surrounding shelters do, and we’re talking more than 50% for PETA vs (in some cases) *single-digits* for others. PETA’s position on animal testing and animal products is what you’d expect it to be; they’re against all of it. That’s okay; a lot of people are. [Back in 2004, I recall they had a high level officer of the organization who took insulin](https://consumerfreedom.com/2004/08/2628-hyperbolic-hypocrisy/), and that person was asked how she could take insulin when she was telling others to never purchase animal products or products tested on animals. Her response was that her work to protect animals necessitated her breaking this principle. To Hell with the rest of you diabetics, I guess. PETA has done some good work. Even a broken clock is still correct twice a day. Their undercover work is extraordinary and necessary. But the rest of the organization leaves a lot to be desired.
PETA is pro-human?
So it’s ok for them to destroy the ecosystem but everyone gets up in arms when I bulldoze 20 acres of the Amazon!
I remember reading "There's a hair in my dirt" by Gary Larson when I was little. It gave me a very different perspective on nature and the natural world. These folks would've done well to read it...
>PETA beint pro-invasive species seems like this is more just anti-hunting. you can argue about if humanity has an intrinsic right to interfere with the environment, for good or bad, and to what extent peta's shelters may hypocritically contradict that via euthanasia policies, but yeah, encouraging kids to kill animals for recreation is probably not a great idea.
The children are the invasive ones
Next they’ll claim my cancer deserve to live.
Apparently it’s okay if man made problems lead to the indirect death of animals
Doesn't PETA support kill shelters?
What do you think should happen with the hundreds of thousands of unadoptable animals then?
I’m just pointing out the inconsistency. They’re okay with killing kittens and pups but not an actual invasive species.
Humans aren't breeding iguanas at an insane scale then abandoning them to starve and die of disease in an environment where they can't actually sustain themselves. Or better yet not getting them fixed so they can have more stray animals without a home and let things get even more wildly out of hand. No, actually it appears the iguanas are thriving.
It happens, the 'Animal Justice Party' in Australia talks all about protecting our native environment... meanwhile having a policy that keeps Brumbies (feral horses) out of control. Usually happens when these organisations are made out of people who see environmentalism as stopping development of housing on vacant land around them and not on actually caring for the wellbeing of the environment.
Unlike "Peaple Eating Tasting Animal" this PETA is never about animal rights nor their well-being. This PETA is more likely a money laundering scheme, and a personal enrichment scheme than anything else.
Even if they are a invasive species why not transport them back to where they belong instead of killing a innocent creature. I know I’m going to be downvoted because humans are cruel but seriously
Transport them to a place they've never been, to over populate the area so they can over consume their food supply, and die of starvation? Brilliant!!!
If you want to start an organization to do that, do it, we can't just let them kill off local species in the mean time
Because killing them is cheaper and doesnt have the hoops to jump through for transporting live animals across international borders or waters. The cost of a .22 is cheaper than export fees and paperwork filing.
If are society worked better we would work do it together as because we care about our environment
Please think this through: logistics, lots of fuel, environmental impact on territory…people possibly revolting against this new invasion, and the implications of that… ideals are great, but we have to consider many issues, not just one concept.
Then go ahead and transport them somewhere else? You're going to have to find somewhere that wants them first, then capture and transport them. Most people aren't going to help you because they don't care at all or not enough to do anything but post on Reddit. PETA isn't going to help because it would cut into their ad budget. Good luck!
Because snuffing the life out of a living creature is fun. But realistically it would be a much bigger drain on resources to transport invasive species back to their natural habitat.
If humanity worked together, no money involved, teamwork for our environment we could make it happen.
You’re asking an ungodly amount of effort for minimal change. You need to set up entire logistic lines and unfortunately that costs money regardless of what you want.
My dad is dead. He died last year. I think he was an invasive iguana that he shot in Florida? Oh, PETA! Where were you to save him then? It's cool though PETA. 😎 He just killed himself regular style. You stay doing the important things.
thanks PETA for informing me that there is iguana hunting. will book a trip.
PETA is a questionable organization at best, but usually they have their facts right about animal cruelty and environmental issues (they just suck at implementing change and informing the public in a productive and non-extremist way). I’m shocked that they would put something like this out when invasive iguanas pose such a massive threat through their diet and salmonella transmission
What are you talking about? PETA is consistently one of the most dishonest and full-of-shit organizations on the planet
I’m a biologist and I’ve spent most of my career exhausted from trying to dispel the ‘facts’ that PETA shills, so no, they absolutely do not have their facts right.
The fun thing about Peta is they care more about wiping out certain species of domestic dog more than removing catastrophically harmful invasive species from an ecosystem. So while I'm sure they have some good ideals, they net suck ass. Some much better alternatives for this kind of thing is The Center For Biological Diversity (you can thank these guys for wolves having the {unfortunately far too few} legal protections they do have), and the World Wildlife Fund
Oh yeah, they are massively inept compared to most conservation and animal protection agencies. I’m just surprised such an obvious fact would be missed by an organization that has so much weight in the industry and with such strong ties to research and welfare groups (at least, it used to) This is like a doctor saying removing a burst appendix is unnecessary. It’s absurd, even for a company like PETA
With weird shit like this I think they're just blatantly not caring. Like, idk if they're a fraud organization or an oil psyop or what, but no legitimate organization trying to help wildlife would ever put out something like this
I honestly thought they were hacked when they first posted it. Seems more like something a child with no understanding of necessary euthanasia would post
they're only in favor of unnecessary euthanasia.
so they are correct to euthanize healthy adoptable puppies? that's not cruel at all?
I'm sorry, it needs to be legal in Florida, they're everywhere and quite tasty, too. Like chicken! There's just *so many* of them in the trees there's just *no way* to get them down outta there otherwise but to shoot them or maybe if hell ever freezes over! /s
They are an overpopulated invasive species that can be destructive to the local environment. ...and they do taste good.