Listen above to an audio version of Why PETA Kills, my book, which tells the story of Maya and the tens of thousands of other animals PETA has put to death. From October 18 - 19, you can also download the e-book from Amazon for free. (Ignore Kindle Unlimited and click below where it says “$0.00 to buy.”) On October 18, 2014, two PETA representatives backed their van up to a home in Parksley, VA, and threw biscuits to Maya, who was sitting on her porch. They hoped to coax her off her property and allow PETA to claim she was a stray dog “at large” whom they could legally impound. Maya refused to stay off the property and, after grabbing the biscuit, ran back to the safety of her porch. One of the PETA representatives went onto the property and took Maya. Within hours, Maya was dead, illegally killed with a lethal dose of poison. A PETA spokesperson claimed Maya was killed by “mistake,” and, defying credulity, explained that the same PETA representative who had earlier sat on the porch with Maya’s family, talking to them about her care, and who was filmed taking Maya from that same porch, mistook her for a different dog. The “apology” was not only a devastating admission of guilt but evidence that killing healthy animals was business as usual for PETA employees — so commonplace that the only excuse PETA could offer for Maya’s death was that in taking her life, a PETA representative had mistaken her for another healthy animal they had decided to kill. Was it likewise a “mistake” that five other animals ended up dead from the same trailer park and on the same day, too? Though PETA claimed to be “devastated” by Maya’s death, the claim was contradicted by the facts and, given its timing, motivated not by honesty, transparency, or genuine contrition but by political necessity as the Virginia Department of Agriculture had opened an investigation into Maya’s killing and Virginia’s governor was weighing whether to sign into law a bill overwhelmingly passed by the legislature aimed at protecting animals from PETA. As public outrage over PETA’s killing of Maya spread, a former PETA employee came forward, shedding even more light on how disingenuous PETA’s claim of being devastated at the killing of Maya was. Explaining that killing healthy animals at PETA was not an anomaly but “standard operating procedure,” Heather Harper-Troje, a one-time PETA field worker, publicly uncovered the inner workings at PETA as no former employee ever had. “I know from firsthand experience that the PETA leadership has no problem lying,” she wrote. “I was told regularly to say whatever I had to say in order to get people to surrender animals to me, lying was not only acceptable, it was encouraged.” The purpose of acquiring these animals, according to Harper-Troje, was “to euthanize the[m] immediately.” Maya’s family would ultimately sue PETA, alleging conversion of their dog (theft), trespass, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. PETA, in turn, asked the court to throw out the lawsuit based on several questionable claims. First, PETA argued that Maya was legally worthless because she was not licensed, citing an 1887 law that required a dog “to be properly licensed as a condition of being deemed personal property.” Putting aside the irony of a supposed “animal rights” group arguing that Maya had no value, the statute they cited was repealed in 1966. It had not been the law in half a century. Alternatively, PETA argued that Maya had no value beyond the replacement cost for another dog. In other words, PETA’s position was that Maya was like a toaster. If you break it, you throw it away and get a new one. Third, PETA argued that they had permission to enter the trailer park from its owner to remove community cats, so they cannot be guilty of trespassing for entering a private residence in that trailer park to kill a family’s dog. Fourth, PETA argued that the theft and killing of Maya was not “outrageous,” a prerequisite to the awarding of punitive damages. Finally, in an argument reeking with racist overtones, PETA demanded to know if Maya’s family was legally in the U.S. After arguing and losing most of the pre-trial motions — including rulings that the family’s immigration status was not relevant to the theft and killing of their dog and that such conduct was, indeed, “outrageous” — as well as facing the specter of being forced to turn over records and testify under oath about PETA’s inner workings, and perhaps trying to put the publicity behind their killing of Maya behind them, PETA settled the case, paying Maya’s family $49,000. But the condemnation only grew following a series of articles I wrote about Maya’s killing, which ultimately led to the publication of Why PETA Kills, my book. Why PETA Kills tells Maya’s story and that of over 30,000 others who have also died at their hands, a number that continues to increase by the thousands every year. In 2022, for example, PETA put to death 1,374 out of 1,737 cats. Another 347 went to pounds that also kill animals. Historically, many of the kittens and cats PETA has taken to those pounds have been killed, often within minutes, despite being young (as young as six weeks old) and healthy. Not only do those records prove the lie that all of the animals PETA rounds up to kill are “suffering,” but if those cats and kittens were killed or displaced others who were killed, that puts the overall cat death rate as high as 99%. They only adopted out 15 cats, an adoption rate of ½ of 1% despite millions of “animal-loving” supporters, a staff of hundreds, and revenues in excess of $72 million. While dogs fared a little better, 718 out of 1,041 were killed. Roughly 4% were adopted out. And PETA staff also killed almost 80% of other animal companions: 30 out of 38. To date, PETA has killed 51,010 dogs and cats and sent thousands more to be killed at local pounds, that we know of. The number may be many times higher. According to Harper-Troje, I was told regularly to not enter animals into the log, or to euthanize off-site in order to prevent animals from even entering the building. I was told regularly to greatly overestimate the weight of animals whose euthanasia we recorded, in order to account for what would have otherwise been missing ‘blue juice’ (the chemical used to euthanize); because that allowed us to euthanize animals off the books. Following the release of Why PETA Kills, PETA filed a run-of-the-mill defamation lawsuit targeting The No Kill Advocacy Center (NKAC), my organization, and me in an attempt to intimidate me and others into silence. But they didn’t sue me directly, as they knew it would ultimately fail: truth, after all, is a defense to defamation. More importantly, they feared doing so as suing me would be dangerous for PETA. Not only would it allow me to force the deposition (e.g., testimony under penalty of perjury) of Ingrid Newkirk, the architect of PETA’s killing, as well as others at PETA who do the actual killing, but it would allow me to seek documents from PETA that would augment what public records and the PETA employees I spoke with already revealed: that PETA intentionally seeks out animals to kill and that the majority of those animals are healthy and adoptable. Absent a court case, as a private organization, PETA is not required to release that information under state freedom of information laws and has ignored my requests to do so. Instead, PETA named me as a “co-conspirator” but not as a defendant in the complaint, a procedural gimmick that gave PETA the ability to issue a subpoena to (try to) seek the names of PETA employees who, fearing retribution, spoke to me on condition of anonymity; information that was used to corroborate newspaper articles, on the record sources, government documents, testimony and information from civil and criminal cases against PETA, videotape evidence, and admissions of killing by PETA officials. At the same time, that procedural ploy would prevent me from demanding documents and depositions of PETA leadership and staff in return. But PETA’s legal tactic failed to take into account two important factors. First, I would never reveal my confidential informants. Second, I did not have to legally do so, given my First Amendment rights as a journalist. In an attempt to force me to, however, PETA filed a motion in court to compel the disclosure of the names, claiming that as an animal advocate, I was not entitled to the protection of the First Amendment, a point of view they hypocritically reject for themselves and which, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the organization founded to protect the rights of journalists by legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee of Pentagon Papers fame, called “alarming.” In assisting me with my legal defense, the Reporters Committee noted, We’re concerned about the legal efforts to require Nathan Winograd to reveal the confidential sources for his reporting on PETA’s practices. Both the First Amendment and California’s constitution protect those who engage in journalistic activity… and any efforts to limit these protections should be alarming for all newsgatherers. Threatened with a fine and jail time if I refused to reveal my sources, my lawyer argued that California Courts have consistently ruled that the First Amendment protects “investigative reporting.” And investigative reporting includes “authors such as Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair [who] exposed widespread corruption and abuse in American life. More recently, social critics such as Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader, Jessica Mitford, and others have written books that have made significant contributions to the public discourse on major issues confronting the American people.” As my attorney argued, Every crusading journalist in that pantheon of heroes cited by the court would
