PETA Says Annual Animal Intake Numbers Should Inspire Governors to Push for Mandatory State Spay-and-Neuter Laws

Governors Called Upon to Propose Legislative Action to Curb Animal Homelessness Crisis

NORFOLK, Va., Feb. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- PETA calls its annual count of dogs, cats, rabbits, and other animals who ended up at its headquarters last year—unwanted, unsocialized, untreated for illness and injury, unsterilized, and usually unloved—a "howl for help" to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell as well as all governors across the nation to support mandatory spay-and-neuter legislation.

"Even though PETA's own fleet of mobile spay-and-neuter clinics has 'fixed' nearly 70,000 cats and dogs in the past nine years, it's impossible to keep up with the runaway birthrate of unwanted kittens and puppies," says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. "With one stroke of the pen, tens of thousands of animals who are paying for this crisis with their lives could be saved."

PETA identifies the top three reasons for the high euthanasia rates in animal shelters that take in "all comers" as the following:

• Buying instead of adopting: 6 to 8 million unwanted dogs and cats languish in U.S. animal shelters while people shop at mall pet shops or buy from a breeder, thereby killing shelter animals' chances at ever finding a home.
• Failure to make a lifetime commitment: People acquire animals on a whim and then discard them when they realize that animals have messy bodily functions, that veterinary care isn't cheap, and that animals need to be loved, tended to, and cared for.
• Failure to spay and neuter: By not sterilizing their dogs and cats, people add even more unwanted animals to the mix, sometimes as many as a litter every three to six months.

The overpopulation crisis is a national epidemic. In the letter to the National Governors Association, PETA points out that in addition to saving animal lives, spay-and-neuter requirements would help promote public health and safety and strengthen state budgets: The estimated annual taxpayer cost to take in, house, euthanize, and dispose of unwanted dogs, cats, and other animals in the U.S. is $2 billion.

Of the animals that PETA took in last year, 838 were found "forever homes," 65 were transferred to other agencies for adoption, and 3,630—most of whom were injured or ill—had to be euthanized. PETA has enlisted the help of many stars to vigorously campaign to promote spaying and neutering as well as animal adoption instead of buying dogs and cats from breeders or pet stores. In just the last year alone, Justin Bieber, Lance Bass, Chuck's Yvonne Strahovski and Twilight's Kellan Lutz have participated in PETA's campaigns on this issue.

PETA's letter to the National Governors Association is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA's blog.

SOURCE People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)