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The Short Life & Tragic Death of Maya

The Short Life & Tragic Death of Maya

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 Listen above to an audio version of Why PETA Kills, my book, which tells the story of Maya and those of over 30,000 other animals PETA has put to death. On October 18, 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. ...
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