Known to go to extreme lengths to save animals from the slaughterhouse, animal rights group PETA has allegedly killed nearly 2,000 stray cats and dogs at its shelter in 2013, UK MailOnline reported.
The Center for Consumer Freedom released its annual review of PETA's Norfolk shelter and it shows a surprising 82 percent euthanization rate.
Since 1998, the Virginia-based organization's animal shelter has declined to change its policies despite outcries from some fellow animal activists. It has also put down over 31,000 animals, most of which it insists are injured or unadoptable.
According to UK MailOnline, these numbers come from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), which requires such annual disclosures.
In 2013, PETA killed 1,792 cats and dogs, an average of 5 per day. The 1,792 figure represents 82 percent of all animals PETA took into its shelter throughout the year.
"This delusional animal rights group is talking out of both sides of its mouth - on one side preaching animal rights, while on the other signing the death warrant of 82 percent of cats and dogs in its care. Labeling PETA as hypocritical would be the understatement of the year," said Will Coggin from the Center for Consumer Freedom.
After allegedly killing adoptable pets and tossing the bodies into a supermarket trash dumpster, two PETA employees were arrested in North Carolina in 2005, UK MailOnline reported.
Trial evidence showed they killed animals they described as "perfect" and "adorable."
Defendants Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook were tried and cleared of animal cruelty charges in 2007, according to the AP.
According to UK MailOnline, PETA disagrees and even released its own numbers in a statement this week.
"PETA's shelter took in and euthanized 1,805 elderly, feral, sick, dying, aggressive, and otherwise unadoptable animals-more than 400 of whom were brought to PETA by loving but destitute guardians desperate to alleviate their beloved animals' suffering and many others who had been turned away by local so-called 'no-kill' facilities that reject unadoptable animals in order to keep their euthanasia statistics appealing."
PETA President Ingrid Newkirk previously indicated to The Virginian-Pilot that the animal rights group could stop killing pets any time they want.
"We could become a no-kill shelter immediately. It means we wouldn't do as much work," she said.
Eighty-four percent of the animals PETA took in were killed within 24 hours in 2010, according to VDAS.
"PETA's so-called 'shelter' might as well be called a slaughterhouse," said CCF. "For an organization that once disgustingly compared the treatment of farm animals to the Holocaust, you'd think PETA would avoid the appearance of systematic killing."
Meanwhile, PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch emphasized the pets that could be saved, UK MailOnline reported.
"The nearly 400 adoptable animals PETA received were placed in carefully screened, permanent homes or transferred to the Virginia Beach SPCA and other high-traffic open-admission shelters for a chance to be adopted," she said.
