From wwltv, New Orleans:
Animal rights group PETA has written to state Attorney General Charles Foti asking that LSU officials be charged with cruelty for abandoning 8,000 animals in the university’s labs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to a spokesperson for the group.
State law defines cruelty for abandoning as “completely forsaking and deserting an animal previously under the custody or possession of a person without making reasonable arrangements for its proper care, sustenance, and shelter.”
[…]
PETA said it fired off a second letter to the USDA, asking the agency to charge LSU with failure to abide by the minimal requirements as set forth under the federal Animal Welfare Act. PETA said it first wrote to the USDA two days after the levees broke to ask that emergency teams in the affected areas ensure that animals were not dying in laboratories.
According to PETA, additional letters were sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, asking that LSU not be given federal funds to rebuild animal laboratories in high-risk areas, and to LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe, asking for the dismissal of both Hollier and Morschbaecher.
Silly, perhaps—but to its credit, PETA did rebuff Michael Moore’s request to add several high-ranking Pizza Hut officials to the complaint for having abandoned 8,000 lbs of “yummy pork-based toppings” and “god knows how many cases of perfectly good whole milk string cheese.”
(h/t KLo)
I wonder what those squirrels at PETA expected them to do with the animals. Turn them loose? Probably.
Idiots.
Still, I do feel sorry for the critters. I imagine most if not all died from starvation or lack of water.
I do, too. But getting people out of NOLA proved difficult, including old people in nursing homes. This is a bit of PETA propoganda that I’m sure the State Attorney General can do without right now.
Sheriff Foti is the Attorney General??!! He’s the former head of OPP, the infamous Orleans Parish Prison.
He’s about as trustworthy and honest as every other Louisiana politician you’ve ever heard of.
Damn, I didn’t know the state was that hard up.
I think the judge should issue a bench ruling in PETA’s favor with the reward being the honor of disposing of all the dead animals in a dignified manner. Since they care so much.
Now that’s what I like to see, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the lives of all living creatures. Especially those little floppy-eared, wet-nosed, lovable pooches.
Nevermind.
If PETA is going to be on the ball on this they will preemptively agitate for all institutions that perform animal testing and are in disaster prone areas where evacuation is called for to develop effective evacuation plans for their animals. Key word, preemptively. When the institutions don’t have an evacuation plan for their animals, then go bring in the lawyers.
Right now, to me, the after the fact nature amounts to piling on in a bad situation.
But I’m partial to also leaning towards denying future Federal funding of animal research in evacuation-prone areas to institutions that don’t have animal evacuation plans. Have an adequate plan, and you’re ok. No plan, no funding.
Phinn – I hear what you’re splittin’ and cohittin’ at – Foti is down with OPP, yeah you know he…
Mmm. Pork. Fun to eat…fun to say!
Pork. Just listen to it: pork! Gonna open me up a bottle of pork! How’re you doing? I’m porktastic, how ‘bout yourself? Forcast for today? Partly pork!
Man. Pork. What a lifestyle!
(pork)
You can’t parody PETA. They parody themselves on an hourly basis.
Stupid gits.
I don’t get too mad at PETA for stuff like this. They’re making idiots out of themselves and alienating the public.
What makes me despise PETA are the lies they tell.
I can stand stupidity when it’s honest, but the lies drive me up the wall, such as when PETA sends its representatives to schools across the country to “educate” the kids about how animal research is not only cruel (a belief most don’t share, but a normative, honest one on which people can have a frank discussion), but that’s it’s unscientific, useless, and doesn’t produce results. That kinda stuff makes me want to strangle that bitch Ingrid Newkirk myself.
Jeff:
Absolutely. People must come first, and saving them was done poorly if at all.
I often prefer the company of animals to people, since animals are good listeners and rarely interrupt, but when it comes time to start saving lives, people always have to come first.