Yes, PETA does kill animals. At its private shelter in Norfolk, Virginia, the organization euthanized nearly 60% of the dogs and cats it took in during 2025, a rate roughly six times the national shelter average of about 10%. PETA calls this work a merciful response to suffering and overpopulation; no-kill advocates and industry-funded critics call it unjustified killing. The underlying numbers come from PETA’s own mandatory state filings and are not in serious dispute.
What PETA’s Own Records Show
Virginia law requires PETA to report annually to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services on every animal that enters its care. The filings have been consistent for years: thousands in, most euthanized, a small fraction adopted out.
In 2025, PETA’s Norfolk facility handled 2,854 animals. It euthanized 719 dogs and 938 cats, a combined 1,657. Twenty-one dogs and 14 cats were adopted. Another 375 animals went to other Virginia shelters, and 746 were reclaimed by owners.1Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. PETA Animal Custody Record Report, 2025
The prior year was worse. In 2024, PETA took in 3,317 animals and euthanized 875 dogs and 1,299 cats, for a total of 2,174. Just 22 dogs and 23 cats were adopted.2Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. PETA Animal Custody Record Report, 2024 In 2023, the shelter euthanized 2,559 of 3,294 animals, with 104 adoptions.3Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. PETA Animal Custody Record Report, 2023 In 2022, it euthanized 2,130 of 2,886 and placed 78 through adoption.4Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. PETA Animal Custody Record Report, 2022
The pattern goes back decades. Between 1998 and 2019, PETA received 49,737 dogs and cats and euthanized 41,539 of them. The rate topped 80% in 2015 and had dropped to about 65% by 2019.5Newsweek. Fact Check: Is PETA Responsible for the Deaths of Thousands of Animals The 2025 figure of nearly 60% is a modest decline but remains far above what comparable facilities report.
How PETA’s Rate Compares to Other Shelters
About 5.8 million dogs and cats entered U.S. shelters in 2025, and roughly 597,000 were euthanized, about 10% of intake.6Shelter Animals Count. 2025 Annual Report One legal analysis put PETA’s rate at “nearly six times more than the national average.”7Duane Morris Animal Law Developments. PETA’s Shelter Kill Rate Is Down but Still Deadly
The comparison depends somewhat on the type of shelter. Government-run shelters, which handle most strays and seizures, had non-live outcome rates of about 15% for dogs and 11% for cats in 2025. Private shelters without government contracts, the category PETA falls into, reported a 5% non-live outcome rate for dogs nationally.8Shelter Animals Count. 2025 Year-End Report More than 62% of U.S. shelters now meet the “no-kill” benchmark of saving at least 90% of animals taken in.9Best Friends Animal Society. PETA Again Takes Aim at No-Kill Movement By any comparison, PETA is an outlier.
Why PETA Says It Euthanizes So Many Animals
PETA describes its facility as an “open-admission, socially conscious shelter” that accepts animals “regardless of age, temperament, physical condition or adoptability,” without appointments, waiting lists, or fees.4Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. PETA Animal Custody Record Report, 2022 It frames euthanasia as a “merciful release from life in order to end suffering” for animals that are sick, injured, dying, suffering psychologically, or unable to be “safely or humanely placed in a new home.”10PETA. Why We Euthanize
The organization argues that many animals arrive in terrible condition because of neglect or abuse, and that selective-admission shelters push the hardest cases toward open-admission ones. In its 2022 filing, PETA reported that more than 81% of the cats it euthanized were “injured, ailing, and/or unwanted feral cats.”4Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. PETA Animal Custody Record Report, 2022 Daphna Nachminovitch, PETA’s senior vice president for cruelty investigations, has said “the numbers don’t tell the story” and that adoptable animals are transferred to facilities like the Virginia Beach SPCA to give them a chance.11dvm360. Groups Call on PETA to Reduce High Euthanasia Rate
PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has been blunt about the philosophy behind the practice. In a 1994 message to no-kill advocate Nathan Winograd, she wrote: “We do not advocate ‘right to life’ for animals.” PETA confirmed the statement’s authenticity, describing it as a rejection of the idea that animals have a right to life regardless of their condition. In a 2003 New Yorker interview, Newkirk recalled her early shelter career: “I would go to work early, before anyone got there, and I would just kill the animals myself. Because I couldn’t stand to let them go through that.”12Snopes. Ingrid Newkirk Quotes on PETA Euthanasia
What Critics Say
The sharpest opposition comes from the no-kill movement. Julie Castle, CEO of Best Friends Animal Society, has said the public is the “solution” to pet homelessness and that shelter killing is not a “necessary evil.” Best Friends characterizes PETA’s continued reliance on euthanasia as a refusal to accept what no-kill shelters have demonstrated.9Best Friends Animal Society. PETA Again Takes Aim at No-Kill Movement Nathan Winograd of the No Kill Advocacy Center has alleged that PETA kills healthy, adoptable animals rather than placing them in homes, and that its practice is inconsistent with an animal-rights philosophy.13Speaking of Research. Why PETA Cannot Reconcile Animal Rights and Animal Welfare
PETA, in turn, has called the no-kill model “unrealistic and absurd,” arguing that no-kill policies force open-admission shelters to turn animals away and that “warehousing” animals in cages for years is itself a form of cruelty. It has also attacked “return to field” programs for cats as illegal abandonment.14PETA. Best Friends Animal Society
Whether the animals PETA euthanizes were truly beyond help is the central unresolved question. As one legal commentator noted, if the animals were all “fatally ill or unadoptable,” it would be “a simple matter for PETA to say so,” yet the annual filings do not break the euthanized animals down that way.7Duane Morris Animal Law Developments. PETA’s Shelter Kill Rate Is Down but Still Deadly
The Maya Case and the Ahoskie Arrests
Two incidents have driven much of the public conversation. In October 2014, two PETA workers took an unleashed chihuahua named Maya from the porch of a mobile home in Accomack County, Virginia. The dog belonged to nine-year-old Cynthia Zarate. Maya was euthanized the same day.15The Guardian. PETA Sorry for Taking Girl’s Dog and Putting It Down The killing violated a Virginia law requiring a five-day holding period for strays, and PETA was fined $500.16Time. Virginia Family Dog Euthanized by PETA Larceny charges against the workers were not pursued for lack of evidence of criminal intent.17Delmarva Now. Details Emerge in Maya Lawsuit The responsible employee was fired. In August 2017, PETA settled a lawsuit brought by the family, paying $49,000 and donating $2,000 to a local SPCA in Maya’s honor. PETA apologized and the family called the incident “an unfortunate mistake.”
Earlier, in June 2005, PETA employees Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook were arrested in Ahoskie, North Carolina, after police caught them disposing of bags of dead animals in a grocery store dumpster. The pair had been collecting animals from northeastern North Carolina shelters and euthanizing them at PETA’s Norfolk headquarters, a routine that had run since 2001.18AVMA. Jury Acquits PETA Employees of Animal Cruelty Each initially faced 21 felony animal cruelty counts. A judge reduced the charges before trial, and in February 2007 a jury acquitted both on all cruelty counts, convicting them only of misdemeanor littering.19NBC News. PETA Workers Acquitted of Animal Cruelty That littering conviction was later vacated on appeal.20FindLaw. State v. Hinkle, No. COA07-1014
How Virginia Changed the Law
In 2015, the Virginia General Assembly passed SB 1381 with bipartisan support, redefining a “private animal shelter” under state law as a facility “operated for the purpose of finding permanent adoptive homes for animals.”21Virginia Legislative Information System. SB 1381 The bill’s sponsor, Senator Bill Stanley, argued PETA’s Norfolk facility did not meet that definition, and losing the classification could cost PETA legal access to euthanasia drugs.22HuffPost. PETA Shelter Virginia Bill SB 1381 Governor Terry McAuliffe signed the bill, and VDACS later proposed regulations requiring private shelters to find permanent homes each year and perform at least three of five specified adoption-related activities.23Virginia Register. 2VAC5-115 Proposed Regulations PETA continues to operate as a registered private animal shelter and to file annual reports.1Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. PETA Animal Custody Record Report, 2025
What Else the Norfolk Operation Does
The Norfolk facility is not solely a euthanasia operation. PETA’s Community Animal Project delivers doghouses, straw bedding, food, and toys to chained and outdoor dogs across rural Virginia and North Carolina, and fieldworkers perform rescues, loosen tight collars, and install tangle-free tethering lines.24PETA. Helping Animals in Hampton Roads
PETA also runs four mobile spay-and-neuter clinics in Hampton Roads, each able to sterilize up to 30 animals per day, and provides free transportation for owners who need it. Since the program launched in 2001, PETA says its clinics have performed more than 224,200 spay-and-neuter surgeries.25PETA. SNIP Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinics It partners with local governments, including Hampton Animal Control and the Friends of Norfolk Animal Care Center, to provide free sterilization to low-income residents.26City of Hampton. Spay-Neuter Information PETA reported spending over $3 million on local companion-animal services in 2024.2Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. PETA Animal Custody Record Report, 2024
A Note on the “PETA Kills Animals” Campaign
Much of the online attention to PETA’s euthanasia numbers has been driven by the “PETA Kills Animals” campaign, run by the Center for Consumer Freedom. The campaign says “official government records show that PETA itself has killed more than 6 animals every working day since 1998.”27Center for Consumer Freedom. PETA Kills Animals The underlying data is real and comes from PETA’s own state filings. The messenger is not neutral. The Center for Consumer Freedom was founded in 1995 by lobbyist Richard Berman with $600,000 in seed money from Philip Morris to fight restaurant smoking bans, and has since represented restaurant, alcohol, and meat industry interests. Between 2002 and 2012, more than 41% of its expenses, over $13.8 million, went to Berman and Company, a private lobbying firm owned by the group’s own CEO; Charity Navigator issued a donor advisory over the arrangement.28U.S. Right to Know. Center for Consumer Freedom The New York Times has reported that Berman’s nonprofit network functions as a vehicle for corporate interests while shielding donors from public scrutiny.29The New York Times. Nonprofit Advocate With Ties to Lobbyist The data is accurate. The framing has a paying audience.