< Previous page

Hirschkop says that in a region where county officials neglect animal shelters and private landowners routinely shoot or poison stray animals, the sudden concern about animal welfare is disingenuous. He says he believes law enforcement officials have pursued the case because they don't like what PETA stands for, and he says the prosecution has become a matter of politics rather than justice.

Valerie Asbell, the district attorney for Hertford, Bertie and Northampton counties, is prosecuting the case. Officials in her office declined to comment.

A different version

County officials and veterinarians in the three counties, however, disagree with PETA's story. They say PETA promised to try and find homes for the animals they took and to euthanize only as a last resort.

Hertford County veterinarian Patrick Proctor told reporters at the time of the arrests that three of the cats in the Dumpster were a healthy mother and kittens that he turned over to PETA on the promise that they would be adopted. His allegations resulted in three charges of obtaining property by false pretenses. Proctor did not return calls from The News & Observer.

Officials in the three counties also say they believed the animals PETA took had at least a chance at finding homes.

"The verbal agreement was, if they felt like the animals could possibly be adopted, they would," said Sue Gay, the head of Northampton County animal control. "We thought at least some of them were being adopted."

But some also admit that they didn't have the time to worry about what PETA was doing with the legions of stray animals that were stretching the counties' scant resources.

"All I knew was they came in, they said they had X amount of animals and they were carrying them to Virginia, and I didn't question them," said Charles Jones, who is head of animal control in Hertford County. Jones is also the fire marshal and the head of emergency medical services and emergency management.

The three counties no longer give animals to PETA. But the town of Windsor, in Bertie County, still turns over all its stray animals to the group.

Even after the arrests, Town Administrator Allen Castelloe said he has never checked into what PETA does with the town's animals.

Hirschkop said PETA never promised county officials that it would find homes for animals. PETA doesn't have an adoption facility, he said, and there are simply too many strays in the region to find homes for them all.

Animal advocates say PETA was needlessly killing animals. They say that, with a little work, PETA could have found homes for at least some stray animals.

JoAnn Jones, the Hertford County animal advocate, started working in the county shelter in July. Since then, she said, her volunteer group has adopted out 175 animals. She said they call on their network of animal-loving friends, place ads on the Internet and, sometimes, send animals to other states.

"We have a lot of dogs that are sleeping in beds, riding in cars and living the good life," Jones said.

Cheryl Powell, a veterinarian in Bertie County, said that before PETA moved in, she was finding homes for many of the adoptable animals that came through the Bertie shelter. Once PETA came, she said, the group no longer wanted her help.

Powell said PETA workers told her they were taking animals to a farm where they would try to adopt them out. But she said she began to suspect that the van they drove was too small to get all those animals back to Virginia, and when they came asking whether she had stray animals, she never turned any over.

"They lied," Powell said. "I know they never told me that they were taking animals and euthanizing them on a wholesale plan."

The deception, Powell said, stings as much as the animals' deaths.

< Previous page