(This series on PETA in The Huffington Post was a finalist for the Canadian Online Publishing Awards.)
A celebrity is at her most vulnerable when naked. This is when she is least likely to make sensible decisions. Often she is chilly and nervous. Hence, it is while naked that a famous person — who genuinely loves animals — finds herself shilling for people who are genuinely committed to slaughtering them.
When the No Kill shelter in Shelby County, Kentucky, recently announced that they had run out of space — and were hence going to have to start killing healthy dogs and cats — officials received a nice basket of gourmet cookies, with a note signed by PETA: “Thank you for doing the right thing for animals.”
Surely I’m joking here.
Nathan Winograd is the leader of the No Kill movement, a genuine revolution in animal welfare. Three million healthy and adoptable pets will be killed next year in America’s shelters. Not, however, if Winograd and his growing army have any say. I caught up with him a few weeks after the No Kill Advocacy Centre‘s annual conference in Washington D.C.