Peta
Members of a cult classified as satanic created Best Friends Animal Society after the group decided that the “best way to raise money” would be “based on taking care of animals”.
Many individuals in the organization have disturbing pasts, including documented histories of mismanaging shelters.
Best Friends Animal Society pushes for policies that harm animals and endanger the public.
According to historians of religion, researchers, and FBI reports, the founding members of Best Friends formed a religious group called The Process Church of the Final Judgment (Process Church) in the U.K., which the FBI classified as a Satanic cult. The group “preached that the world would be ending in 2000 and that Satan and Christ would be united.” Members wore “dramatic black cloaks, adorned with the swastika-like ‘P’ symbol, and the ‘Sabbatic Goat.’”
In the 1980s, according to FBI records, the group decided that the “best way to raise money” would be “based on taking care of animals” to appeal to people’s emotions. In 1991, members disbanded the religious cult and created Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, now doing business as Best Friends Animal Society.
According to a 2020 ReligionNews.com article about a man who escaped from the cult:
After being accused of brainwashing its members, about 30 sect members—and six German shepherds—left England, traveling first to the Bahamas and later to a remote Mexican village. The sect eventually settled in the United States, setting up branches in Boston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Dallas, Chicago, and other cities, and growing to about 150 people.
Best Friends Animal Society has for years misled the public, promising Americans a “no-kill” nation by 2025.
A recent opinion piece by the organization’s CEO conceded that its position is that “keeping pets out of shelters should be a first-choice management protocol.” This philosophy, which Best Friends Animal Society has pressured shelters across the nation to embrace, has deprived countless animals and people who care about them of desperately needed help.
Using bullying tactics and personal attacks, including the frequent use of the divisive term “no kill” and referring to compassionate euthanasia in animal shelters as “killing,” Best Friends Animal Society has created a culture of hate and resentment toward individuals who dedicate their lives to helping homeless animals, including by alleviating their suffering when that is the most humane option.
Due to funding from well-meaning, caring people like you, who may have believed that “no kill” by 2025 was a genuine promise, the organization’s influence has been significant, and the group has spawned additional, similar if less well-known entities that push the same harmful policies, which lead to terrible animal suffering and even more death—though not painless or peaceful.
Animals left out of shelter statistics may not be counted, but they count.
‘Best Friends’ Spreads Its Agenda
Members of the former cult now profess to be experts in animal care and sheltering and push shelters across the country to adopt their beliefs. However, their recommendations harm animals and endanger the public, because their number one priority is statistics, not animals. Their policy recommendations include:
“Open adoptions” (giving away animals to anyone who will take them, without any effort to ensure that they can provide a loving, responsible, and safe home), including releasing cats and dogs to those who may have violent criminal histories, including charges of cruelty to animals.
Releasing for adoption aggressive dogs with significant bite histories (Even when an animal’s guardian has requested euthanasia following a fatal attack, Best Friends recommends evaluating the animal for adoption, which not only endangers the public but also results in fewer animals being adopted into good homes because it makes the public leery of adopting any animals from shelters. Such practices destroy the good reputation that shelters have worked hard to build over the years.)
Doing away with any manner of behavior assessments, a vital tool used by many shelters to try to prevent dangerous animals from being released to unsuspecting members of the public (This recommendation endangers residents and creates a serious liability for local governments, resulting in numerous lawsuits against Best Friends and other groups that implement its policies.)
Recommending trap-neuter-release (TNR) programs and/or refusing to accept cats—including cats who have not been sterilized or vaccinated and those who are social and have never lived outdoors—just to keep cats out of shelters at any cost to their life or welfare (Cats abandoned in these ways reproduce, exponentially worsening the overpopulation crisis, and suffer, often before dying violently. Best Friends even acknowledges that TNR may violate local ordinances yet still recommends it. Releasing cats, even to the same area where they were picked up, without ensuring that they are provided with adequate care, is considered animal abandonment in most jurisdictions.)
Encouraging vague language in local ordinances, such as changing the word “shall” to “may,” in order to allow agencies to be derelict and refuse to pick up lost or abandoned animals, including those who may be ailing, injured, aggressive, or in imminent danger
Best Friends gives awards and recognitions to shelters based on statistics alone, even applauding facilities that engage in cruel practices. In Wyoming, for example, Best Friends “honored” a municipal facility for reaching “no-kill” status, even though it uses a gas chamber to kill animals. Gas poisoning is a known inhumane method of killing considered so cruel that it has been banned in dozens of states. It can take up to 25 minutes, during which panicked animals gasp for breath, try to claw their way out, and attack other animals who are trapped in the chamber with them. The Wyoming facility has refused to switch to using humane methods exclusively, despite offers from PETA and others to cover the costs.
Gas chamber used for dogs and cats
Gas chambers, like this one that was used in North Carolina, are inhumane—and have been outlawed in that state.
The Dark Past of Best Friends’ Leaders
Best Friends fills its ranks with individuals it hires to act as “experts” and tell municipal animal shelters how they should operate. But many of these individuals have disturbing pasts, including documented histories of mismanaging shelters.
“I came in and changed everything overnight. We got rid of all adoption policies.”
—Makena Yarbrough, former executive director of Lynchburg Humane Society in Virginia and currently a senior director of regional programs for Best Friends Animal Society
For example, Makena Yarbrough, senior director of regional programs for Best Friends, advises communities on how to operate animal shelters. But serious allegations of neglect surrounded her tenure as executive director of the Lynchburg Humane Society in Virginia. Under a contract, Lynchburg Humane also operated the county animal shelter, the Pittsylvania Pet Center. During Yarbrough’s directorship, state authorities reportedly notified Pittsylvania’s shelter that it “could be subjected to fines of up to $65,250” in relation to animal deaths and substandard conditions. Healthy dogs were reportedly found “stored in a designated isolation room meant to separate the sick from healthy.” Records show that animals were found dead in cluttered rooms at the facility and that animals had starved to death while in the county’s custody.
“No-kill” policies typically result in inhumane, crowded conditions, as they did at this facility (photo for representative purposes only)
Another individual listed by Best Friends as “manager, shelter collaborative program” was hired by the group after acting as “director of lifesaving outcomes” at the Palm Valley Animal Society in Texas. That facility implemented Best Friends’ recommended policies and quickly faced a lawsuit after a dog adopted from the facility seriously mauled a child.
Leaving animals to reproduce on the streets worsens the crisis, and can endanger residents.
A Best Friends “senior manager of national shelter support” was hired by the group after working at LifeLine Animal Project, which operates the DeKalb County Animal Shelter in Georgia. Media reports have described the county shelter as being “plagued by repeated issues,” including severe crowding, warehousing, and allowing animals to die slowly in cages (a common practice among facilities that focus on “live release” statistics over the welfare of animals in their custody).
An individual Best Friends lists as “director, East regions” resigned from Animal Care & Control Team Philly in Pennsylvania, where she was executive director, following disputes with volunteers and allegations of cruelty. A petition demanding her resignation alleged that animals had been mistreated, conditions had deteriorated, employees had quit, and the organization had been hostile to volunteers. A state inspector who visited the facility found the sanitary conditions “unsatisfactory,” noting, “A referral for cruelty was made based on the sanitation issues during this inspection” [emphasis added].
Paula Powell was hired and acted as a Best Friends regional senior manager after leaving the municipal shelter in El Paso in utter chaos.
The Devil’s in the Details
When Best Friends operatives “embed” themselves in shelters, the public isn’t likely to hear about all of the fallout—at least not quickly. Best Friends evidently uses non-disparagement agreements, likely to hinder lawsuits and prevent communities and individuals from negatively reporting on the results of its destructive programs.
For example, a grant agreement between Best Friends and a California county states, “Recipient agrees not to disparage BFAS (Best Friends Animal Society) during the grant period and for three years following the last disbursement from BFAS (Best Friends Animal Society) to Recipient.” The contract includes an indemnity agreement that “holds BFAS (Best Friends Animal Society) harmless” in the event of “bodily injury, personal injury, illness, death, property damage, or other losses of any kind or nature whatsoever” as a result of its programs.
A prospective foster caregiver for Best Friends’ Los Angeles shelter opted not to sign a contract that included non-disparagement and indemnity clauses that extended to all their family members, including the family’s children.
This begs the question: What, exactly, is Best Friends so determined to keep quiet?
https://www.peta.org/features/best-friends-animal-society/disturbing-history/
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