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With Halloween right around the corner, the American |Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals| released a rather sensible guide to keeping pets safe during the holiday, noting that "there are plenty of stories of vicious pranksters who have teased, injured, stolen, even killed pets on this night."
But that sort of restrained warning doesn't go nearly far enough for some animal rights activists who insist on spreading myths about large, well-organized Satanic cults bent on sacrificing and mutilating black cats on Halloween.
A short release by |Education and Action for Animals| is typical. Without offering any evidence, EAA claimed "the number of animals abused and sacrificed may increase by TEN TIMES during the Halloween season." Like other outlets, EAA warned that black cats were in special danger because "they are highest in demand for sacrificial purposes"; again, a claim made with no evidence to back it up.
But that was nothing compared to Mesia Quartano, who runs the Mining Company's Animal Rights page. To provide her readers with information on the horrors black cats face from Satanic cults she provided links to ultraconservative Christian fundamentalists who believe that a super-secret Satanic order called the Brotherhood has infiltrated key position in government and the corporate world. This sort of nonsense has been thoroughly debunked (see sociologist Jeffery Victors excellent book on the topic, Satanic Panic, among others) but is kept alive by an unlikely convergence of fringe elements in fundamentalist Christian, radical feminist and animal rights circles.
And just in case further evidence is needed on the credulity of people when it comes to animal deaths, a recent news story distributed on animal rights lists provides ample evidence. A large number of horribly mutilated animals were found in a city dumpster, obviously put there by some sicko or perhaps a cult. Except, as it turned out a few days later, the mutilated animals' presence had a rather mundane explanation. It seems the animals were, in fact, road kill placed in the dumpster by a company contracted with by the local authorities specifically to remove such animals.