I don't think they want to get rid of the pets category - just put some warnings & other stuff in place.
I don't know accurate it was, but they were saying Craigslist didn't have any warnings or advice for rehoming pets.

If nothing else, the petition & all the other publicity might make people more aware.

I don't understand what it must be like to have a mind that would enjoy hurting an animal like that - or a person for that matter.

It's extremely sad - and I've been kind of down ever since I read the email from change.org & looked at some of the news reports.