People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world. Founded in 1980 as a non-profit organization, it has its headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, and a claimed 800,000 members and over 100 employees worldwide. Outside the U.S., there are branch offices in the UK, [1] India, [2] Germany, [3] Asia, and the Netherlands. [4] There is also Peta2 Street Team for high school and college-age activists. [5] Ingrid Newkirk is PETA's international president.

PETA focuses on four core issues: factory farming, [6] vivisection and animal testing, fur farming, and animals in entertainment. It also works on a wide range of other animal-rights issues, including fishing, the killing of animals regarded as pests, abuse of backyard dogs, and cock fighting.

Contents

PETA's philosophy

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PETA's motto is: "Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment." Its website states:

PETA believes that animals deserve the most basic rights — consideration of their own best interests regardless of whether they are useful to humans. Like you, they are capable of suffering and have interests in leading their own lives; therefore, they are not ours to use — for food, clothing, entertainment, or experimentation, or for any other reason." [7]

PETA was founded in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, who were inspired by Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation. Newkirk once stated, "When it comes to feelings such as pain, fear, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." In the long term, PETA advocates the abolition of animal exploitation, and espouses the philosophical position of animal rights; in the short term, it is willing to advocate animal-welfare reforms, and it has negotiated with a number of industries that use animals to obtain improvements in welfare standards. PETA strongly supports the vegan lifestyle.

History

The group first rose to national prominence in 1981 when it became involved in the Silver Spring, MD monkey case. Pacheco conducted an undercover investigation of a primate laboratory, documenting numerous cases of abuse and neglect. The investigation resulted in the first-ever conviction of an animal experimenter on charges of animal abuse and the first-ever suspension of federal research funds for cruelty. [8]

Other highlights of the organization's campaigns include:

In 1983, PETA successfully stopped a United States Department of Defense "wound lab" which had planned to fire missiles into dogs and goats.

In 1984, PETA released more than 70 hours of videotape shot in the University of Pennsylvania head-injury laboratory, showing the treatment of primates there. The secretary of health and human services subsequently cut off all funding to the laboratory and the experiments were stopped. In the same year, a Texas slaughterhouse to which 30,000 horses were taken each year from all over the United States, then allegedly left to starve outside without shelter, was closed after a PETA campaign.

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Animal liberation
Activists
Greg Avery  · David Barbarash
Steven Best  · Rod Coronado
Barry Horne  · Ronnie Lee
Keith Mann
Ingrid Newkirk  · Alex Pacheco
Robin Webb
Organizations
Animal Aid
Animal Liberation Front
BUAV
Great Ape Project
Justice Department
PETA  · SPEAK
SHAC
Issues
Animal rights · Animal testing
Covance
Declaration on Great Apes
Factory farming  · Fur farming
Huntingdon Life Sciences
Speciesism  · Vivisection
Writers
Steven Best
Jeremy Bentham
Stephen Clark  · Tom Regan
Richard D. Ryder
Peter Singer
Category
Animal liberation movement

In 1985, PETA revealed details of the treatment of dogs at the City of Hope laboratory in California. The government fined the center $11,000 and suspended more than $1,000,000 in federal funding.

In 1986, PETA stopped the total-isolation confinement of chimpanzees at a Maryland research laboratory called SEMA. Dr. Jane Goodall called her tour of the SEMA lab “the worst experience of my life.”

In 1987, PETA stopped a plan by Cedars-Sinai, California’s largest hospital to ship stray dogs from Mexico into California for experiments. In the same year, they launched the Compassion Campaign to fight cosmetics and personal-care product testing on animals. By 1989, PETA had persuaded nearly 500 companies, including Mary Kay and Amway, to go cruelty-free.

In 1988, a secret video shot inside East Carolina University and distributed by PETA showed an inadequately anesthetized dog undergoing surgery during a classroom exercise. The university subsequently declared a moratorium on the use of live animals.

In 1990, PETA exposed the alleged beating of orangutans by Las Vegas entertainer Bobby Berosini, who used the primates in a nightclub act. His captive-bred wildlife permit was suspended by the U.S. Department of the Interior, and his show closed. Four years later, the Nevada Supreme Court unanimously ruled in PETA’s favor and overturned a Las Vegas jury’s $3.2 million defamation award to Berosini. In the same year, the Caring Consumer Campaign succeeded in persuading Estée Lauder and 40 other companies to halt animal testing.

In 1991, the Silver Spring Monkeys case receives a unanimous, positive ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, the first time that a case involving animals in laboratories had been heard by the court.

In 1992, PETA undercover investigators revealed the details of U.S. foie gras production, documenting the force-feeding of geese. Police subsequently conducted the first-ever raid in the United States, and possibly in the world, on a factory farm, and many restaurants removed foie gras from their menus. In the same year, PETA testified at the first-ever U.S. congressional hearing on the use of animals in circuses, rodeos, films, and other types of entertainment.

In 1993, General Motors gave PETA a statement of assurance that it had ended the use of live pigs and baboons in crash tests after a PETA campaign. In the same year, L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, signed a worldwide ban on animal testing, following a PETA campaign. PETA also revealed details of scabies experiments using dogs and rabbits at Wright State University. The university was subsequently charged with violating the Animal Welfare Act, and the experiments ended.

In 1994, Buckshire Corporation, a laboratory animal breeding facility, was charged with violations of the Animal Welfare Act after a 38-page complaint was submitted by PETA. A furrier is charged with cruelty to animals following the release of PETA videotapes showing a California fur rancher electrocuting a chinchilla by clipping wires to the animal’s genitals. It was the first time in U.S. history that a furrier was charged with cruelty.

In 1999, a North Carolina grand jury handed down the first-ever felony cruelty indictments against pig-farm workers after an undercover PETA investigator videotaped workers beating lame pigs with wrenches, and skinning and dismembering a conscious pig.

In 2000, PETA successfully campaigned for 11 months against McDonalds to implement more stringent welfare standards.

In 2001, PETA launched a successful campaign against Burger King. After months of vocal public pressure, the fast-food giant agreed to implement the welfare standards demanded by PETA. These standards increased the amount of cage space given to laying hens and promised unannounced inspections of slaughterhouses, among other things. [9] [10]

Campaigns

Image:PETA Lettuce Ladies.JPG PETA is well known for its aggressive media campaigns, public demonstrations, and attacks on large corporations for their alleged mistreatment of animals. In 2003, PETA received media attention for its boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken. PETCO and Procter & Gamble are other examples of companies PETA says are exploiting animals for profit. According to PETA, PETCO confines animals in filthy enclosures, where they are commonly left to die, and Proctor & Gamble tests its products on animals. On April 12, 2005, PETA announced it had ended its boycott against PETCO, in part because of PETCO's decision to end sales of large birds in its stores.

Jesus was a Vegetarian

PETA has created advertisements claiming that Jesus was a vegetarian, and other Christian-themed ads such as one showing a photograph of a pig with the caption, "He Died for Your Sins". JesusVeg.com Some religious leaders and theologians, such as the Reverend Andrew Linzey, support at least some of PETA's ideas about Christianity and vegetarianism.

Critics of this view argue that Jesus ate fish, and that on Passover he ate lamb. [11]

Lettuce Ladies

PETA's 'Lettuce Ladies' are women, some of them Playboy models, who appear publicly in scanty costumes made to look like lettuce leaves, and distribute information about the vegan diet. [12] There is a lesser-known male counterpart to the Lettuce Ladies, called the Broccoli Boys.

Holocaust on Your Plate

One of the most controversial PETA campaigns has been their "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign, which draws parallels between the treatment of farm animals confined and slaughtered for food production and the treatment of Jews and other victims of the Holocaust.

The Anti-Defamation League strongly criticized the implication of moral equivalency between the killing of animals and the Holocaust. A press release from the ADL stated:

PETA's effort to seek approval for their Holocaust on Your Plate campaign is outrageous, offensive and takes chutzpah to new heights. Rather than deepen our revulsion against what the Nazis did to the Jews, the project will undermine the struggle to understand the Holocaust and to find ways to make sure such catastrophes never happen again.

PETA defends this comparison on the grounds that it is not equating the two horrors, but illustrating the strikingly similar indifference that people showed toward both the Holocaust and now the mass slaughter of animals. The side-by-side imagery of slaughtered animals and Holocaust victims, PETA argues, attempts to implicate the mechanical ways in which humans and animals are killed as creating this distance from moral responsibility.

Name changes of cities

PETA regularly asks towns and cities whose names are suggestive of animal exploitation to change their names. For example, a campaign was launched in the late 1990s to have the cities of Hamburg and Frankfurt, Germany change their names, since the names are associated with hamburgers and hot dogs. The cities were offered free veggieburgers for all of their residents for life if they agreed to the change. Both cities refused. However, these campaigns have been effective in generating media coverage of animal-rights issues.

Anti-fur campaigns

PETA may be best known for its long-running campaign, "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur", in which activists and celebrities appear partially nude to express their opposition to fur-wearing. This tactic has resulted in widespread media coverage.

PETA also has a campaign "Your mommy kills animals," targeted at children, using graphic images of a woman killing a rabbit. [13]

Comparisons to slavery

The most recenty controversy generated by PETA is it's "Are Animals the New Slaves?" campaign. [14] The campaign involves a tour of the United States and features a display in which comparisons are drawn between various human uses of animals, and the suffering endured by black slaves during the Colonial era in North America. The campaign has drawn the attention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. [15]

Criticism of PETA

Opinions about PETA vary greatly. Its supporters say that the organization has brought greater attention to animal-rights issues, and has encouraged many people to become vegan. It is credited with closing the largest horse slaughterhouse in the United States, and stopping the use of cats and dogs in vivisection laboratories. Supporters believe the group's actions to be justified to combat what they see as avoidable cruelty. They also claim that critics fail to address their fundamental belief that animals deserve moral consideration.

PETA has critics who frequently point out that PETA has financially contributed to groups such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). [16] Critics also point to a statement from Alex Pacheco, one of PETA's founders, that "arson, property destruction, burglary, and theft are acceptable crimes when used for the animal cause" [17] as a reason for PETA to lose its special status as a non-profit organization. [18] Part of the cause for concern is the degree of financial support given by PETA to these eco-terrorist organizations, [19][20] both associated with firebombings and other destruction of property, and described by the United States Department of Homeland Security as terrorist threats. [21]

In the United States, opponents have sardonically formed a group also known as "PETA," except that the letters stand for "People Eating Tasty Animals."

Targeting of vulnerable groups

PETA has also been accused of targeting vulnerable or emotionally sensitive groups, particularly teenage girls, and was widely criticized in the United Kingdom for its anti-milk campaign, in which it targeted school children with ‘game cards’ saying that dairy products cause obesity, acne, belching and flatulence, and excessive nasal mucus build up.

PETA has also been accused of promoting vegetarian and vegan lifestyles without providing sufficient information on the health risks involved in excluding meat and dairy from a typical Western diet without providing an alternative source of nutrition. It has also linked both lifestyles to weight loss, prompting concerns over PETA's targeting the gender and age groups that are vulnerable to eating disorders.

Support of extremists

  • "We're here to hold the radical line." (Ingrid Newkirk, founder and director of PETA, 1991)
  • "Arson, property destruction, burglary, and theft are acceptable crimes when used for the animal cause." (Alex Pacheco, director of PETA at the time, and its co-founder, in 1989)
  • "We cannot condemn the Animal Liberation Front ... they act courageously ... [their activities] comprise an important part of today's animal protection movement." (PETA statement concerning ALF's activities, 1991)
  • Paid $45,200 in support of convicted ALF arsonist Rodney Coronado (1995). [22]
  • Donations to ELF. The United States FBI considers ELF to be a "terrorist threat". [23]
  • Paid $2,000 to the ALF spokesman after the ALF claimed responsibility for fire bombing the Utah Fur Breeders Agricultural Co-op in 1997. [24]
  • Paid $2,000 to David Wilson, a member of ALF in 1999. [25]
  • Paid $5,000 to the "Josh Harper Support Committee" in 2000. [26] [27]
  • Paid $1,500 to ELF in 2001. [28]
  • Paid $7,500 to Fran Stephanie Trutt, who attempted to kill a medical research executive. [29]
  • "Of course we're going to be, as a movement, blowing stuff up and smashing windows...is a great way to bring about animal liberation". (Bruce Friedrich, the Vegan Campaign Coordinator for PETA, during a 2001 animal rights convention.

Response to a suicide bombing

In response to a news report in January of 2003 that a donkey was laden with explosives and intentionally blown up in a failed attack on a busload of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk sent then Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat a request that he "appeal to all those who listen to [him] to leave the animals out of this conflict." However, Newkirk deliberately did not ask Arafat to try to stop suicide bombings that killed people but did not harm animals. She later explained what many saw as a morally untenable stance, to the Washington Post: "It is not my business to inject myself into human wars."

Use of nudity

Feminists for Animal Rights have published articles criticizing PETA for its use of female nudity (though no one has ever fully stripped in public) in campaigns such as "I'd rather go naked than wear fur," and for using Playboy models in some campaigns. Animal-rights lawyer Gary L. Francione has also been outspoken in his condemnation of what he sees as PETA's sexism. Many also feel that PETA's use of gimmicks such as nudity trivializes the seriousness of animal-rights issues. PETA's defenders respond that they are not sexist, as both men and women appear in the campaigns, and that they use arresting images to gain publicity for their campaigns against animal abuse.

Animal cruelty and euthanasia

In June 2005, police investigators staked out a garbage dumpster in Ahoskie, North Carolina after discovering that over one hundred dead animals had been dumped there every Wednesday for a month. [30][31]

Police observed PETA employees Andrew Benjamin Cook and Adria Joy Hinkle approach the dumpster in a van registered to PETA and dump 18 dead animals in a garbage dumpster behind a grocery store. Thirteen more were found inside the van. The animals were from shelters in Northampton and Bertie counties. Police charged Cook and Hinkle each with 31 felony counts of animal cruelty and eight misdemeanor counts of illegal disposal of dead animals. (These were dismissed on 14 October 2005, and 22 felony charges of animal cruelty the three felony charges of obtaining property by false pretense brought in their place. The latter charges are based on PETA having euthanized three cats from an Ahoskie veterinarian after promising to find the animals new homes [32])

Newkirk responded to the media attention with the statement: "PETA has never made a secret of the fact that most of the animals picked up in North Carolina are euthanized." [33] According to PETA's own filings with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, PETA killed 86.3% of the animals in its care in 2004. [34]. Similar filings for the Norfolk SPCA shelter, located 3.5 miles from the PETA headquarters, show that the Norfolk SPCA killed fewer than 5% of animals in its care. However, the Norfolk SPCA is reported to turn away many stray animals every week so they don't have to euthanize them, leaving this task to other local groups. [35] PETA has defended its actions by saying there is inadequate care for the animals they receive, and that killing them humanely is a better fate then allowing them to live in inappropriate conditions.


Famous members and supporters

PETA has many celebrity members and supporters, including Pamela Anderson, Bea Arthur, Ed Asner, Alec Baldwin, James Cromwell, David Cross, Dick Gregory, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Dalai Lama, Emmylou Harris, Tippi Hedren, Benji Madden, Bill Maher, Paul McCartney, Rue McClanahan, Grant Morrison, Morrissey, Martina Navratilova, Conor Oberst, the late River Phoenix, Richard Pryor, Dennis Rodman, Alicia Silverstone, Dominique Swain, Charlize Theron, Bryan Erickson of Velvet Acid Christ, John Abraham and Betty White.

Spoofs of PETA

  • PETA (People Eating Tasty Animals) [36]
  • PWEETA (People Who Enjoy Eating Tasty Animals) [37]
  • PETV (People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables) [38]

See also

References

Further reading

Official PETA sites

Sites critical of PETA

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