People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

PETA redirects here. For other uses, see Peta.

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Logo of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world. Founded in 1980 and based in Norfolk, Virginia, it is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) corporation, nearly 200 employees, and funded almost exclusively by the contributions of its stated 850,000 members. Outside the United States, there are affiliated offices in Canada, France, UK, Germany, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, and Taiwan. There is also the peta2 Street Team for high-school- and college-age activists. Ingrid Newkirk is PETA's international president.

PETA's philosophy is "animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment." In support of that position, it focuses on four core issues: factory farming, fur farming, animal testing, and animals in entertainment. It also campaigns against fishing, the killing of animals regarded as pests, abuse of backyard dogs, and cock fighting. The organization aims to inform the public of its position through advertisements, undercover investigations, animal rescue, and government lobbying. It also takes in animals, including strays and those given to PETA by their owners, finding homes for some and euthanizing the rest.

The organization has been criticized for some of its campaigns, for the actions of some of its employees regarding their treatment of animals, and for its support of activists associated with the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front.

Profile

PETA is an animal rights organization, which means that, as well as focusing on animal welfare and protection issues, it rejects the idea of animals as property, and opposes all forms of speciesism, animal testing, meat eating, factory farming, hunting, and the use of animals in entertainment and as clothing. PETA's president, Ingrid Newkirk, has said: "There is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They are all mammals." The group's website states: "PETA believes that animals have rights and deserve to have their best interests taken into consideration, regardless of whether they are useful to humans. Like you, they are capable of suffering and have an interest in leading their own lives; therefore, they are not ours to use — for food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation, or any other reason."

History

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PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco's undercover investigation at the Institute for Behavioral Research in 1981 first brought PETA to public attention. See Silver Spring monkeys.

Founded in 1980, PETA first came to public attention in 1981 during what became known as the Silver Spring monkeys case. Alex Pacheco, PETA co-founder with Newkirk, conducted an undercover investigation inside a primate research laboratory at the Institute of Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. The lead researcher, Dr. Edward Taub, was studying regeneration of severed nerves by cutting nerves in the limbs of 17 monkeys, then applying electric shocks, physical restraint of intact limbs, and withholding food to see what, if anything, would force them to use the damaged limbs. Pacheco visited the institute at night and took photographs that showed the monkeys were living in "filthy conditions," according to the Institute for Animal Research's ILAR Journal. He turned his evidence over to the police, who raided the lab and arrested Taub. Taub was later convicted of six counts of animal cruelty, the first-ever conviction in the U.S. of an animal experimenter, although it was later set aside on appeal.

The case, which lasted ten years in all, contributed to the creation of the Animal Welfare Act of 1985, and became the first animal-testing case to be argued before the United States Supreme Court, which rejected PETA's application for custody of the 17 monkeys. They remained instead with the National Institutes of Health, which had funded Taub's research, until they died or were euthanized. The case defined PETA as an activist group that was able and willing to use undercover methods, the courts, and the media to achieve its aims.

Philosophy and activism

The organization is known for its undercover investigations and aggressive media campaigns. Newkirk has said of PETA's campaign strategy: "How do we pick our battles? By trying to touch the public imagination, the public heart, and by choosing targets that will result in great change for large numbers of animals and set an example for others to follow when we win our battles with them."

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PETA's president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk.

It is also known for its celebrity supporters, who include Sir Paul McCartney, Pamela Anderson, Dolly Parton, Morrissey, Montel Williams, Pink, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Sarah Jessica Parker. McCartney has said: "When I first heard of PETA, the idea that it would be called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals appealed to me because it was elegant and gentle about the idea that we simply just need to treat them ethically. I think the idea has grown from that platform, and now it’s a huge voice for animal awareness." McCartney's first wife, Linda, and their daughter, fashion designer Stella McCartney, also became committed supporters, as did McCartney's second wife, Heather Mills McCartney. Stella McCartney, who turned down a chance to become lead designer for the Gucci Group in 2000 because of the fashion house's work with leather and fur, recorded a video for PETA in 1998 (video) showing footage from its four-month undercover investigation into fur farming.

Many of PETA's campaigns focus on large corporations, such as KFC, McDonald's, PETCO, Procter & Gamble, Covance, and Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). In 1997, PETA initiated what has become an international, and frequently violent, campaign against HLS, when video footage shot covertly inside the company by PETA investigator Michele Rokke was aired on British television, showing staff beating the beagles in their care (video). When HLS threatened legal action, PETA was forced to retreat from the campaign, fearing crippling costs, and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, a loose affiliation of activists with links to other groups, took its place.

Ingrid Newkirk is firm in her support of direct action, which has led to criticism of PETA's backing of Animal Liberation Front activists, some of whom have received financial support from PETA when faced with legal action. The Observer has noted what it calls a "network of relationships between seemly unconnected animal rights groups on both sides of the Atlantic," writing that, with assets of $6.5 million, and with the PETA Foundation holding assets of $15 million, PETA is in a position to fund individual activists and activist groups. Rod Coronado, a former ALF activist, is alleged to have received $70,000 from the group to fund his legal defense when he was convicted of having set fire to a Michigan State University research lab in 1992. PETA is also alleged to have donated $1.3 million to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), an organization that promotes the use of alternatives to animal testing, but which has been criticized for its links with the ALF, and in particular with Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a trauma surgeon who runs the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. Vlasak caused controversy in 2004 when he told The Observer: "I don't think you'd have to kill too many [researchers]. I think for five lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives." PETA also gave $5,000 to the Josh Harper Support Committee, before Harper was convicted of "animal enterprise terrorism" in the U.S. in connection with the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign and, according to the New York Post, gave $1,500 to the Earth Liberation Front in 2001.

Newkirk makes no apology for PETA's support of activists who may break the law, writing that "no movement for social change has ever succeeded without 'the militarism component'. Not until black demonstrators resorted to violence did the national government work seriously for civil rights legislation. In the 1930s labor struggles had to turn violent before any significant gains were made. In 1850 white abolitionists, having given up on peaceful means, began to encourage and engage in actions that disrupted plantation operations and liberated slaves. Was that all wrong?" Of the Animal Liberation Front, she writes: "Thinkers may prepare revolutions, but bandits must carry them out."

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Christy Turlington during PETA's "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign

PETA members have themselves crossed the line between campaigning and direct action, particularly in their long-standing efforts to halt the fur industry, which has involved disrupting fashion shows and throwing paint at fur coats. In 1996, PETA activists famously threw a dead raccoon onto the table of Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue, who promotes the use of fur in fashion, while she was dining at the Four Seasons in New York, left bloody paw prints and the words "Fur Hag" on the steps of her West Village home, have pied her more than once, and a member delivered a package of maggot-infested innards to her office in April 2000, explaining in a press release that "Anna stole this animal’s skin and his life, she might as well have his guts."

PETA's less violent tactics include having supermodels such as Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell pose naked on billboards, with the slogan "I'd Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur" emblazoned across their chests.

Finance

PETA received donations of $16 million from its American members in 2003. According to the group's audited financial statement for the year ending July 31, 2005, 84.99 percent of its operating expenses were spent directly on its programs; 10.83 percent on fundraising efforts; and 4.18 percent on management and general operations. Regarding its employees, 53 percent earn between $14,560 and $27,999; 32 percent earn between $28,000 and $38,499; and 15 percent earn over $38,500. Ingrid Newkirk earned $32,000 during that year.

Undercover work

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A monkey in a restraint tube filmed by PETA in Covance laboratory in Vienna, Virginia, 2004-5 [2]

One of PETA's primary aims is to document the treatment of animals in research laboratories and other facilities where animals are used. To achieve this, it sends its employees into laboratories, circuses, and onto farms, sometimes requiring them to spend many months undercover, filming and otherwise documenting their experiences.

PETA also receives and publicizes tapes recorded by the Animal Liberation Front during the latter's raids on laboratories, arranging to meet with ALF activists to receive material, or to have them forward it via a third party. This practise has led to criticism, as the raids are sometimes violent and may involve the destruction of property, and there has been one allegation that PETA may have had advance knowledge of an attack. In 1995, during the trial of ALF activist Rod Coronado for an arson attack on Michigan State University, U.S. Attorney Michael Dettmer alleged in a sentencing memorandum that Ingrid Newkirk had arranged, "days before the MSU arson occurred," to have Coronado send her documents from the lab and a videotape of the raid.

Researchers working for PETA went undercover into Huntingdon Life Sciences, a contract animal-testing facility, in 1997, where they filmed staff beating dogs in the UK (video) and what appears to be abuse of monkeys in the company's Princeton, New Jersey facility (video). After PETA's video footage of HLS aired on British television in 1999, a group of activists set up Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty with a view to closing HLS down, a campaign that is still ongoing. PETA also conducted an undercover investigation of Covance, a drug development services company, from April 2003 until March 2004, obtaining video footage that a British judge called "highly disturbing." The evidence, which PETA submitted to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), appeared to show monkeys being hit, tormented, and humiliated (videos). According to PETA's website, Covance was subsequently fined for violations of the U.S. Animal Welfare Act based on PETA's documentation.

Policy on euthanasia

PETA's shelters take in unwanted animals, and do not operate a no-kill policy. They recommend euthanasia for sick and dying animals, for certain breeds of animals (e.g. pit bull terriers) [3] and, in certain situations, for unwanted animals in shelters: for example, for those living for long periods in cramped cages. Ingrid Newkirk has said: "Our service is to provide a peaceful and painless death to animals who no one wants." PETA recommends the use of an intravenous injection of sodium pentobarbital provided it is administered by a trained professional. [4]

Before founding PETA, Newkirk was chief of animal-disease control and director of the animal shelter in the District of Columbia. [5] During her time working in animal shelters, she has said that: "I would go to work early, before anyone got there, and I would just kill the animals myself. Because I couldn't stand to let them go through ... [other workers abusing the animals]. I must have killed a thousand of them, sometimes dozens every day." The organization says that it takes in feral cat colonies with diseases such as feline AIDS and leukemia, stray dogs, litters of parvo-infected puppies, and backyard dogs, and as such it would be unrealistic and unkind to operate a no-kill policy. Newkirk has said: "It is a totally rotten business, but sometimes the only kind option for some animals is to put them to sleep forever."

In 1999, PETA took in 2,103 companion animals, and found new owners for 386, with the remainder euthanized. Of the animals not reclaimed by their owners, 86% (2,278) were killed in 2004 and 93% (1,946) in 2005. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 1991 that after rescuing 18 rabbits and 14 roosters from a research facility, PETA killed them because they "didn't have the money" to care for them.

PETA was criticized in 2005, when police investigators staked out a garbage dumpster in Ahoskie, North Carolina after discovering over one hundred dead animals had been left there over the course of a month. Police observed PETA employees Andrew Benjamin Cook and Adria Joy Hinkle approach the dumpster in a van registered to PETA and leave behind 18 dead animals. Thirteen more were found inside the van. The animals had been euthanized by PETA in shelters in Northampton and Bertie counties. PETA condemned the dumping as against their policy, and suspended Cook. Police charged Cook and Hinkle each with 31 felony counts of animal cruelty and eight misdemeanor counts of illegal disposal of dead animals.

Achievements

The group's campaigns have seen a number of notable successes. An undercover investigation in 1984 led to the closure of a primate head-injury lab at the University of Pennsylvania (see Unnecessary Fuss and below). In 1985, the U.S. government suspended funding to the City of Hope biomedical research center in California over its alleged treatment of dogs, and East Carolina University agreed to stop using animals for classroom experiments after a PETA investigation. In 1990, a Las Vegas entertainer lost his entertainment licence, as well as a later lawsuit against PETA, after the group filmed him beating orangutans. A North Carolina grand jury handed down indictments against pig-farm workers, the first indictments for animal cruelty within that industry, after they were filmed skinning a sow who was allegedly still conscious. After prolonged PETA campaigns, Burger King, McDonalds, Wendy's, and KFC agreed to improve conditions for the animals they use. PETCO agreed in 2005 to end sales of large birds in its stores, and in 2006, after talks with PETA, Polo Ralph Lauren announced that it would no longer use fur in any of its lines.

In its 2004 annual review, Newkirk summed up some of PETA's achievements: "Everyone eats, so we have done our best not only to reform the worst abuses in factory farming and slaughterhouses, but to promote a compassionate vegan diet, providing all the resources, from recipes to health tips, that a person could ever need. We have also revolutionized the way some companies do business, getting them to stop selling fur, boycott Australian merino wool, and abandon painful animal-poisoning tests in favor of sophisticated non-animal methods. We have shown how to prevent flooding without destroying beavers' homes and how to prevent birds from entering "big box" stores without using cruel glue traps. In the past year alone, former circus and zoo elephants were sent to sanctuaries, hog-dog rodeos were banned, and cruel companies were fined. We also educated millions of kids about animal rights through our teacher network and education programs."

Campaigns

PETA Lettuce Ladies in Columbus, Ohio

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Rav from Sacramento, California, a PETA Broccoli Boy

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)

PETA has a major campaign targeting Kentucky Fried Chicken that has included more than 10,000 demonstrations worldwide and support from the Dalai Lama, Al Sharpton, Paul McCartney, and Dick Gregory, among others. PETA has requested that KFC require that its suppliers adopt the welfare recommendations of KFC's own animal welfare committee, including stopping the breaking of birds' limbs and drowning conscious birds in tanks of scalding water [6]. PETA shot video footage at a slaughterhouse in Moorefield, West Virginia and posted the footage on PETA's website. KFC is PETA's 4th fast food target, for alleged animal cruelty, after campaigns against McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's. See also: Kentucky Fried Cruelty.com

Circuses

PETA regularly protests circuses that use animals. The Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Baily Circus is a frequent target of PETA's allegations of abuse. PETA asked a number of mayors to pass legislation banning items used to train elephants from cities the circus was due to visit. In one specific case, PETA asked that "bullhooks, electric prods and other devices that inflict pain on, or cause injury to, elephants" [7] be banned, after the animal care director of the Carson & Barnes Circus, Tim Frisco, was filmed allegedly attacking elephants with bullhooks and electric prods. PETA's videotape of one of Frisco's training sessions allegedly shows him attacking elephants with steel-tipped bullhooks, shocking them with electric prods, and shouting "Make 'em scream!" The elephants are shown screaming and recoiling in pain, according to PETA. (video)

In response to PETA's request, Mayor Rod DesJardins of Munising, Michigan called the organization "radical extremists with a bizarre philosophy that considers the life of an insect equal to the life of a human being." [8]

Jesus was a Vegetarian

Several PETA commercials have used Christian themes to promote vegetarianism, including one claiming that Jesus was a vegetarian, and another featuring a pig with the caption "He Died for Your Sins." [9]

Lettuce Ladies

PETA's 'Lettuce Ladies' are women, some of them Playboy models, who appear publicly in bikinis made to look like lettuce leaves, and distribute information about the vegan diet. [10] There is a lesser-known male counterpart to the Lettuce Ladies, called the Broccoli Boys. [11]

Name changes of cities

PETA regularly asks towns and cities whose names in its view are suggestive of animal exploitation to change their names. In April 2003, they offered free veggie burgers to the city of Hamburg, New York, in exchange for changing its name. PETA also campaigned in 1996 to have the town of Fishkill, New York, change its name, claiming the name suggests cruelty to fish. (The root "kill", found in many New York town names, is Dutch for "creek".)

In October 2003, the group urged the town of Rodeo, California, to change its name because it invokes images of the sport of rodeo, which they claim is harmful to animals, even though the town's name is pronouced differently than a cowboy 'rodeo'. As a replacement name, they suggested Unity, an acknowledgement of Union Oil's role in saving the area economically in the late 19th century. PETA offered to donate $20,000 worth of veggie burgers to local schools if the name was changed. The town declined.

Anti-fur campaigns

PETA has long-running advertising campaigns such as; "Here's the rest of your fur coat"[12], and "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur", in which supermodels appeared nude to express their opposition to wearing fur, which resulted in widespread media coverage. On May 21, 2006 they held a high-profile naked protest near St Paul's Cathedral, in London to continue their protest against the use of real bear fur in the Bearskins used by the Foot Guards. [13]

Youth Education

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Joaquin Phoenix on the cover of PETA's Grrr! Magazine

PETA runs a website geared towards children at Petakids.com with contests, online games, online videos, a free subscription to Grrr! Magazine, comics, and songs that are supportive of PETA's causes. The website also provides an e-News list that has seen an increase from 50,000 to 350,000 subscribers.

PETA teamed up with bands such as Deftones, STUN, and Further Seems Forever, to record comercials on a variety of topics, including reporting animal abuse. The youth-oriented web site Peta2.com featured over 50 interviews from bands such as Yellowcard, The Shins, The Used, and Good Charlotte. PETA’s efforts were covered by MTV, Rolling Stone, AP, and Revolver.

PETA2 dispatched supporters on 61 summer concert and skateboard tours including the Warped, Phish, and Morrissey tours. At these events, PETA screened the "Meet Your Meat" video and disseminated information.

See also: Kentucky Fried Cruelty.com

Animal Liberation Project

PETA's 2005 "Are Animals the New Slaves?" campaign featured a display in which images of oppressed minorities, including black slaves, Indians, child laborers, and women, were juxtaposed with those of chained elephants and slaughtered cows. The campaign was criticized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, [14] and PETA agreed to suspend it, [15] but decided to continue after discussions with the group. Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory recorded a public service announcement, urging people to boycott circuses that use animals in what he calls “modern-day slavery.”

Community Animal Project

PETA has several programs helping cats and dogs in poorer areas of southeastern Virginia and northern North Carolina. PETA has spayed or neutered over 25,000 cats and dogs for reduced price or for free in the last few years. The organization comes to the aide of neglected dogs and cats who are severely ill and injured, and it pursues cruelty cases against extreme cases. They offer free humane euthanasia services to counties that kill unwanted animals via gassing or shooting. PETA also offers free euthanasia to people whose companion animals are severely ill/dying but who cannot afford euthanasia at a veterinarian. PETA paid for and built a cat shelter in a North Carolina county. Each year the organization builds and sets up hundreds of sturdy dog houses, with straw bedding, for dogs that are chained outside all winter. PETA also creates and airs numerous public service announcements and billboards urging people to help control the rampant pet overpopulation crisis through spaying/neutering, and adopting animals from shelters instead of purchasing cats and dogs from pet stores or breeders.

Holocaust on Your Plate

One of the most controversial PETA campaigns was their Holocaust on Your Plate campaign. In it PETA claimed that: "like the Jews murdered in concentration camps, animals are terrorized when they are housed in huge filthy warehouses and rounded up for shipment to slaughter. The leather sofa and handbag are the moral equivalent of the lampshades made from the skins of people killed in the death camps." [16]

The Anti-Defamation League strongly criticized the implication of moral equivalence between the killing of animals and the Holocaust. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League criticised the campaign saying "the effort by Peta to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent... 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 a way to make sure such catastrophes never happen again,"

[17] Fred Zeidman, chair of the US Holocaust Memorial Council said of the campaign that PETA "has chosen to ignore common decency and to desecrate the memory of Holocaust victims, survivors and their families in its perverted effort to generate headlines."[18]id 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 defended the comparison, saying that "the logic and methods employed in factory farms and slaughterhouses are analogous to those used in concentration camps," thereby attempting to justify their implicit claim that animal abuse is the moral equivalent of human genocide. PETA argued that in both the Holocaust and animal slaughter, there is a systematic "concept of other cultures or other species as deficient and thus disposable, and that this indifference allows the slaughter to continue." [19]. PETA also claimed the moral support of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, and used his statement "In relation to [animals] all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka" [20]. The use of this quote in this context was supported by Singer's grandson Stephen R. Dujack. [21] In May 2005, PETA apologized for the campaign while broadly defending the analogy.

Running of the Nudes

Every year, naked PETA activists, wearing red scarves and bull horns, take to the streets of Pamplona two days before the city's annual "Running of the Bulls" in protest at the tradition, which sees bulls goaded and injured by the crowd. Over 1,000 activists took part in 2006. (video)

Other criticism

Carolina Biological Supply Company

Adrian Morrison, a former president of the National Animal Interest Alliance, an "association of business, agricultural, scientific, and recreational interests," [22] that campaigns in favor of what it calls responsible animal use, alleges that PETA was misled into believing that cats had been embalmed alive by the Carolina Biological Supply Company, after an undercover video showed a wriggling cat being embalmed. Two USDA veterinarians agreed with PETA and the video was introduced into evidence before a departmental hearing. An anatomist called by Carolina Biological's lawyer subsequently demonstrated that the wriggling may have been the effect of formalin on freshly dead muscle tissue, which causes muscle fibers to contract and move, and the case against the company was dismissed. [23]

Unnecessary Fuss

PETA's filmUnnecessary Fuss shows researchers inflicting brain damage on baboons.

PETA was criticized in 1984 over a 26-minute film it made, called Unnecessary Fuss, (video) which was based on several hours of footage stolen by the Animal Liberation Front from the University of Pennsylvania's Head Injury Clinic. The footage showed researchers inflict brain damage on non-human primates using a hydraulic device intended to simulate whiplash. An independent investigation by the Office for Protection from Research Risks (OPRR) confirmed that there had been "extraordinarly serious violations" of animal welfare legislation by the lab, which led to the closure of the lab, the firing of the university's head veterinarian, and a period of probation for the university.

PETA was nevertheless criticized by the OPRR for having edited the film in a misleading way. Twenty-five errors were identified in Newkirk's voiceover, including a scene where she described an accidental liquid spill over a conscious baboon as an acid spill, with no evidence to suggest it was anything but water. The film also gave the impression that several baboons were being brain damaged and, it appeared, abused, whereas subsequent examination of the 60 hours of original footage allegedly showed that only one baboon was featured in the 26-minute film, but that the scenes were constantly repeated.

Jerusalem bombing response

PETA was criticized in 2003 when Newkirk sent a letter [24] to then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat in response to a Jerusalem bombing attack, in which a donkey was loaded with explosives and blown up, [25] and also listed several other instances where animals were harmed during armed human conflicts. PETA was criticized for not asking Arafat to stop all violence, but only to refrain from using animals in the conflict. [26] [27]

Campaigns aimed at children

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Image from the front cover of pamphlet

PETA was ordered by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority to discontinue claims it made about milk consumption in a campaign aimed at school children, concluding that the compaign "played on children's anxieties and were likely to cause some children undue fear and distress." The ad featured trading cards with statements such as "Sue's milk-drinking led to her battle with zits." Other cards claimed that dairy products cause obesity, belching and flatulence, and excessive nasal mucus build up. In response to the ruling, PETA modified the cards to address the Standards Authority's regulations.

Additionally, PETA has been criticized for distributing graphic pamphlets to children attending school plays. According to PETA's website, [28] the pamplets are geared toward making parents aware of how their actions affect their children. PETA states that pamphlets are never given to children under the age of 13. One pamphlet, addressing the wearing of fur, was titled "Your Mommy Kills Animals," [29] and featured an illustration of a mother figure slicing a knife into a rabbit's stomach. Another pamphlet was titled "Your Daddy Kills Animals!" [30] and showed an image of a father figure gutting a fish. The latter pamphlet declared that "Since your daddy is teaching you the wrong lessons about right and wrong, you should teach him fishing is killing. Until your daddy learns it's not fun to kill, keep your doggies and kitties away from him. He's so hooked on killing defenseless animals, they could be next." Activists say that kids experience much more graphic things than that at the age of 13. [31]

Timeline

According to PETA, important actions include:

1981

• organized a march on Washington at the Capitol to mark World Day for Animals in Laboratories.
• its undercover investigation of a primate laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland, resulted in the first search warrant for a U.S. laboratory, first conviction of an animal experimenter on charges of animal cruelty (overturned on appeal), the first suspension of federal research funds for alleged cruelty, and the first animal-rights related case to be heard by the United States Supreme Court. (See Silver Spring monkeys.)

1983

• successfully stopped a United States Department of Defense "wound lab" which had allegedly planned to fire missiles into dogs and goats.

1984

• released video footage shot at the University of Pennsylvania head-injury laboratory, showing the alleged treatment of primates there. The Secretary of Health and Human Services subsequently cut off all funding to the laboratory and the experiments were stopped.
• 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.

1985

• 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.

1986

• stopped the total-isolation confinement of chimpanzees at a Maryland research laboratory called SEMA.

1987

• stopped a plan by Cedars-Sinai, California's largest hospital, to ship stray dogs from Mexico into California for experiments.
• launched the Compassion Campaign to fight cosmetics and personal-care product testing on animals. By 1989, PETA had persuaded nearly 500 companies to go "cruelty-free."

1988

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

1990

• 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.
• succeeded in persuading Estée Lauder and 40 other companies to halt animal testing with its Caring Consumer Campaign.

1991

• U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected PETA's petition for custody of Titus and Allen, two of the monkeys in the Silver Spring monkeys case. The pair were killed within hours of the ruling by Tulane University's Delta Regional Primate Center.

1992

• called attention to the details of U.S. foie gras production, documenting the gavage (force-feeding) of geese. Police subsequently conducted the first-ever raid in the United States, and possibly in the world, on a factory farm.
• testified at the first-ever U.S. congressional hearing on the use of animals in circuses, rodeos, films, and other types of entertainment.

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.
• L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, signed a worldwide ban on animal testing, following a PETA campaign.
• PETA 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.

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 was 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.

1996

• In North America, opponents sardonically formed a group also known as "PETA," except that the letters stand for "People Eating Tasty Animals". They registered the domain name "peta.org" in 1996; in 2000 they were forced by a judge to surrender the domain name to PETA. PETA was involved in legal action for several years in the 1990s to shut down the competing web site operated by this group.

1998

• PETA registered the domains "www.ringlingbrothers.com" and "www.voguemagazine.com". They used the sites to highlight the cruelty that they maintain Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and Vogue Magazine were guilty of. Under threats of legal action over trademark infringement, PETA surrendered the domains. [32] [33]

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 allegedly beating lame pigs with wrenches, and skinning and dismembering a conscious pig.

2000

• successfully campaigned for 11 months against McDonalds to implement more stringent welfare standards.

2001

• launched a 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. [34] [35]
• launched an unsuccessful campaign to have the University of South Carolina change its mascot from the Gamecock. The group contended that the name promoted cock fighting, but the school stood firm and kept the mascot name, saying that cock fighting had not been legal in South Carolina for more than a century, and the mascot was a representation of the fighting power of a gamecock, not indicative of any promotion of cockfighting.

2004

• released video of shechita (kosher slaughter) at the AgriProcessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa allegedly showing cattle appearing to survive for minutes after slaughter with their tracheae and esophagi dangling from their throats and some of them even standing up with their throats slit. [36] A subsequent USDA investigation found that AgriProcessors had "engaged in acts of inhumane slaughter" while the agency's inspectors were playing computer games and sleeping on the job.

2005

• sued Feld Entertainment (producer of Ringling circus and Disney on ice) saying Feld ran a spying operation on the PETA organization run by an ex-CIA employee with the intent to harm or destroy PETA. [37] After nine hours of deliberation on March 15, 2006, a Fairfax County, Virginia jury found that Ringling Bros. did not harm or conspire against PETA, and the case was dismissed. [38]

2006

• persuaded J. Crew and Polo Ralph Lauren not to sell fur. They also persuaded Welch's to end animal testing.
• placed the winning bid for an eBay auction that offered fans a chance to dine with singer Beyoncé Knowles. PETA members posing as fans confronted her about the use of fur in her clothing line.
• persuaded Ocean Spray and Tahitan Noni to drop animal tests.
• wrote Merriam-Webster, asking them to change the definition of "circus" that they publish in their dictionary. "PETA’s proposal defines a circus as a 'spectacle that relies on captive animals' who are 'forced to perform tricks under the constant threat of punishment.' It also wants the definition to say that 'modern circuses include only willing human performers.'"
• bought shares in Wal-Mart, Safeway, Kroger, Tyson Foods, Costco, and several others, in an effort to use its shareholder position to force animal-welfare reform on the companies. [39]

Well-known supporters of PETA

Well-known members and supporters of PETA

• Pamela Anderson [40]
• Christina Applegate [41]
• Bea Arthur [42]
• Simon Cowell [43]
• Des'ree [44]
• Ellen Degeneres [45]
• Sophie Ellis-Bextor [46]
• Edie Falco [47]
• Emmylou Harris [48][49]
• Andy Hurley [50]
• Tommy Lee [51]
• Loretta Lynn [52]
• Bill Maher [53]
• Sir Paul McCartney [54]
• Rue McClanahan [55]
• Nellie McKay [56]
• Morrissey [57]
• Sharon Osbourne [58]
• Dolly Parton [59]
• P!nk [60]
• Trent Reznor [61]
• Charlotte Ross [62]
• Steven Seagal [63]
• Amy Sedaris [64]
• Russell Simmons [65]
• Anna Nicole Smith [66]
• Charlize Theron [67]
• Betty White [68]
• Montel Williams [69]
• Carnie Wilson [70]

Multimedia releases to benefit PETA

• Animal Liberation (April 21, 1987) WaxTrax! (LP, CS, CD)
• Paul McCartney and Friends: The PETA Concert for Party Animals (2000) Image Entertainment (DVD)
• Tame Yourself (April 30, 2001) R.N.A./Rhino (CD)
• Liberation: Songs to Benefit PETA (2003) Fat Wreck Chords (CD)

References

• Dougherty, Kerry "Arafat gets ass-inine plea from PETA on intifada", Jewish World Review, February 10, 2003.

Further reading

• Craft, Nikki. "PeTA: Where Only Women Are Treated Like Meat"
• Morrison, A.R. (2001). Personal Reflections on the “Animal-Rights” Phenomenon. In Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol 44:1, pp. 62-75. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Meet Your Meat a PETA-produced film about the treatment of animals in egg and meat industries.
• Penn and Teller episode
• PETA's main website
• AskCarla.com
• IAMSCruelty.com
• StopAnimalTest.com
• KFCCruelty.com
• VegetarianStarterKit.com
• "PETA's Appeal for Jewish Community Support 'The Height of Chutzpah'", Anti-Defamation League.