People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: Encyclopedia II - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - Criticism of PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - Criticism of PETA

Critics look down on the fact that PETA has financially contributed to so-called "eco-terrorist" groups such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). [27]

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" [28] as a reason that PETA should lose its status as a non-profit organization. [29] Part of the reasoning behind their concern is the degree of financial support given by PETA to these organizations, [30][31] associated with firebombings and other destruction of property, and described by the United States Department of Homeland Security as "terrorist threats." [32] PETA has also been accused of operating animal shelters that kill more animals than most publicly operated shelters in the United States. [33]

Adrian R. Morrison DVM PhD, has accused PETA of using edited and out-of-context video footage to allege cruelty to animals. In particlar, he cites an example of videos purporting to show cats being embalmed alive by the Carolina Biological Supply Company being given to the USDA as evidence of animal cruelty. Subsequent testimony demonstrated that the cats had not been alive and that the video was being used an in an attempt to convey false information [34].

In North America, opponents have sardonically formed a group also known as "PETA," except that the letters stand for "People Eating Tasty Animals." PETA was involved in legal action for several years in the 1990s to shut down the competing web site operated by this group.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - South Park with PETA

PETA was on a south park Episode in which they have a secret compound in forestry. They Inter-marrage with animals, and co exist with animals...

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - Alleged targeting of vulnerable groups

PETA has also been accused of targeting "vulnerable or emotionally sensitive" groups, particularly teenage girls, and was ordered by Great Britain's Advertising Standards Authority to discontinue claims it made about milk consumption in a campaign targeted at school children.[35] 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.

PETA has also been accused of promoting vegetarian and vegan lifestyles without providing sufficient information on the alleged health risks involved in excluding meat and dairy from a typical Western diet without providing an alternative source of nutrition, though their "vegan starter kits" combat this notion. 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.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - Support of extremists and terrorists

-

• "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). [36]
• The United States FBI considers ALF to be a "terrorist threat". [37]
• Paid $2,000 to the ALF spokesman after the ALF claimed responsibility for fire bombing the Utah Fur Breeders Agricultural Co-op in 1997. [38]
• Paid $2,000 to David Wilson, a member of ALF in 1999. [39]
• Paid $5,000 to the "Josh Harper Support Committee" in 2000. [40] [41]
• Paid $1,500 to ELF in 2001. [42]
• Paid $7,500 to Fran Stephanie Trutt, who attempted to kill a medical research executive. [43]
• "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.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - 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"; she was criticized because she did not in the process ask Arafat to try to stop suicide bombings that killed people but did not harm animals. She later explained to the Washington Post, in what some non-animal rights sympathizers came to take as a morally untenable stance, "It is not my business to inject myself into human wars."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - 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," "vegetarians make better lovers" and for using Playboy models in some campaigns as well as having string-bikini-clad women wrestle in tofu. 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.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - Animal cruelty and euthanasia

In June 2005, police investigators staked out a garbage container in Ahoskie, North Carolina after discovering that over one hundred dead animals had been dumped there every Wednesday for a month. [44]

Police observed PETA employees Andrew Benjamin Cook and Adria Joy Hinkle approach the trash container behind a grocery store in a van registered to PETA and dump 18 dead animals into it. 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 25 felony charges (22 of animal cruelty and 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 [45])

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." [46] 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. [47]. 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. 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 than allowing them to live in inappropriate conditions.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Criticism of PETA", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki