People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
This essay was written for Grade 10 Civics Class. If you are offended, contact me.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), with more than 2.0 million members and supporters, are the largest animal rights organization in the world.PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds and other “pests,” and the abuse of backyard dogs. PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns. That is PETA’s mission statement and it says that they strive to end animal abuse and promote a healthy vegetarian and vegan lifestyle.
Founded in 1980, by Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, the organization is based in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. PETA is a non-profit organization that is funded, almost entirely, by its 187 employees and its two million members, which is expanding constantly. There are also several offices outside of the USA including: Canada, South Africa, China, and throughout Europe. PETA has also created “peta2” a street team for high school and college activists. The organization focuses on four main issues: factory farming, fur farming, animal testing and animals in entertainment. The current PETA slogan is: “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or use for entertainment.”
When it comes to being vegetarian or vegan the number one question meat-eaters ask is: “What do we eat?” The most obvious answer to this question is: “Anything we want!” There are tones of vegetarian alternatives to almost any animal product; from soy sausages to mock lobster. Yes, the foods may not sound very appetizing, but you never know unless you try the food. Vegetarian-friendly menus are popping up everywhere; restaurants are always coming up with vegetarian alternatives to classic dishes. Even Burger King, the second most popular fast-food chain in the world, offers veggie burgers. There are many fantastic alternatives to many products people use almost daily: Soy Delicious ice cream, Chocolate Rice Milk (which is delicious). They even have an alternative to cream cheese called, Tofutti Cream Cheese. People just need to try these foods before deciding that they are horrible, or there is no flavor to them. By switching to a vegetarian diet, you can save more than 100 animals a year.
Every year in the United States, more than twenty seven billion animals are slaughtered for our food. The eating of animals in large consumptions and also over long periods of time is bad for your health. There are many diseases and conditions that can be caused from meat such as: heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, and also obesity. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States. It is caused by the build-up of saturated fat and cholesterol from the animals people consume daily. The average cholesterol from someone who lives a vegan lifestyle is 133, that being compared to someone who eats meat, 210. There have been no documented causes for heart disease for people with cholesterol under 150. People who lead a meat free lifestyle are forty percent, that of meat eaters, to have cancer. There is really a good reason to change your eating habits and lifestyle, your health.
Those who wear fur trim and fur coats have the blood of minks, raccoons, foxes, beavers, and other animals on their hands, hypothetically speaking. The animals these people wear are kept on fur farms and spend their lives in tiny cages only to be killed by electrocution. This electrocution causes the animals to have a heart attack, and then the animals are sent to be skinned. Some of the animals are even skinned alive, with no anesthetic. Some of the animals that are caught in the wild are left there for days before they die or get killed. The most common farmed animal is the mink; even hamsters are farmed for their fur. The animals on the farm are packed into small cages and can only take about a few steps back and forth around the cage. Animals in fur factories are fed meat by-products that are considered unfit for human consumption. If these meat products are unfit for humans what makes them fit for the animals to eat? They would probably benefit better from the “good” parts of the feed.
Many PETA members are strongly against fur farming and campaign and protest, but some have taken it too far. There have been many incidents involving the fashion industry, most notably in 1996: PETA activists infamously 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, and left bloody paw prints and the words “Fur Hag” on the steps of her home. PETA supporters have also pied Wintour 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.”
Have you ever wondered how many animals suffer in labs? That is a very good question because there are so many animals in labs and so many records that are not kept for these animas. This is no number that anyone can guess; the only thing PETA is positive about is that there are millions of animals in the labs. The Animal Welfare Act requires that the labs are to report the number of animals in testing. The numbers that are reported do not include mice, rats, and birds, which are used eighty to ninety percent of the time. Many of the household products we use ever day are tested on animals. Companies still continue to pump their products into the animals’ stomach, rub them onto their skin, squirt them into their eyes or force them to inhale them through aerosol sprays. There are many private charities that get donations to actually be able to test on animals. The thing is that animals differ from humans very significantly which makes the tests conducted on them unreliable and dangerous. PETA president, Ingrid Newkirk, made this statement about animal testing: “Even if animal research resulted in the cure for AIDS, we’d still be against it.”
Animals don’t want to ride bicycles, stand on their heads, balance on balls, or jump through rings of fire. But, sadly, they have no choice. The animal trainers use abusive tools, like whips and electric prods to force the animals to perform. The animals that are performing for you are locked up in small cages or chains, month after month, and transported like furniture unloaded and loaded, city after city, onto a truck. These animals should be out in their natural habitat, exploring and raising their family. Even in Canada there are animals dying because of entertainment. The government allows seals to get beat, skinned and killed for their fur. Many of these baby seals have their heads bashed in or shot even before they get a chance to have their first solid meal or even to learn how to swim. Some Canadians are not using the fur of the seals and just leaving the seal there to die, with puddles of blood everywhere. These people are treating the seal bashing and killing just like a sport. This needs to be stopped. These poor animals are doing nothing wrong; some people have even started to boycott maple syrup, one of Canada’s largest export.
Since PETA was created they have helped countless animals escape the horrendous fate assigned to them. In the summer of 1981 the founders, Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco, conducted an undercover investigation in a primate research lab in Maryland, USA. The researcher had cut the nerves of monkeys’ fingers, hands, arms and legs, in a process called differentiation. With some monkeys, the researcher even deafferented their entire spine. Then the researcher used electric shock, and withholding food and water, to force the monkeys to use their deafferented parts of their body. The purpose of this experiment was to determine if monkeys could use their limbs and an effect on their brains. The research led in part to the development of a new physical therapy procedure, for stroke victims, called constraint-induced movement therapy.
PETA is best known for its highly visible, usually controversial ads and campaigns. PETA’s campaigning ideas were described as not “much different than blackmail” in 2005 by Dr. Len Stevens, the CEO of Australian Wool Innovations body. In a 60 minutes interview, similar to the quote above stated that “They were blackmailed by you.” These quotes were dismissed by PETA founder and President Ingrid Newkirk as “It doesn’t matter so long as they are on board” (referring to PETA achieving its boycott goal). Many of the campaigns are linked to achievements for PETA when Burger King, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s introduced vegetarian options in their menus and when Pet Co dropped the sale of exotic pets; and in 2006, after talks with PETA, Ralph Lauren announced that they would no longer use fur in any of their lines. Along with three other fast food chains, KFC is PETA’s fourth fast food target for animal cruelty. The KFC campaign has claimed support from multiple celebrities. PETA has requested that KFC require that its suppliers adopt harsher treatments, including stopping breaking birds’ limbs and drowning some of the conscious birds in very, very hot water. PETA has shot some videos at a slaughterhouse in Moorefield, West Virginia, USA, and posted the footage on its website. According to the news, PETA is asking KFC to kill chickens in a more humane manner.
PETA asks towns and cities to change their names from their original to something more veggie friendly. In April 2003, they offered free veggie burgers to the city of Hamburg, New York, in exchange for changing its name to Veggieburg. PETA has asked, in 1996, to have the town of Fishkill, New York, change its name, which suggests cruelty to fish. In October 2003, the group suggested that the town of Rodeo, California to change its name to Unity, an acknowledgment of Union Oil’s role in saving the economy in the 19th century. PETA offered to donate $20,000 worth of veggie burgers to local schools if the name was changed. They names might be ridiculous but, there could be good reasons to change names.
In PETA’s 2004 review, Ingrid Newkirk stated that: “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.” PETA’s progress has grown since their first opening in 1980.PETA has come a long way from being a small animal rights group to a world wide corporation. They are 100% committed to a better life and treatment to all animals in the world and strive to promote a healthy meat-free lifestyle. PETA’s most recent accomplishment is stopping Levi Strauss & Co from featuring exotic animals in its ads and commercials, but animal cruelty can never be stopped fully but PETA is trying their best to make the world a better, safer, and healthier place to live.