PETA: Putting Compassion Into Action for 26 Years
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - PETA
August 25, 2006
By Heather Moore
Senior Writer
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
On August 21, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world’s largest animal rights organization, celebrated its 26th birthday. Since its inception in 1980, PETA has propelled animal rights issues into the mainstream and reshaped the way the world views animals.
PETA operates under the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment. PETA shares author and civil rights activist Alice Walker’s belief that “[t]he animals of the world ... were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.”
PETA works through public education, research and investigations, animal rescue, legislation, special events, and celebrity spokespeople. PETA has exposed animal abuse in numerous laboratories, leading to canceled funding, closed facilities, and hundreds of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) charges; cleaned up substandard animal shelters; helped schools find alternatives to dissection; and provided information on vegetarianism, companion animal care, and countless other issues to millions of people.
PETA has achieved long-term changes that have improved the quality of life for, and prevented the deaths of, countless animals. The Philadelphia Daily News has reported, “PETA has done more to lessen animal suffering than nearly any other organization.”
In 1981, PETA uncovered the abuse of animals at the Institute for Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Md., launching the historic Silver Spring monkeys’ case. PETA’s findings led to the first arrest and conviction of an animal experimenter in the U.S. on charges of cruelty to animals, the first confiscation for animal abuse in laboratories, and the first U.S. Supreme Court victory for animals in laboratories.
PETA has successfully campaigned to end General Motors’ crash tests on animals, prompted the first anti-cruelty law in Taiwan, stopped the construction of a cruel dolphin tank in Virginia, secured the release of several polar bears who had been suffering in a tropical circus, closed down a Texas slaughterhouse operation where 30,000 horses were trucked in annually from all over the United States and left to starve in frozen fields without shelter, and convinced Mobil, Texaco, Pennzoil, Shell, and other oil companies to cover their exhaust stacks to save millions of birds and bats.
A PETA investigation led Benetton to ban animal testing—a first for a major cosmetics retailer. Today, hundreds of companies have signed PETA’s statement of assurance not to test their products on animals. As a result of PETA’s campaign to push PETCO to take more responsibility for the animals in its care, the company agreed to stop selling large birds and to make provisions for the millions of rats and mice it sells.
California became the first state to file criminal charges against a furrier after PETA investigators filmed the furrier electrocuting chinchillas by attaching wires to the animals’ genitals. Because of PETA, retailers like J.Crew, Wet Seal, Forever 21, and Ann Taylor have stopped selling fur in their stores, and top designers such as Ralph Lauren, Marc Bouwer, and Stella McCartney have banned the use of fur in their designs.
PETA prompted McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Safeway, and other retail giants to improve the treatment of animals sold for food. PETA’s undercover investigation at Belcross Farm pig-breeding facility led to the first felony indictments for cruelty to animals by farm workers. After a PETA investigation at Seaboard Farms, Inc., North America’s third-largest pork producer, the former manager pleaded guilty to felony cruelty to animals—marking the first time in U.S. history that a farmer pleaded guilty to felony cruelty for injuring and killing animals raised for food.
Millions of people saw just how cruelly chickens are treated before they’re served on dinner plates when PETA released the results of an investigation into a Pilgrim’s Pride chicken slaughterhouse in Moorefield, W.Va., where workers were shown on tape stomping birds, kicking them, and slamming them against floors and walls. Slaughterhouse employees ripped the animals’ beaks off, twisted their heads off, spat tobacco into their eyes and mouths, spray-painted their faces, and tied their legs together “for laughs.” Dan Rather echoed the views of all kind people when he said on the CBS Evening News, “[T]here’s no mistaking what [the video] depicts: cruelty to animals, chickens horribly mistreated before they’re slaughtered for a fast-food chain.”
PETA’s mobile spay-neuter clinic has sterilized thousands of animals belonging to low- income families. PETA routinely works with prosecutors and sheriff’s offices to stop the abuse of domestic animals, and in the winter PETA builds doghouses and delivers them (free of charge) to animals forced to live outdoors.
PETA is a resource for anyone who wishes to help even one animal or change one old habit that hurts them. To learn more, please visit www.PETA.org.
Senior Writer
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
On August 21, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world’s largest animal rights organization, celebrated its 26th birthday. Since its inception in 1980, PETA has propelled animal rights issues into the mainstream and reshaped the way the world views animals.
PETA operates under the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment. PETA shares author and civil rights activist Alice Walker’s belief that “[t]he animals of the world ... were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.”
PETA works through public education, research and investigations, animal rescue, legislation, special events, and celebrity spokespeople. PETA has exposed animal abuse in numerous laboratories, leading to canceled funding, closed facilities, and hundreds of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) charges; cleaned up substandard animal shelters; helped schools find alternatives to dissection; and provided information on vegetarianism, companion animal care, and countless other issues to millions of people.
PETA has achieved long-term changes that have improved the quality of life for, and prevented the deaths of, countless animals. The Philadelphia Daily News has reported, “PETA has done more to lessen animal suffering than nearly any other organization.”
In 1981, PETA uncovered the abuse of animals at the Institute for Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Md., launching the historic Silver Spring monkeys’ case. PETA’s findings led to the first arrest and conviction of an animal experimenter in the U.S. on charges of cruelty to animals, the first confiscation for animal abuse in laboratories, and the first U.S. Supreme Court victory for animals in laboratories.
PETA has successfully campaigned to end General Motors’ crash tests on animals, prompted the first anti-cruelty law in Taiwan, stopped the construction of a cruel dolphin tank in Virginia, secured the release of several polar bears who had been suffering in a tropical circus, closed down a Texas slaughterhouse operation where 30,000 horses were trucked in annually from all over the United States and left to starve in frozen fields without shelter, and convinced Mobil, Texaco, Pennzoil, Shell, and other oil companies to cover their exhaust stacks to save millions of birds and bats.
A PETA investigation led Benetton to ban animal testing—a first for a major cosmetics retailer. Today, hundreds of companies have signed PETA’s statement of assurance not to test their products on animals. As a result of PETA’s campaign to push PETCO to take more responsibility for the animals in its care, the company agreed to stop selling large birds and to make provisions for the millions of rats and mice it sells.
California became the first state to file criminal charges against a furrier after PETA investigators filmed the furrier electrocuting chinchillas by attaching wires to the animals’ genitals. Because of PETA, retailers like J.Crew, Wet Seal, Forever 21, and Ann Taylor have stopped selling fur in their stores, and top designers such as Ralph Lauren, Marc Bouwer, and Stella McCartney have banned the use of fur in their designs.
PETA prompted McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Safeway, and other retail giants to improve the treatment of animals sold for food. PETA’s undercover investigation at Belcross Farm pig-breeding facility led to the first felony indictments for cruelty to animals by farm workers. After a PETA investigation at Seaboard Farms, Inc., North America’s third-largest pork producer, the former manager pleaded guilty to felony cruelty to animals—marking the first time in U.S. history that a farmer pleaded guilty to felony cruelty for injuring and killing animals raised for food.
Millions of people saw just how cruelly chickens are treated before they’re served on dinner plates when PETA released the results of an investigation into a Pilgrim’s Pride chicken slaughterhouse in Moorefield, W.Va., where workers were shown on tape stomping birds, kicking them, and slamming them against floors and walls. Slaughterhouse employees ripped the animals’ beaks off, twisted their heads off, spat tobacco into their eyes and mouths, spray-painted their faces, and tied their legs together “for laughs.” Dan Rather echoed the views of all kind people when he said on the CBS Evening News, “[T]here’s no mistaking what [the video] depicts: cruelty to animals, chickens horribly mistreated before they’re slaughtered for a fast-food chain.”
PETA’s mobile spay-neuter clinic has sterilized thousands of animals belonging to low- income families. PETA routinely works with prosecutors and sheriff’s offices to stop the abuse of domestic animals, and in the winter PETA builds doghouses and delivers them (free of charge) to animals forced to live outdoors.
PETA is a resource for anyone who wishes to help even one animal or change one old habit that hurts them. To learn more, please visit www.PETA.org.
Print
Email
