What PETA Really Stands For

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals define their organization as "the largest animal rights organization in the world" in their mission statement. However, this mission statement offers a very gilded version of what PETA actually does for animals and where they truly stand. PETA is notorious for lying, distorting facts, and encouraging violent methods of protest.

PETA claims that their first priority above all else is animal liberation, however on the most basic level this is clearly not true. With the millions of dollars PETA makes every year, they have a grand total of one animal shelter. As much as PETA advocates an animal's right to fair and ethical treatment, this is not a no kill shelter. In fact, PETA has killed roughly 85% of the animals its shelter has "rescued."(Newsweek) In many cases, shelters are forced to euthanize animals because they lack the finances to care for them. This is not the case for PETA, who in 2007 made over $30 million dollars. That's enough money to finance their no kill shelter, and open multiple other no kill shelters.

What PETA considers rescuing is far from the definition of what many of us would consider rescuing. In 2005, authorities found at least 80 dead animals thrown in a dumpster by PETA employees within a month. Two PETA employees were caught illegally dumping the bodies of 18 animals they had "rescued" from two local counties, Northampton and Bertie. Inside of their van, 13 more animals were found. The two counties had been lead to believe that the animals were being taken to PETA's animal shelter where they would be examined by a veterinarian and put up for adoption. The animals never even made it to the shelter. After this incident, both counties ceased to work with PETA. ( SFGate)

If you click around the PETA organization's website, it won't take you long to find heart wrenching pictures of abused animals and shocking videos. Often, these pictures are taken in slaughter houses and meant to promote vegetarianism. Clearly promoting vegetarianism is a priority of many animal activist groups and totally understandable. What makes PETA different is the fact that they lie and exaggerate to manipulate people into adopting their beliefs. The extremes observed in their videos are not common practice in the meat industry. Common sense will tell you that the meat industry wishes to slaughter animals quickly, in the most cost efficient way possible. Beating cows with bats does not fit that description, in spite of what PETA would like to lead people to believe. It's time consuming, and manual labor is pricier than mechanical. Finding one extreme example and passing it off as common practice is misleading and disrespectful to the activists who have put their trust in PETA.

The type of vicious activism promoted by PETA is one of the reasons why animal activists in general have earned a bad reputation. PETA has been a partner of the North American Earth Liberation Front. This is a group recognized by the FBI as a domestic terrorist organization. ELF and a partner organization, ALF, have committed over 600 domestic crimes resulting in over $40 million in damage costs. In 2001, PETA made a donation to the organization of over $1,000. ( CNS) PETA also sees no problem with giving money to attempted murders, such as Fran Trutt, who PETA gave $7,500. She attempted, and thankfully failed, to kill Leon Hirsch. (National Review)Mr. Hirsch is the CEO of the US Surgical Corporation, an organization that has worked to innovate and improve surgical practices to save lives. Funding dangerous and destructive behavior is not the type of protesting any respectable activist would wish to take part in.

Because of their shocking tactics, PETA has gained more publicity than other animal rights organizations, and this publicity is in no way deserved. With deceitful behavior and shady antics, PETA has manipulated people who truly do care about animals into fueling their outrageous behavior, and who are the ones suffering because of this? The animals.
Posted on June 20th, 2008 at 02:15pm

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