November 2018 issue

By Ingrid Newkirk

Nearly 40 years ago, when some friends and I started People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), no one had heard of “animal rights,” and we didn’t have a campaign strategy. We just knew that we wanted to make a difference for animals exploited in laboratories, for food, on fur farms, and in circuses. We didn’t dawdle—we just jumped right in.

PETA’s first eyewitness investigation—the precedent-setting 1981 Silver Spring monkeys case— led to many other firsts: the first search-and-seizure warrant served on a U.S. laboratory, the first arrest and criminal conviction of an animal experimenter in the U.S. on charges of cruelty to animals, the first confiscation of animals abused in a laboratory, and the first U.S. Supreme Court victory for animals in laboratories. And we haven’t stopped fighting—and winning—in our efforts for animals since.

PETA’s principles are simple: Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.

Animals Used in Experiments

It all started with Billy. When PETA discovered him, the gentle little monkey was trying desperately to eat food pellets thrown into his filthy cage before they fell through the wire flooring. This was a matter of survival because nerves in his spine had been cut, paralyzing his arms. He had to push himself on his elbows and try to grab the pellets with his teeth before they were lost forever. Billy was one of 17 monkeys abused in cruel experiments and kept in the nightmarish Institute for Behavioral Research, a federally funded laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland.

As PETA’s iconic poster of a screaming, terrified monkey strapped into a crude restraint chair at that very lab proclaimed, “This Is Vivisection. Don’t Let Anyone Tell You Differently.” The revelations shocked people around the world and ignited a movement. PETA shut that laboratory down, and since then, we have exposed cruelty in many other laboratories, sparked the development of the now-thriving global industry of non-animal research methods, persuaded governments and corporations around the world to end various animal testing requirements, closed laboratories, and held experimenters accountable. This has spared tens of millions of animals horrific suffering.

The cosmetics industry once insisted that animal tests were indispensable. Today, more than 3,500 companies refuse to test their products on animals, and many forward-thinking scientists are using only sophisticated non-animal methods to study diseases and develop lifesaving techniques.

Mice, rabbits, monkeys, pigs, horses, and other animals aren’t inanimate tools to be manipulated. In laboratories, they have no control over any aspect of their existence—they live in fear and are denied everything that could bring them joy or comfort. Studies show that even hearing the knob on the laboratory door turn makes their hearts race and their blood pressure rise. Animals are individuals. They have the right to live their own lives.

Animals Killed for Food

PETA’s first vegan action was a 1980 protest outside Arrow Live Poultry, the last slaughterhouse in Washington, D.C. Customers could pick out live chickens from cages, and the terrified birds’ necks would be cut right in front of them. No one had protested in behalf of chickens before, so the demonstration garnered massive media attention—a signature PETA strategy in the years to come. It also prompted an investigation by the health department, which revealed numerous violations. The facility shut down.

PETA’s food-industry investigations have netted many firsts: the first police raid on a U.S. farm, specifically one producing foie gras; the first cruelty charges against a farmer, after thousands of chickens starved to death; the first felony indictments of farmworkers over horrific conditions at a pig-breeding facility in North Carolina; and the first felony charges—and the first convictions for factory-farm workers—for abusing farmed turkeys.

We work to raise awareness of the plight of fish and other sea animals. As long as chefs hack apart octopuses while they’re still alive, as long as parents take their children fishing for “fun,” and as long as humans kill so many fish each year that, as one scientist put it, “[l]ined upend to end, they would reach the sun,” PETA will keep at it.

In addition to informing people about abject cruelty in the meat, fishing, egg, and dairy industries, PETA’s mission has always been to make it easy to switch to vegan eating, including by offering shopping tips, nutrition information, and recipes. PETA was the first animal rights group to embrace lab-grown meat, offering $1 million a decade ago for the first commercially viable in vitro chicken, funding biologists to conduct cultured-meat research, and providing clean-meat producer Memphis Meats with its first patent.

Fifteen years ago, PETA’s Veg Advantage program laid the groundwork for restaurateurs, chefs, and other food-service pros to embrace vegan options by providing them with information on the best places to find products and recipes.

Nearly four decades after PETA saved those chickens, we are entering a new and exciting era of food—and it’s vegan.

Animals Killed for Clothing

When PETA was founded back in 1980, fur industry ads were trumpeting that animal fur was “what becomes a legend most.” Today, after decades of campaigning, eyewitness investigations, and celebrity involvement, most consumers would agree with PETA’s cheeky parody ad featuring Amy Sedaris: Fur is what becomes a loser most. Most millennials and members of Generation Z won’t touch the stuff—and consumers who care about animals and the environment are also turning their backs on leather, down, wool, and other animal-derived materials as they learn more about the fashion industry’s huge contribution to climate change.

For the animals involved, leather production is just as violent, painful, and deadly as the fur trade. Buying leather also supports the meat industry. Wearing a fur collar or leather shoes means that a living, feeling animal experienced a miserable life and an often painful death.

PETA Asia’s investigation of the Chinese dog-leather trade revealed that workers bludgeoned and slaughtered up to 200 dogs every day so that their skin could be made into leather gloves, belts, and other accessories. These dogs were no different from the ones we share our homes with—and none of them wanted to die.

Australia produces about a quarter of all wool used worldwide. Within weeks of birth, lambs’ ears are hole-punched, their tails are chopped off, and the males are castrated without pain relief. PETA’s international exposé of shearing sheds in the U.S. and Australia led to charges against six shearers for at least 70 counts of cruelty to animals—the first to be brought against wool industry workers for abusing sheep anywhere in the world. All six pleaded guilty.

Major designers are dropping fur in record numbers, fashion houses are partnering with tech companies to develop lab-grown leather and silk, and up-and-coming labels are embracing soy-based “vegetable cashmere,” “fleece” made from recycled plastic bottles, “wool” crafted from seaweed, and more. The global fashion industry is entering a new and improved era.

As consumer demand for cruelty-free goods rises, the clothing, furniture, and automotive industries are quickly working to meet it. Leather is being made from mushrooms, kombucha tea, coconut water, and even pineapple leaves!

Already, Tesla uses exclusively vegan leather for its car interiors, and more and more fashion brands are replacing items made of animal skins with all-vegan collections.

Animals Exploited for Entertainment

The decline of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus—which had been exploiting animals for 146 years—went into overdrive when PETA released chilling photographs showing baby elephants tied down by all four legs in violent “training” sessions. The public was horrified, and shortly thereafter, the circus shut down.

PETA’s campaigns against SeaWorld, coupled with the release of the documentary Blackfish, have seen the marine abusement park’s stock drop, longtime corporate partners abandon ship, more than 1,100 employees be let go, and upper management become a revolving door.

In addition to taking on circuses and marine parks, PETA tackles issues that no other group does, including goldfish-swallowing contests, “donkey basketball” games, and the use of animals in TV and film production. On any given day, we may be explaining why bears don’t belong in pits, why penguins shouldn’t be displayed at parties, why rabbits shouldn’t be given away as prizes at carnivals, why opossums shouldn’t be “dropped” like New Year’s balls, and why tiger cubs shouldn’t be dragged around the country for photo ops.

Animals Used in Other Ways

PETA has become known around the world because we are not a one-issue organization—we are an equal opportunity critic when anyone or any industry is abusing animals anywhere. In the early years, we used snail mail and dial-up. More recently, our presence on social media has enjoyed rapid and significant growth, we developed the innovative “I, Orca” and “I, Chicken” wireless Google virtual reality experiences, and we’ve purchased stock in many of the companies that we’re campaigning against so that we can submit shareholder proposals. We have affiliates in Asia, Australia, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, and the U.K., extending our reach worldwide. The Latino community is driving many of our campaigns, and more than a half-million people view PETA Latino’s Facebook page every month.

Our guiding philosophy is that silence is a social cause’s worst enemy. And whatever we have to do to break that silence and bring animal rights into the arena of public discussion, we must try to do. Not everyone wants to hear about the misery of animals who are shocked, poisoned, burned,

blinded, cut open, and mutilated in laboratories; kept in cages so tiny that they can’t even turn around or stretch out a single wing on factory farms; scalded to death in slaughterhouses; electrocuted and skinned alive for their fur; and subjected to other horrors. We’re here to make sure that animals’ plight goes viral.

We make no apologies for being abolitionists: Animals must be left in peace to go about their lives. That’s not to say that we won’t accept intermediate steps when animals are suffering daily. It took two years of negotiations and more than 400 demonstrations against McDonald’s, but the fast-food chain was the first to agree to make basic welfare improvements for farmed animals. Shortly thereafter, Burger King and Wendy’s followed suit. Safeway, Kroger and Albertsons also agreed to adopt stricter guidelines in order to improve the lives of billions of animals who are slaughtered for their flesh.

After PETA informed Mobil, Texaco, Pennzoil, Shell, and other oil companies that millions of birds and bats were being burned alive after getting trapped in the shafts of their exhaust stacks, they all agreed to cover them. Following our campaign against General Motors’ use of live pigs and ferrets in car-crash tests, all such gruesome and deadly experiments on animals stopped worldwide.

Where We’re Going

Our brothers and sisters of other species are being abused and exploited every second of every day. Let’s put ourselves in their place: We would ache for someone to do everything possible to help us! If we care about animals, we must continually spread the message that all beings deserve to be left in peace and treated with respect. We must actively work toward a day when all animals are treated as the unique individuals that they are—not as research tools or toys, as food or fabric, or as props or protection. Circumstances for animals will change only if we create that change. So let’s not waste our voices, our power, our consumer clout, or our lives. Until every cage is empty, every chain is broken, and every animal is treated with dignity, we must never be complacent and never be silent. Make the animal liberation movement a part of your life—living, feeling beings are counting on you.

Special Thanks to Ingrid Newkirk and all the Staff at PETA who helped us with this Edition.

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