PETA's Ethics, Tactics Questionable

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is the world's largest animal rights organization, with more than 800,000 members. Its latest target: KFC, which it accuses of cruelty to chickens. But how ethical is PETA? WAVE 3 Investigator Eric Flack found out.

Its tactics can be outrageous, over the top and in your face. PETA's founder Ingrid Newkirk readily admits "we're not afraid of making idiots of ourselves."

Since 1980, PETA members have fought to keep animals out of the research labs, out of our and off our plates.

In July, PETA released a video it called smoking gun evidence of chicken abuse at a Kentucky Fried Chicken supplier. PETA spokesman Dan Shannon predicted "people will watch this tape, and I think they will be horrified. They will be horrified to know what is going on behind the scenes."

David Martosko with the Center for Consumer Freedom says, despite its name, PETA "is not a very ethical organization by any standard."

A Washington lobbying group called the Center for Consumer Freedom, one of PETA's biggest critics, says it's far from a love fest. "You have to understand that this is an organization that has a long history of supporting the most radical militant wing of the animal rights movement to achieve what it calls total animal liberation."

In the mid-1990s, a WAVE 3 investigation found PETA gave more than $45,000 to the "support committee" of Rodney Coronado with the Animal Liberation Front. Coronado has been convicted of arson for a 1992 fire at Michigan State University that destroyed decades worth of mink research.

Coronado makes no apologies for his actions. "I think that we need to destroy bulldozers that are destroying the desert, or machinery that is destroying the last old growth forests of our country, and these are actions that are every bit as similar by those taken by patriots at the Boston Tea Party."

In the government's sentencing brief, PETA members, including founder Ingrid Newkirk, were tied to the Coronado fire and other raids he planned but didn't get the chance to carry out, although no one from PETA was ever prosecuted.

In 2001, PETA made a $1,500 donation to a group called the "Earth Liberation Front," which has claimed responsibility for fires set to luxury apartments, homes and SUVs in southern California. The FBI calls the Earth Liberation Front, and the Animal Liberation Front, the group Coronado was working for, "domestic terrorist" organizations, responsible for more than 600 crimes, and $43 million in damage since 1996.

PETA says it does not carry out violent attacks, but it does encourage them. Here's what PETA's campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich had to say during a speech to an animal right's convention a couple of years ago:

"I think it would be a great thing if, you know, all of these fast-food outlets and these slaughterhouses and these laboratories and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it's perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows, and you know everything else along the line. Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it."

PETA's own campaigns may not be criminal, but they are far from harmless. Last year, they handed out leaflets with violent graphics and headlines like "Your Mommy Kills Animals" to children outside a holiday performance in Boston. And the group still maintains a website touting its "Holocaust On Your Plate" campaign, which compares the murder of Jews in Nazi Germany to the murder of livestock.

It's a comparison that rankles Holocaust survivor Ernie Marx. "The Holocaust is mine. The Holocaust belongs to the survivors."

Marx, who spent time in Dachau, a Nazi concentration camp where thousands of Jews were gased and creamated, calls the ad ignorant. "Chickens are killed for a reason; six million people were killed for no reason. To compare the Holocaust to chicken killing is ridiculous."

PETA, which runs to the media every time it has shocking video, ran from this story, refusing to be interviewed because it included criticism from the Center for Consumer Freedom. In an email, a spokeswoman writes: "CCF has an agenda we aren't interested in helping them publicize."

That's no surprise to Martosko. "PETA loves to raise a stink when it thinks it can control the press," he says, "but now, when the heat's on them, as soon as someone wants to come out and say PETA is not as ethical as it appears, the fact that they would run from the spotlight should tell you an awful lot about what they are about."

KFC, stung by all the recent bad publicity, also declined to comment on our investigation. But Yum! Brands CEO David Novak knows the subject well. He's had fake blood thrown on him by a PETA member, and PETA even protested Novak at his own church.

Because of their ties to the groups like the ELF and ALF PETA is in danger of losing its tax exempt status, which would be a huge blow. It receives more than $13 million a year in donations.

PETA has successfully forced McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy's to change their practices, and the groups says it won't stop protesting KFC until the fast-food giant changes the way it does things as well.

Britney, PETA Let the Fur Fly

by Mark Armstrong

Dec 14, 2001, 2:30 PM PT

Just when you thought Britney Spears and PETA had stopped their catfighting, along comes claims that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may not have been so ethical in their treatment of Spears.

The pop thongbird's publicists are fuming at the animal-rights group over a report in the New York Post implying Spears was planning to get nekkid for an anti-fur photo shoot.

Well, wipe that drool from your mouth, perverts. It ain't happening. Turns out Spears was just planning to give PETA a regular, clothed photo (which, granted, isn't usually that far from naked). And now, after the media whirlwind, she says she's not going to do anything for the group.

"Notwithstanding the meaningful work that PETA does, we cannot be involved with an organization that would distort the truth," Spears' publicist told Reuters, adding that Britney "still feels strongly about animal rights" and would "find another organization to be involved with."

For its part, PETA denied it ever told the Post that Spears was actually stripping down. Wednesday's Page Six report (with the typically understated Post headline: "Britney strips for fur-fighters") suggested that Spears would be posing for PETA's ongoing "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign. Celebs to go native for the campaign have included Pamela Anderson, Kim Basinger, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Melissa Etheridge.

Group spokesman Dan Mathews told the Post that Spears' involvement was "exciting" and setting "a great example."

"We never said she was doing anything naked," Mathews says. "It was all innuendo--in one article. I can understand why it would freak her people out, although I think her representative probably overreacted."

Still, Mathews hopes there are no hard feelings, saying the PETA people remain "big fans" of the 20-year-old singer. In fact, Spears can still be seen donning pleather on PETA's anti-leather Website pleatheryourself.com.

On the bright side, Mathews said, "We're thrilled the entire world knows that Britney is an anti-fur animal advocate."

This isn't the first time PETA and Britney have hissed at each other. In September, the group publicly complained over her use of live cheetahs and a snake during her performance of "I'm a Slave 4 U" at the MTV Video Music Awards.

But lately, PETA's clothes-shedding activities have riled up more than just Britney. On Monday, the superintendent of schools in Los Angeles abruptly cancelled a planned unveiling of actress Dominique Swain's "I'd rather go naked" poster at Venice High School, after getting a look at exactly what was being unveiled.

Swain, the 21-year-old star of Lolita and the forthcoming Pumpkin, poses in the photo completely naked (albeit with crucial bits and pieces hidden) while standing in front of a chalkboard and repeatedly writing, "I'd rather go naked than wear fur."

The PETA-Britney Catfight

by Josh Grossberg

Sep 5, 2001, 10:00 AM PT

Maul me, baby, one more time?

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is growling at Britney Spears and her plan to use four live cheetahs for her appearance Thursday at MTV's Video Music Awards in New York.

The New York Post reports the spotted cats are supposedly going to be prowling the stage around the scantily-clad popster (and self-proclaimed virgin) as she wails her new hip-hop-flavored tune, "I'm A Slave 4 U," while simulating an orgasm on stage à la Madonna.

While it won't be quite as dramatic as Russell Crowe fending off those striped felines in Gladiator, and the cheetahs won't be harmed (unless you count Britney's singing), PETA believes the use of wild animals for stage trickery is cruel.

To that end, the group sent a letter to the singer on Wednesday requesting she drop the big cats from her show.

"We're writing today in the hope that you'll open your heart to the plight of captive 'wild' animals caged and forced to tolerate bright lights, crowds and frightening levels of noise," writes PETA campaigns director Dan Matthews.

Matthews asks Spears to think about it from the feline's point of view.

"Cheetahs used in show business are often trained through intimidation and with such devices as electric shock prods and sticks. Whippings, beatings, and starvation are common methods used to break the spirit of free-roaming independent animals," he writes.

"Instead of crossing acres of land at night in their natural homelands, those cheetahs have no normal social or behavioral life and suffer terribly in the meager space they are allotted."

Matthews also reminds Spears that other pop stars have foregone the use of wild animals in their live shows, most notably Janet Jackson, who after prodding from PETA, opted not to use a black panther on her Rhythm Nation tour.

Spears' handlers have refused to comment on the letter or on the singer's MTV plans.

PETA does have one thing going for it, however: Britney is an animal lover who prefers wearing fake fur and pleather to the real deal.

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