PETA Ruffles Feathers ("Kentucky Fried Cruelty")

The front lines of a high-stakes food fight moved recently to a sidewalk in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, where young volunteers from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals tried to shock and disgust lunch-hour patrons.

There was a PETA intern dressed in a bloodied chicken costume, a 22-year-old with shocking pink hair and the word "VEGAN" tattooed across her chest in gothic lettering, and campaign coordinator Ben Goldsmith with a flat-screen television strapped to his chest.

"That bird is having its thigh sliced open while fully conscious," Goldsmith said, narrating a grisly video as KFC customer Tiffany Mueller looked on, gnawing on a piece of chicken.

As unorthodox as it may sound, the protest against KFC represents what has been a highly successful formula for PETA, an organization founded in 1980 that is perhaps best known for tactics such as throwing red paint on fur coats and comparing the slaughter of livestock to the Holocaust.

What makes the KFC campaign unique is that the chicken chain has refused to submit to PETA's demands, which include stopping the use of growth-enhancing antibiotics and using gas, rather than electric shocks and sharp knives, to kill chickens. As a result, company executives have been doused with fake blood, criticized by the likes of Pamela Anderson, Al Sharpton and the Dalai Lama, and continually subjected to the circuslike atmosphere of PETA protests at its restaurants.

In Ft. Wayne, Ind., for example, a PETA intern dressed in a chicken suit spent an hour-long protest in a wheelchair, going back and forth through a busy intersection. The "stunt boy" from local radio station "Wild 96.3" trailed the intern, holding out a bucket of chicken and asking, "Is this your brother or your aunt?"

[After successfully intimidating McDonald's in the early '90s] PETA responded with the "Murder King" campaign against Burger King and "Wicked Wendy's" protests against Wendy's hamburgers. Both chains eventually followed the lead of McDonald's.

Richard Berman, executive director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, an advocacy group funded by the food and restaurant industry, argued that PETA simply accelerated changes fast-food restaurants would have made anyway.

When PETA demands more costly changes, such as that KFC gas its chickens instead of stunning them, they are not nearly so successful, he said.

"I think they'll be screaming about it for a very long time," Berman said, adding that the campaign would not influence many consumers. "Pam Anderson as a spokesperson for anything that is thoughtful is a joke. I think PETA is largely seen as being a somewhat bizarre organization."

On a blazing afternoon in Lansing, Ben Goldsmith and his colleagues are doing their best to bend the minds of KFC customers. Two PETA interns take turns wearing the chicken suit, which can be stifling in the summer heat.

Goldsmith called local PETA members ahead of time, so in Lansing and Ft. Wayne, about a half-dozen joined the protest to pass out literature or hold up signs that said "Beaks Cut Off," "Scalded Alive" or "KFC Tortures Chickens."

The protests elicited both honks of support and angry shouts from passing cars, from "Get a Life!" to "Eat Meat!"

Because Goldsmith also called local media, including talk radio, the protests drew people who wanted simply to register disdain for PETA.

"I like chicken, but I came out here primarily for PETA," said Tony Bair, a 56-year-old architect in Lansing who is particularly incensed by PETA's opposition to using animals in medical research.

"When they place higher value on a lab rat than a child, I have a problem with that," he said. "If killing 1,000 rabbits in a lab gives a cure that saves one child, that's a good trade to me."

But the protesters also scored some successes, and in Ft. Wayne when Goldsmith showed his video to three KFC customers, they groaned and grimaced during the graphic parts.

"When there's world peace, we can worry about chickens," said 19-year-old Alan McGee.

"in Newkirk's own words -- "complete press sluts."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
501 Front Street, Norfolk, VA 23510
Phone 757-622-7382

Fax 757-622-0457

info@peta-online.org

Overview

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been described as "by far the most successful radical organization in America." The key word is radical. PETA seeks "total animal liberation," according to its president and co-founder, Ingrid Newkirk. That means no meat or dairy, of course; but it also means no aquariums, no circuses, no hunting or fishing, no fur or leather, and no medical research using animals. PETA is even opposed to the use of seeing-eye dogs.

Amidst the dozens of animal rights organizations, PETA occupies the niche of -- in Newkirk's own words -- "complete press sluts." Endlessly seeking media exposure, PETA sends out dozens of press releases every week.

In the past, PETA has handled the press for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a violent, underground group of fanatics who plant firebombs in restaurants, destroy butcher shops, and torch research labs. The FBI considers ALF among America's most active and prolific terrorist groups, but PETA compares it to the Underground Railroad and the French Resistance. More than 20 years after its inception, PETA continues to hire convicted ALF militants and funds their legal defense. In at least one case, court records show that Ingrid Newkirk herself was involved in an ALF arson.

PETA has even begun to adopt the tactics of an ALF offshoot known as SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty). This group is notorious for taking protests outside the boardroom and into the living room, attacking their targets at their homes.

In 2001, three masked SHAC members brutally bludgeoned a medical researcher outside his home in England. The lead attacker was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. A few months later, SHAC attacked another research industry employee on his doorstep with a chemical spray to his eyes, leaving him temporarily blinded and writhing in pain. The following year, Newkirk was asked her opinion of SHAC in the Boston Herald. Her response? "More power to SHAC if they can get someone's attention."

By 2003, PETA activists had adopted SHAC's protest techniques, stalking and harassing fast-food restaurant executives. Not content to write letters and picket the chain restaurant's offices, PETA's leaders met with the CEO's pastor, and visited his country club and the manager of one of his favorite restaurants. PETA activists, one dressed in a chicken suit, even protested at the church of two executives, annoying worshipers by driving a truck with giant screens of slaughterhouse video back and forth along the street.

In an effort to win more media exposure, PETA has adopted the counter-intuitive tactic of buying stock in restaurant and food companies that serve and sell meat. After buying just enough shares to qualify, PETA's pattern is to introduce shareholder resolutions that would require animal-rights-oriented practices in the way animals are handled and slaughtered.

PETA's goal as a shareholder, of course, is not to turn a profit. Its resolutions, if passed, would increase the cost of doing business and lower the value of everyone's investment. The group has claimed that it's "not trying to remove meat from the menu." But with a stated long-term goal of "total animal liberation," pushing for animal-welfare changes is just a first step. PETA's short-term goals are to economically cripple these companies, force them to increase the retail price of meat, and nudge consumers toward eating less of it.

PETA collected almost $29 million in donations in 2004 alone, but few donors understand exactly where their money is going. During the past ten years, PETA has spent four times as much on criminals and their legal defense than it has on shelters, spay-neuter programs, and other efforts that actually help animals.

* PETA is not an animal welfare organization.

PETA spends less than one percent of its multi-million dollar budget actually helping animals. The group euthanized (killed) more than 1,900 animals in 2003 alone -- that's over 85 percent of the animals it received. In fact, from July 1998 through the end of 2003, PETA killed over 10,000 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals" at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That's more than five animals every day. On its 2002 federal income-tax return, PETA claimed a $9,370 expense for a giant walk-in freezer, the kind most people use as a meat locker or for ice-cream storage. But animal-rights activists don't eat meat or dairy foods. So far, the group hasn't confirmed the obvious -- that it's using the appliance to store the bodies of its victims.

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