44 Facts About PETA

PETA's moved to the United States as a teenager, first studying to become a stockbroker, but after taking some abandoned kittens to an animal shelter in 1969 and being appalled by the conditions that she found there, she chose a career in animal protection instead.

PETA's became an animal-protection officer for Montgomery County, Maryland, and then the District of Columbia's first woman poundmaster.

PETA volunteered at the shelter where she worked, and they fell in love and began living together.

PETA then used restraint, electric shock, and withholding of food and water to force the monkeys to use the deafferented parts of their bodies.

PETA was based in Rockville, Maryland, until 1996, when it moved to Norfolk, Virginia.

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PETA is an animal rights organization that opposes speciesism, and the abuse of animals in any way, such as for food, clothing, entertainment, or research.

PETA has been criticized for their policy of euthanasing almost all animals that come into their Virginia shelter.

PETA gives an annual prize, called the Proggy Award, to individuals or organizations dedicated to animal welfare or who distinguish themselves through their efforts within the area of animal welfare.

McDonald's and Wendy's introduced vegetarian options after PETA targeted them; and Polo Ralph Lauren said it would no longer use fur.

The New Yorker writes that PETA activists have crawled through the streets of Paris wearing leg-hold traps and thrown around money soaked in fake blood at the International Fur Fair.

In October 2004, PETA launched a boycott against the Australian wool industry, leading some clothing retailers to ban products using Australian wool from their stores.

In 2011, PETA named five orcas as plaintiffs and sued SeaWorld over the animals' captivity, seeking their protection under the Thirteenth Amendment.

PETA's work has drawn the ire of some feminists who argue that the organization sacrifices women's rights to press its agenda.

PETA has approached cities to pressure them to change their names, including Fishkill, New York in 1996, Hamburg, New York in 2003, and Commerce City, Colorado in 2007.

PETA sends its staff undercover into industries and other facilities that use animals to document the alleged abuse of animals.

PETA calls their shelter in Norfolk, Virginia a "shelter of last resort", claiming they only receive old, sick, injured, badly behaved, and otherwise unadoptable animals.

Two PETA employees were acquitted in 2007 of cruelty to animals after at least 80 euthanized animals were left in dumpsters in a shopping center in Ahoskie, North Carolina, over the course of a month in 2005; the two employees were seen leaving behind 18 dead animals, and 13 more were found inside their van.

PETA's stated that the dumping of animals did not follow PETA's policy.

In November 2014, a resident of Accomack County, Virginia, produced video evidence that two workers in a van marked with a PETA logo had entered his property in a trailer park and taken his dog, who was then euthanized.

PETA reported the incident to the police, who identified and charged two PETA workers, but the charges were later dropped by the commonwealth attorney on the grounds that it was not possible to prove criminal intent.

The state later determined that PETA had violated state law by failing to ensure that the Chihuahua, who was not wearing a collar or tag, was properly identified and for failing to keep the dog alive for five days before euthanizing the animal.

In 2015, PETA sued British nature photographer David Slater in US court as a next friend for a wild macaque monkey, whom they named Naruto.

PETA argued that the monkey was entitled to the copyright of a selfie photo it had taken while handling Slater's camera, and naming themselves to be the administrator of any copyright revenue.

PETA uses these games to spread attention about animal rights and animal welfare and to advocate vegetarian and vegan diets.

In March 2020, PETA issued a "Vegan Guide to Animal Crossing" for the video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

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Each year, PETA selects a "Person of the Year" who has helped advance the cause of animal rights.

In 2017, PETA chose a nonhuman recipient, Naruto, a monkey unaware of his role in a copyright case.

PETA opposes animal testing—whether toxicity testing, basic or applied research, or for education and training—on both moral and practical grounds.

In 2009, PETA members dressed up in Ku Klux Klan robes and protested at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show where they passed out brochures implying the Klan and American Kennel Club have the same goal of "pure bloodlines".

In 2008 and in 2014, PETA conducted an advertising campaign linking milk with autism.

When pressed, PETA cited two scientific papers, one from 1995 and one from 2002 using very small samplings of children, and neither showed a correlation nor a causation between milk and autism.

In 2017, British food writer, journalist and hunger relief activist Jack Monroe, demanded PETA remove their recipes from their website "with immediate effect coz I wrote them with my autism".

PETA has been critical of Australian wildlife expert and zookeeper Steve Irwin.

In 2019, PETA criticized Google for creating a slideshow Google Doodle of Steve Irwin posthumously honoring his 57th birthday.

PETA started a Twitter campaign against Irwin, with several tweets criticizing Google for forwarding a dangerous message, and wrote that Irwin was killed while harassing a ray and that he forced animals to perform.

PETA India was founded in 2000 and is based in Mumbai, India.

PETA India put up billboards prior to a 2020 annual religious event Eid al-Adha where animals are ritualistically slaughtered.

In July 2020, PETA put up billboards saying "This Rakshabandhan, protect me: Go leather-free".

PETA sued, claiming trademark violation, and won the suit in 2001; the domain is currently owned by PETA.

PETA later surrendered the domains under threat of similar legal action over trademark infringement.

Failure of PETA to condemn the Animal Liberation Front is a common complaint by other animal rights activists and groups.

Robert Garner of the University of Leicester has written that PETA has shaken up the animal rights movement, setting up new groups and radicalizing old ones.

Gary Francione, professor of law at Rutgers Law School and a proponent of abolitionism, says that PETA is not an animal rights group because of their willingness to work with industries that use animals to achieve incremental change.

Francione wrote that PETA initially set up independent chapters around the United States, but closed them in favor of a top-down, centralized organization, which not only consolidated decision-making power, but centralized donations.