Yeah, so a lot of people have been kind of offended by my views on PETA as late.  So, I felt the need to just write my own little conglomeration of facts in this journal.  For the record, I work at a pet store, volunteer at an animal shelter, and have worked at pretty much every store in the area.  On top of that, I train dogs for people, and maintain 17 fishtanks and ponds.  Depending on how you look at it, that either makes me a massive abuser of animal rights and basicially a slave trader or it makes me someone who has first hand experience with a practical method of providing for animal rights.  So yes, for those of you who have never heard of PETA, let me just clue everyone in and get us all on the same page:

• According to newsweek, PETA (or people for the ethical treatment of animals) is "by far the most successful radical organization in America."
• According to its former president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk, PETA seeks "total animal liberation"
• PETA has publicly stated that if they could they would make it ellegal to own pets in America and that they believe this is the lesser evil compared to letting the pet trade continue
• They are against fishing
• They are against aquariums
• Medicial research using animals is a big no-no
• PETA believes leather and fur are wrong

So yeah, that is probably the extent of what the public knows about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.  Here are seven things you likely didn't know:

1. PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group’s overall goal as “total animal liberation.” This means no meat, no milk, no zoos, no circuses, no wool, no leather, no hunting, no fishing, and no pets (not even seeing-eye dogs). PETA is also against all medical research that requires the use of animals.
2. Despite its constant moralizing about the “unethical” treatment of animals by restaurant owners, grocers, farmers, scientists, anglers, and countless other Americans, PETA has killed over 10,000 dogs and cats at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. During 2003, PETA put to death over 85 percent of the animals it collected from members of the public.
3. PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) activist convicted of burning down a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing recommendation, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid Newkirk in that crime. And PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich told an animal rights convention in 2001 that “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring about animal liberation.”
4. PETA activists regularly target children as young as six years old (hey, they have standards too) with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda, often waiting outside their schools to intercept them as they walk to and from class-without notifying parents. One piece of kid-targeted PETA literature tells small children: “Your Mommy Kills Animals!” PETA brags that its messages reach over 2 million children every year, including thousands reached by e-mail without the permission of their parents. One PETA vice president told the Fox News Channel’s audience: “Our campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will be.”
5. PETA has used a related organization, the PETA Foundation, to fund the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a deceptive animal rights group that promotes itself as an unbiased source of medical and nutritional information. PCRM's president also serves as president of the PETA Foundation.
6. PETA runs campaigns seemingly calculated to offend religious believers. One entire PETA website is devoted to the claim-despite ample evidence to the contrary-that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards taunt Christians with the message that hogs “died for their sins.” PETA insists, contrary to centuries of rabbinical teaching, that the Jewish ritual of kosher slaughter shouldn't be allowed. And its infamous “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign crassly compares the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide with farm animals.
7. PETA has repeatedly attacked research foundations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, because they support animal-based research that might uncover cures for birth defects and life-threatening diseases. PETA president Ingrid Newkirk has said that “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we would be against it.”

The vast majority of all of that is information obtained directly from PETA literature.  Through my time at the pet trade I have seen a great deal of wrongs on both sides.  In fact, PETA's boycot of PETCO was probably the most justified thing I could think of.  In my time there I saw animals thrown against walls for not cooperating, inhumane euthanasia "tie em in a bag and leave em" methods, etc.  Their reptiles aren't cared for, and the small animal cages are overcrowded.  PETA recognised this, but in exchange for a moratorium on the sale of large macaws, and a large cash settlement, they chose to ignore this.  Further, because of their refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the fish trade, PETA hasn't asked any store to set standards of humane care or euthanasia for fish.  PETA workers have done some of the dumbest things that I have seen personally.  They have "rescued" birds by buying them, only to not be able to afford proper avian vetrinary care and have the bird euthanised.  They often damage pet stores in an effort to take away our profits, but instead of doing that these issues tend to simply damage our ability to properly care for the animals.  PETA's "animal rights" determination is shown to be false by their massive executions of animals, and their lack of willingness to negotiate with petstores.

Their support of the animal liberation front is more sickening, as this branch of petas movement is known for assasinationg animals and poisoning whole fish systems to "force profit loss" in companies who are part of the pet trade.

Major petstore chains have their shortcomings.  But they try their hardest, and small sellers, like myself, usually look for the most ethicial sources of their livestock, such as www.liveaquaria.com .  It is hard to understand PETA's motivation when they are busy slaughtering their own animals.

On its 2002 federal income-tax return, PETA claimed a $9,370 write-off 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.

In 2000, when the Associated Press first noted PETA's Kervorkian-esque tendencies, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk complained that actually taking care of animals costs more than killing them. "We could become a no-kill shelter immediately," she admitted.

A chart follows this post with the amount of executions performed by PETA:

Year	Received†	Adopted	Killed	Transferred	% Killed	% Adopted
2003	2,224	312	1,911	1	85.9	14.0
2002	2,680	382	2,298	2	85.7	14.3
2001	2,685	703	1,944	14	72.4	26.2
2000	2,684	624	2,029	28	75.6	23.2
1999	1,805	386	1,328	91	73.6	21.4
* 1998	943	133	685	125	72.6	14.1
Total	13,021	2540	10,195	261	78.3	19.5
* figures represent the second half of 1998 only † other than spay/neuter animals » skeptical? click here to see the proof

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the above picture shows PETA contributing to the defense fund of a convicted animal rights terrorist

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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals provides aid and comfort for the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). The two groups are responsible for more than 600 crimes since 1996, causing (by a very conservative FBI estimate) more than $43 million in damage. ALF’s “press office” brags that in 2002, the two groups committed “100 illegal direct actions” -- like blowing up SUVs, destroying the brakes on seafood delivery trucks, and planting firebombs in restaurants.

The FBI calls ALF and ELF the nation’s “most serious domestic terrorism threat.” Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s “vegan campaign director” and third-in-command, didn’t seem to care when he addressed the Animal Rights 2001 convention in Virginia, telling a crowd of over 1,000 activists that “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring about animal liberation.”

“It would be great,” he added, “if all the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories and the banks who fund them exploded tomorrow.”

PETA’s connections to ALF and ELF are indisputable. “We did it, we did it. We gave $1,500 to the ELF for a specific program,” PETA’s Lisa Lange admitted on the Fox News Channel. PETA has offered no fewer than eight different explanations of what the “specific program” was, but law enforcement leaders have noted that since the Earth Liberation Front is a criminal enterprise, it has absolutely no legal “programs” of any kind.

For instance, in 2003, ELF set fire to an unfinished, 200 unit condominium complex near San Diego. The arson caused $50 million in damage, and according to a San Diego Fire Captain: “It could have killed someone.” ELF left its calling card in the form of a twelve foot sign that read: “If you build it -- we will burn it -- the ELF’s are mad.”

PETA also has given $2,000 to David Wilson, then a national ALF “spokesperson.” The group paid $27,000 for the legal defense of Roger Troen, who was arrested for taking part in an October 1986 burglary and arson at the University of Oregon. It gave $7,500 to Fran Stephanie Trutt, who tried to murder the president of a medical laboratory. It gave $5,000 to Josh Harper, who attacked Native Americans on a whale hunt by throwing smoke bombs, shooting flares, and spraying their faces with chemical fire extinguishers. All of these monies were paid out of tax-exempt funds, the same pot of money constantly enlarged by donations from an unsuspecting general public.

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk is also an acknowledged financial supporter of a publication called No Compromise. This periodical operates on behalf of the radicals of ALF, and often publishes underground “communiqués” and calls to arms from ALF leaders.

Most ominously, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk was involved in the multi-million-dollar arson at Michigan State University that resulted in a 57-month prison term for Animal Liberation Front bomber Rodney Coronado. At Coronado’s sentencing hearing, U.S. Attorney Michael Dettmer said that PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk arranged ahead of time to have Coronado send her a pair of FedEx packages from Michigan -- one on the day before he burned the lab down, and the other shortly afterward.

The first FedEx, according to the Sentencing Memorandum, was delivered to a woman named Maria Blanton, “a longtime PETA member who had agreed to accept the first Federal Express package from Coronado after being asked to do so by Ingrid Newkirk.” The FBI intercepted the second package, which had been sent to the same address. It contained documents that Coronado stole before lighting his firebombs, as well as “a videotape of the perpetrator of the MSU crime, disguised in a ski mask.” Since Coronado was convicted of the arson, we now know that he himself was that masked man. “Significantly,” wrote U.S. Attorney Dettmer, “Newkirk had arranged to have the package delivered to her days before the MSU arson occurred.” (emphasis in the original)

A search warrant executed at Blanton’s home turned up evidence that PETA’s other co-founder, Alex Pacheco, had also been planning burglaries and break-ins along with Rodney Coronado. The feds seized “surveillance logs; code names for Coronado, Pacheco, and others; burglary tools; two-way radios; night vision goggles; [and] phony identification for Coronado and Pacheco.”

Shortly after Coronado’s arrest, PETA gave $45,200 to his “support committee” and “loaned” $25,000 to his father (the loan was never repaid and PETA hasn’t complained). Now free from jail, with an expired parole, and with the benefit of an expired Statute of Limitations on his many earlier arsons (to which he readily confesses in his standard stump speech), Coronado stood before a crowd of hundreds of young people at American University in January 2003 and demonstrated how to turn a milk jug into a bomb. A few days later, ALF criminals tried to burn down a McDonald’s restaurant in Chico, California, using a firebomb that matched Coronado’s recipe.

The following month, Ingrid Newkirk told ABC News that Rodney Coronado is “a fine young man.”

Newkirk wrote a book called Free the Animals! The Untold Story of the U.S. Animal Liberation Front and Its Founder, ‘Valerie.’ In it she writes: “The ALF has, over the years, trusted People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to receive copies of the evidence of wrongdoing … I have also become somewhat used to jumping on a plane with copies of freshly purloined documents and hurriedly calling news conferences to discuss the ALF’s findings.” Indeed, PETA has held such press conferences just hours after ALF arsons and other break-ins.

PETA has published a leaflet called “Animal Liberation Front: the Army of the Kind.” In another pamphlet, “Activism and the Law,” PETA openly offers advice on “burning a laboratory building.”

“I will be the last person to condemn ALF,” says Newkirk. And in another interview: “I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren’t all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I’d light a match.” In ALF’s publication Bite Back (yes, this terrorist group has a newsletter), Newkirk has said: “You can’t have all politeness and patience, all potlucks and epistles … Some people will never budge unless [they are] pushed to budge.”

Perhaps Newkirk’s most telling comment, though, came in a 2002 U.S. News & World Report feature. “Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective,” she admitted. “We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works.”

I hate PETA, they did an ad campaign using the victims of Robert Pickton (the dude who killed 69 prostitutes in Vancouver), people complained and they had to take it downl. Then they post on theeir website that me and my buds (SEX [RFESSIONALS OF CANADA) support them, that's a lie we've never even spoken to them! heres the link where they use our name:http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:84hi4kvbZIgJ:www.goveg.com/feat/a-dinnertable.html+%22sex+professionals+of+canada%22+peta&hl=en

PETA must be crazy or something. I can't believe their arrogance. "Your mommy kills animals"!! What a thing to say to kids!

Yeah, I wish I could find the pistures... It has the mom going to a kitchen and stabbing a rabbit and disemboweling it in front of the kids... I can't imagine how traumatic that'd be.