“PEOPLE FOR THE

ETHICAL TREATMENT OF
ANIMALS“

Student:

Klaudija Dmitrović
“Animals are not ours to eat,
wear, experiment on, or use
for entertainment.“
 WHAT IS THE “PETA“
 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the
largest animal rights organization in the world, with more
than 2 million members and supporters.
 PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations,
research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity
involvement, and protest campaigns.


 PRESIDENT OF “PETA“
 Newkirk was born in England in 1949 and raised in
Hertfordshire, and later New Delhi, India, where her father—a
navigational engineer—was stationed. Newkirk, now an
atheist, was educated in a convent, the only British girl there.
She moved to the United States as a teenager, first studying
to become a stockbroker, but after taking some abandoned
kittens to a shelter in 1969, and appalled by the conditions she
found there, she chose a career in animal protection instead.
 PHILOSOPHY AND ACTIVISM
 PETA writes that it is an animal rights organization, and as such it
rejects speciesism and the idea of animals as property, and opposes
the use of animals in any form: as food, clothing, entertainment, or as
research subjects.One oft-cited quote of Newkirk's is: "When it comes
to feelings like hunger, pain, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."
The group has been criticized by other animal rights advocates for its
willingness to work with industries that use animals—a position many
animal rights advocates find problematic. Newkirk rejects the
criticism, and has said of the group that it is here to hold the radical
line.
 UNDERCOVER
INVESTIGATIONS
 PETA sends its staff undercover into research laboratories, factory
farms, and circuses to document the treatment of animals,
requiring them to spend many months as employees of the facility,
making copies of documents and wearing hidden cameras. By 2007,
it had conducted 75 such investigations. It has also produced videos
based on material collected during ALF raids. Some investigations
have led to lawsuits or government action against the companies or
universities. PETA itself faced legal action in April 2007 after the
owners of a chinchilla ranch in Michigan complained about an
undercover inquiry there, but the judge ruled in PETA's favor that
undercover investigations can be legitimate.
COMPAIGNS AND CONSUMER
BOYCOTS
 The organization is known for its aggressive media campaigns,
combined with a solid base of celebrity support—Pamela Anderson,
Drew Barrymore, Alec Baldwin, John Gielgud, Bill Maher, Stella
McCartney, and Alicia Silverstone have all appeared in PETA ads.
Every week, Newkirk holds what The New Yorker calls a war council,
with two dozen of her top strategists gathered round a square table
in the PETA conference room, no suggestion considered too
outrageous. PETA also gives a yearly prize, called the Proggy Award
(for "progress"), to individuals or organizations dedicated to animal
welfare or who distinguish themselves through their efforts within
the area of animal welfare.
 A MESSAGE FROM PETA'S
PRESIDENT
Friends,

I've read some fine and important books in my time, but one book changed
my life, and that is Animal Liberation. I had grown up appalled by cruelty to
animals and firmly believed in treating animals kindly, but I still thought it
was OK to use them, meaning give them big cages, for example, and, if
they "have" to be killed, killing them as painlessly as possible.
When I read Animal Liberation, I realized that in my heart I believed something far
deeper than that. I believed what Dr. Singer advocated—that we needed a radical
new approach, a new way of viewing animals. Instead of seeing all the other
species on Earth as ours to convert into hamburgers, handbags, living burglar
alarms, amusements, test tubes with whiskers, and so on, we need to respect them
as fellow beings, as other individuals and families and tribes who have the same
basic interests in experiencing joy and love and living without needless pain and
harassment as we do.
To me, Dr. Singer's logic was impeccable: If we care about animals, shouldn't we
care enough about them to leave them in peace? Animal Liberation, more than
anything else, gave me the impetus to start PETA. I hope you get as much out of it
as I did.
Kind regards,
Ingrid E. Newkirk, President
PETA
 Ingrid Newkirk

President of PETA