Animal activists PETA raise corporate America's ire

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Animal activists PETA raise corporate America's ire

Tue 12 Jul 2005 7:59 AM ET

By Carey Gillam

 

NORFOLK, Va.,, July 12 (Reuters) - With a cat snoozing

on her desk and clad in a rumpled " Love Animals "

T-shirt, Ingrid Newkirk hardly looks like a woman who

could make corporate titans tremble.

 

As the founder and the passionate force behind People

for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Newkirk says her

organization is made up simply of " kind people " who

want only to end animal abuse and exploitation.

 

But try telling that to the corporate retail and food

giants who have seen -- and felt -- PETA's claws.

 

Using tactics that sometime make even avid animal

lovers squirm, and backed by nearly $30 million yearly

in private contributions, PETA has become known

worldwide as a radical but formidable foe of big

retailers and food companies.

 

At a May protest at a KFC restaurant, also known as

Kentucky Fried Chicken, PETA protesters dressed as

Grim Reapers and carried a coffin with a human-sized

chicken in it while decrying the fast food giant for

" live scalding and painful debeaking " of the chickens

it serves.

 

PETA has also run " McCruelty, " " MurderKing " and

" WickedWendy's " campaigns to assail fast food chains

for the way animals used in their products are

treated. The group has picketed the homes of

executives, dispatched undercover investigators to

videotape animal mistreatment at laboratories and on

farms and run stomach-turning ad campaigns with bloody

images of abuse and slaughter.

 

" Sometimes sadly, you have to look quite scary and

carry a big stick, " Newkirk says of the tactics.

 

Industry leaders say the campaigns are embarrassing

but do little to deter customers. But few deny PETA

campaigns were the catalysts behind a range of animal

welfare reforms made in recent years by McDonald's

Corp. <MCD.N>, privately held Burger King Corp. and

Wendy's International Inc. <WEN.N>.

 

" They've got $29 million a year, you can do a lot of

massaging of public opinion with that kind of money, "

said Rick Berman, executive director of the Center for

Consumer Freedom, whose membership includes restaurant

and food companies. " PETA is very good at attacking. "

 

HOW TO KILL A CHICKEN

 

This summer, as PETA celebrates 25 years of largely

successful campaigns, the group has set its sights on

one of its toughest challenges yet as it seeks

sweeping change in the $29 billion U.S. poultry

industry.

 

PETA wants the estimated 9 billion chickens

slaughtered each year in the United States to first

receive a mixture of gas and oxygen to make them

unconscious, a method used in Europe, but one that

would require costly overhauls of U.S. poultry

slaughterhouses.

 

Current U.S. systems shackle live chickens, hang them

upside down and run them through electrified baths to

stun them before their throats are slit and they are

put into scalding defeathering tanks. PETA cited USDA

reports as evidence that millions of chickens annually

are conscious through most if not all of the process.

 

" I don't understand how anyone with a conscience can

learn about the horrifically cruel conditions for

chicken slaughter and not want to do anything about

it, " said PETA campaign director Bruce Friedrich.

 

Under pressure from PETA, McDonald's issued a report

on June 30 saying it was studying the matter.

Restaurant operator Applebee's International Inc.

<APPB.N> is also confronting the issue, thanks to

PETA.

 

National Chicken Council spokesman Richard Lobb said

the current slaughter system is both " effective and

humane, " and PETA's latest reform requests are efforts

to drive up costs and put chicken companies out of

business.

 

" They're just trying to come up with things that will

be costly for food companies as part of their overall

desire to move to a strictly vegan world, " Lobb said.

 

Because of the issue, KFC, a subsidiary of YUM! Brands

Inc., <YUM.N> of Louisville, Kentucky, and one of the

world's largest fast-food purveyors of chickens, is

emerging as one of PETA's staunchest foes.

 

Having seen PETA protesters smear fake blood on its

restaurant walls and smear the company name with gory

undercover videos of alleged abuse at its suppliers,

KFC officials have dubbed PETA's actions " corporate

terrorism " and have cut off communications with PETA

representatives.

 

KFC officials are loathe to discuss anything having to

do with PETA publicly. But the Center for Consumer

Freedom is backing KFC and its brethren and is running

anti-PETA ads, including a billboard in New York's

Times Square.

 

" We are taking the fight to PETA, " said Berman.

" They've hit a roadblock with the chicken industry. "

Critics accuse PETA of lying and other misdeeds

including a range of deceit and misbehavior, including

financially aiding acts of violence and unfairly

claiming tax-exempt status

 

PIT BULLS

 

PETA officials say they have no intention of letting

up on KFC, after staging 8,000 protests against the

company so far.

 

Indeed, PETA's highly successful track record shows

that some campaigns run for years, the longest, which

put an animal trainer in Las Vegas out of business,

lasted 16 years, according to Newkirk.

 

Other notches in PETA's belt include persuading

General Motors <GM.N> to stop using animals in crash

tests, convincing Abercrombie & Fitch <ANF.N> and J.

Crew Group Inc. clothing retailers to boycott

Australian wool and pressuring Revlon <REV.N>, Avon

Products Inc. <AVP.N> and more than 500 other cosmetic

companies to stop animal testing.

 

Over the 25 years since PETA was founded in Newkirk's

suburban Maryland home, the organization has grown to

include more than 800,000 members and about 200

employees with offices in the United Kingdom, India,

Germany, and the Netherlands.

 

Wealthy benefactors help fund sophisticated

multi-faceted marketing and secret investigations.

 

Stray animals are given homes in PETA's headquarters,

and cat-sized holes are cut into the bottoms of many

office doors so the animals can move about freely.

 

Newkirk says PETA's ultimate goal is a world where

humans don't eat, wear or exploit animals.

 

" We are the pit bulls of animal protection, " Newkirk

said in a recent interview. " Don't mess with us. We

will win. "

 

© Reuters 2005. .

 

 

GREATNESS OF NATION AND ITS MORAL PROGRESS

CAN BE JUDGED BY THE WAY ITS ANIMALS ARE TREATED- M.K GANDHI.

STOP HUMAN AND ANIMAL SUFFERING - GO VEGAN

I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything but still I can do

something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

Helen Keller 1880 - 1968

 

 

 

 

 

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