Seafood Archives - PETA Kills Animals

PETA’s Death Toll Nears 30,000 Pets

February 7, 2013 1:37 pm Comments Off

Since at least 1998, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has operated a pet “shelter” — more than the misnamed Humane Society of the United States can claim. Unfortunately the dogs and cats that are taken into PETA’s shelter are usually killed. And those that were sheltered in 2012 are no exception: According to Virginia state regulatory filings, PETA — the group that preaches “total animal liberation” and that would ban bacon, butter, and Beyonce’s Big Game halftime show — killed 89.4 percent of the dogs and cats it took into its shelter.

The 1,647 cats and dogs PETA employees killed last year bring the animal rights group’s total body count to 29,398 since 1998. PETA has committed this slaughter despite the fact that the group’s president, Ingrid Newkirk, has claimed that “We could become a no-kill shelter immediately.” The self-described “press sluts” are more interested in lettuce-clad “lobster liberation” and offending Holocaust survivors than finding adoptive homes for the pets in its care. PETA even bought a walk-in freezer to store the bodies. That’s probably not the “forever home” most people would hope for.

What makes it scarier for pet owners is that this highest of hypocrisies isn’t completely out of character for PETA. Newkirk has said that in her ideal world, “companion animals [what the rest of us call “pets”] would be phased out.” A PETA staffer wrote in a Florida newspaper that the community should become “no-birth,” putting puppies and kittens on the path of the dodo bird. And — perhaps desperate not to be shamed by the performance of city dog catchers — PETA stood in the way of an ordinance to reduce pet killing in its hometown.

If you are outraged by PETA’s shameful, lethal behavior, please go to PETAKillsAnimals.com and sign our petition asking the Commonwealth of Virginia to strip the group of its status as an animal shelter.

Calling All Herbivores …

May 7, 2012 2:57 pm Comments Off

The New York Times recently posed a challenge to meat eaters: Defend eating animals. In typical Times fashion, the odds were stacked firmly against the forces of common sense and bacon grease: The judges included the godfather of the animal rights movement, Peter Singer; the “vegan before 6” (a.m.?) Mark Bittman; elitist Berkeley foodie Michael Pollan; and anti-meat writer Jonathan Safran Foer. Not exactly a jury of their peers.

So, with the self-respecting omnivores smelling a vegetarian rat, the “defense of meat” was left to—drum roll, please—Ingrid Newkirk of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, among others, who said she’d only eat meat grown in a petri dish. (Don’t call it pink slime.) She didn’t say whether she’d retract comparing humanity to a “cancer” or whether she regretted funding arsonists, but perhaps the Times will have other essay contests yet.

Of course, what the Times called “a powerful ethical critique” of omnivorous eating could better be called “nonsense.” The Times’ vegetarian public editor conceded that the essays were “pretty narrow” and acknowledged criticism from a former Stanford professor who reminded the urban elite that Inuit and grassland nomadic peoples need to eat meat to survive. And more simply, who really believes that animals are humanity’s equal? Certainly not the indigenous Americans who killed and ate them. Even PETA doesn’t seem to buy that line.

Not to mention that those “cruelty-free” vegetables come from farms from which a myriad of insects and invasive rodents have been driven out or killed. (That goes for the “organic” farms, too.) And some writers now suggest that plants can even “talk” or “howl.”

So, vegans, what separates “talking peas” from “food with a face”? We find this a very powerful critique, at least if you don’t think humans are “the biggest blight on the face of the earth.”

It’s Shark Week for the Animal-Rights Lobby

September 30, 2011 12:00 am Comments Off

PETA is known for many things, but good taste? Not one of them. The latest case in point: a billboard slated to go up in Sarasota that mocks a local man who was severely bitten in the thigh by a bull shark this week, landing him in intensive care. The ad features a shark gnawing on a human leg with the tagline, “Payback is hell. Go vegan.”

And no, it’s not a coincidence:

"Humans hook, spear, maim, and kill fish for 'sport' every day," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "The most dangerous predator of all is the one holding the fishing rod or standing at the 'all you can eat' seafood buffet." The organization said fish are aware of their surroundings, have complex nervous systems, and feel pain.

In a Skype interview, Campaign Director Ashley Byrne said, "We are very glad that Mr. Wickersham [the shark-attack victim] is going to be ok, but we do hope that this painful and frightening experience makes him think about the pain and fear that he’s causing to fish — and other fisherman are causing to fish.”

Fish may well be aware of their surroundings, but apparently PETA is not. The victim’s mother was not impressed by the publicity stunt, declining to dignify the campaign with a comment and instead focusing on the recovery of her son. Two summers ago, the group caused an uproar in Jacksonville, Fla., over another veganism-pushing billboard that compared overweight women to whales. Floridians would probably appreciate it if PETA stopped picking on them and left the state.

Also joining the feeding frenzy is the Humane Society of the United States’s own California state director Jennifer Fearing, who tweeted a few weeks ago a recommendation to sharks that “this would be good week [sic] to avoid biting any humans, much as we may deserve it.” We’ve always known that HSUS is just PETA in a suit and tie, but it’s disturbing to see a moral compass so far out of whack at a group that’s supposedly “mainstream.” Does the next 8-year-old who has an arm bitten off “deserve it,” HSUS?

A note to the animal-rights lobby: Jaws was not the good guy. And rooting for the shark to win shows how out of touch these groups are with ordinary people.

A Vegan Manifesto Wearing a Weight-Loss Halo

August 18, 2011 12:00 am Comments Off

Neal Barnard, president of the deceptively named “Physicians Committee” for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), is hitting the road this month on a book tour to promote his 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart program. The casual observer might think this is yet another hardcover to fill up the self-help section. But if you know a thing or two about PCRM (or weight loss, for that matter), you’ll quickly realize that – much like Barnard’s group – this book is not what it seems.

To begin by judging the book by its orange cover, the program purports to “boost metabolism, lower cholesterol, and dramatically improve your health.” It does not mention that to achieve such lofty health goals, Barnard’s program mandates giving up milk, eggs, salmon, shrimp, chicken breast, pork, and dozens of other low-calorie lean protein sources that are part of the typical weight-loss canon. There’s also no credible evidence that a diet that contains meat and dairy poses any undue health risk, though it could lead to serious vitamin deficiencies.

Sound like strange advice from a weight-loss doctor? That might be because he is not a registered nutritionist or bariatric surgeon but a psychiatrist by training.

So why doesn’t Barnard come out and admit on the cover that this book is just another vegan manifesto wearing a veneer of health? It’s the same reason PCRM doesn’t openly advertise its past links to PETA and to FBI-designated domestic animal-rights terrorist groups: because that would expose the group’s true animal-rights agenda. (Barnard himself has been PETA’s medical advisor and president of the PETA Foundation. We bet that didn’t make it onto the book jacket, either.)

And finally, we believe the majority of people picking up this book as a quick fix will be sorely disappointed in the results. Long-term weight management requires a total lifestyle approach – not a scientifically flimsy diet you only have to stick to for 21 days. And that is ultimately what makes this just another weight-loss gimmick that will line the bargain bin in a few months.

Dr. Oz: Animal Rights Activist?

April 28, 2011 12:00 am Comments Off

Daytime television’s self-promoting “YOU Doc” Dr. Mehmet Oz entertained us Wednesday with his assault on meat and dairy, offering up his talk show's couch to a vegan activist group that twists medical research to claim non-tofu proteins come with major health risks.

In typical Oz fashion, he promised to tell his audience what they “need to avoid in order to avoid getting cancer and heart disease.” And who better to fill everybody in than Neal Barnard?

Groan.

Barnard, for the unfamiliar, is president of the PETA-linked “Physicians Committee” for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), which gets most of its funding from a single wealthy animal-rights activist in Florida. Barnard, who has called cheese “dairy crack” and tried to sue milk companies for causing “pain and suffering” to lactose intolerant Americans, predictably railed against non-PETA-approved diets.

Oz promoted his guest’s agenda as “a different way of thinking about what you do in your day-to-day life.” Yes, we suppose that’s true. Barnard’s past claim that “to give a child animal products is a form of child abuse” is certainly, um… different. And Oz never told his audience that Barnard (a non-practicing psychiatrist) was once the president of the PETA Foundation—the organization that owns PETA’s office building and pays its salaries.

Oz helpfully suggests, “Don’t call it a diet.” And he’s right. Barnard’s advice is animal-rights ideology on a plate.

Eating nutrient-rich vegetables and fruits is a great idea, but so is eating nutrient-rich animal products. It’s difficult to swallow a stealthily masked, ideology-fueled prescription when it’s passed off as a cancer cure-all.

Has the good doctor (Oz, not Barnard) been fooled or is he a willing accomplice?