Talk:PETA/Archive1

Topic
That small "e" is only in their logo, they refer to themselves as "PETA" on their own website, so I'm a gonna move it...  ħ uman  21:00, 8 August 2008 (EDT)
 * I tend to use the small "e" to deingrate the word "ethical". It's childish and silly reasoning, I know.  A rmondiko V  User_Talk:Armondikov 11:04, 22 January 2009 (EST)

Arent they trying to get Fish renamed as water puppies or something equally odd ? Hamster 00:03, 6 April 2009 (EDT)
 * Water kittens, or some such. It's in the article already, I think.  ħ uman  00:11, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

Honeybees
... these tiny animals are factory-farmed, much like chickens, pigs, and cows are. Excuse the daylights out of me? Honeybees were, are, and will always remain wild animals. If not allowed to fly free, they die (of constipation, since they are immaculately tidy housekeepers and will not poop indoors) and dead bees are useless for pollination or honey or wax production. A certain amount of mechanization may be applied to beekeeping, mostly to do with lifting and transporting hive bodies, as well as honey extraction and processing, but in the end, the action happens one colony at a time, out in a field or bee yard with access to a spread of suitable flowering plants, and plenty of them.

Old beekeepers say that "a man who hates his bees will not keep them very long." In Biblical terms, ISTR reading that honey is one of the two foods produced in a surplus, so that eating it does not cut off a life. The other, of course, is milk. A colony of bees is a remarkably complex process, considering that it is a collection of brainless insects. It seems that there are several ganglia that share the processing load, and it further seems that distinguishing the one in the head as the "brain" is anthropomorphic hubris. Good smelling, hard-working (hence the surplus) insects, but insects just the same. Sprocket J Cogswell 13:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am now designing in my mind a modern bee honey factory farm, it's quite fiendish. 22:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No need to reinvent every single wheel along the way. Check the bee journals and you'll find a scheme for bar-coding workers. Scanner at the entrance and you've got them under control. Sprocket J Cogswell 23:21, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * A general comment: I get the idea in the case of vertebrates and certain invertebrates (some crustaceans and cephalopods), who have nociceptors (pain receptors) and highly developped central nervous systems, but insects seem to have neither and are not in the list of animals suspected to feel pain. The case for insect suffering is no better than the case for plant suffering. Plants actually display signs of resistance against predators, even communication in order to fight them off. Drawing a line between animals who do not possess discernible analogies to the human pain perception system and plants or mushrooms is completely arbitrary. There is no more ethical justification for not eating or exploiting insects than there is for eating or exploiting (such as eating their fruits or fruiting bodies) plants or mushrooms, not to mention that even if bees could feel pain or even suffer similarly to a human being, there is little reason to suggest that keeping them would cause them a lot of additional suffering. --84.151.220.115 (talk) 19:29, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * My grandfather is a beekeeper. Bees live the same in nature as they do in an artificial hive, but better because measures are taken to ward against disease, parasites, and starvation.--  19:35, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. Let me just emphasise that the phrasing in my last sentence was intentionally excessively cautious; ironic understatement. --84.151.220.115 (talk) 20:19, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

PETA and euthanasia
I don't think that section "No fur, no meat, but euthanasia is OK?" is fair. PETA long-time openly argues against no-kill shelters & pro open admission shelters, and I don't think that their point of view is particularly weird, the question what's better for animals in fact is not so easy (see w:No-kill shelter). And most of the fuss about euthanasia was created by "PETA kills animals" program of w:Center for Consumer Freedom, sort of scary organisation by itself, funded by food & tobacco industry. Trycatch (talk) 01:31, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That link to PETA seems to be them just trying to justify themselves. It's like most of their tactics, they'll take a single incident, strip it of context and present it as the norm. The records show that PETA kills a pretty high proportion of the animals that pass into its care, perhaps the majority. 01:42, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I googled more on the topic, and now I think you are right. They killed 2352 animals and adopted 8 in 2009 according to Gary Francione (I have no reason not to believe him), these numbers are just unbelievable. Trycatch (talk) 02:25, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I find those a little on the high side and they may be leaving out a few extra things to artificially increase the "kill rate". The Bullshit! episode on the subject gave a better breakdown. Although I can't remember the exact figures off the top of my head, it was definitely over 50% of the total animals that passed through PETA's "care". Anyway, the point isn't whether or not they do this or the rates or even whether euthanasia is a better option but the fact that a) they call themselves a great animal rights group that protect animals at all cost and even against the concept of pets and medical testing on animals and b) if they didn't spaff their money to the ALF and related groups or on stupid-as-fuck publicity stunts like the "sea kittens" and Pet Shop Boys campaigns they wouldn't have to do this at all. Whether it's the right thing to do or the kindest thing to do, their public face and mission statement isn't really compatible with it. 09:24, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, 50% would have been reasonable, this is near to the average US euthanasia rate, I think. PETA openly bashes no-kill shelters all the time as cruel to animals, and argues for traditional shelters with euthanasia. It's not a secret, and it's in line with PETA realistic and somewhat conformist approach. So I don't think that euthanasia contradicts with their public image. But >2000 of killed animals with 7-8 adopted? And numbers of openly lobbyist http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ seems to be true, there are underlying reports from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services published on that site (the reports are authentic, abridged versions available via virginia.gov site, e.g. ). I.e. looks like PETA don't bother about adoption (or transfer of animals to shelters) at all, and simply kills all the animals surrendered to them. Trycatch (talk) 16:34, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This is undeniably correct: all of the kill numbers are available on the VDACS site.  While PETA does not hide that they support euthanasia, their numbers are, yes, through the roof: the highest in the nation. And they lie about the state of the animals that they kill - they insist that all are hopelessly ill and incurable. (petakillsanimals.com is not a good reference, but there are numerous others, including a recent piece in the New York Times.) SillyRabbit (talk) 02:12, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think its right to include the alleged Ingrid Newkirk quote, “Euthanasia is the kindest gift to a dog or cat unwanted and unloved...," given that in the one source it comes from, the writer did not even attribute the quote to Newkirk. They were just trying to summarise PETA's views. Even in that respect, it's not an accurate summary of PETA's own views, the group trying to justify animal euthanasia as a necessary lesser evil. 86.188.150.11 (talk) 15:21, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Sea Kittens
If fish are sea kittens, what are catfish then? And what about dogfish? Are there swordkittens then? Also, what is it with PETA and targeting completely arbitrary things in lieu of actual protesting? I'm talking about petitioning name changes and what not. Things that don't really matter. 95.109.102.252 (talk) 17:42, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Getting some media attention . . . that's pretty much it.  19:41, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Jellykittens! Sounds tasty. --Orcinus (talk) 17:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh baby oh baby oh baby
http://www.stylist.co.uk/resource/cache/binary/30ed543c390f8d9394dd3b07715ad0f9/615x330_New-York-Times-chicken.gif?m=1317392079

that is all 68.116.168.154 (talk) 10:36, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Position on Michael Vick
I despise these guys, but this strikes me as one of the few areas where PETA is entirely rational and consistent. Yes, the group is mostly wacky and hypocritical, but even sane people who care about dogs recognize that Michael Vick truly is despicable. Is he the worst guy in the whole league? This doesn't really matter - fact is that when it comes to animal abuse, he's about as ugly as they get. If you want the nauseating details of precisely how he tortured dogs, this is a rigorous source: http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=1789  I've removed the Michael Vick section of the PETA article, because it undermines the legitimate critique of Newkirk's idiotic organization:  their position on Vick is one of the few things they get right - when you're all about protecting animals, it's reasonable to condemn animal abusers. If you're looking for hypocrisy/irrationality with regard to Michael Vick, your focus should be on the Humane Society of the United States. There's a group that pretends to the same concerns as PETA, yet has decided to make Vick one of their official spokesmen (after his team - coincidentally - gave them a $50,000 donation). THAT's disturbing. SillyRabbit (talk) 02:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

PETA Commercials
The 2004 superbowl ad that they ran (the pizza delivery spoof) did at least run in some markets. I remember it and was wondering about it when I saw it. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 50.161.178.182 / talk / contribs
 * What about the ad about vegetarians having better sex, featuring erotic movements with vegetables? That ad was such a utter travesty, even for PETA, it got pulled from the Super Bowl.The Rational Gamer, WonderKirby577 (talk) 02:48, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

This article is far too much a smear job
As time permits I'm adding DOCUMENTED material, and inserting calls for citation where it is missing. There are good things to be said about PETA, ALF and other animal rights groups. Moreover, the pernicious partnership between governments and corporations to destroy the political speech and activism of animal and environmental activists is extremely serious. That, far more than adolescent and inaccurate snark calling PETA a "cult" is what intelligent people deserve to read here. Indeed, it is wrong to promote rightwing smearing of a group like PETA as a "cult," rhetoric that only reinforces the demonization that assists the state in getting away with attacking civil liberties.---Mona- (talk) 03:08, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * By all means add cited information but stop removing snark and ruining a well presented article about a batshit mad organisation. --TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 03:11, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * They are not "batshit mad." Which isn't to say I agree with all they say and do, but you are buying corporate propaganda against them and all other animal rights groups. There's even some links to corporate front groups like Phillip Morris in that article. ---Mona- (talk) 03:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Dressing up as the KKK in Harlem, producing adverts promoting veganism through the media of domestic violence, murdering 97% of the healthy animals that pass through their doors... you're right, they're not mad, because most 'mad' people are perfectly moral. These people are morally bankrupt psychopaths who enjoy killing animals. Scribbinus (talk) 14:00, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Mona, I work actively with a number of local animal shelters and rescue organisations. I have also worked for years in the marine conservation world in a serious fashion (rather than spending donated money on renaming fish as sea kittens). PETA IS batshit fucking looney and has done more harm to the cause of animal welfare than Philip Morris could ever achieve.--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 03:37, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * On your re-writes, I and others might even agree. But you can't just delete 3,000+ characters while you work on a re-write.--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 03:41, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure I could. And I'd restore my revert except I've determined upon researching it that in this case, the history of how this accusation came to be, who promoted it, and PETA's response, are all worth telling. I'll get to all that in the next several days. I'm not, btw, a big PETA promoter. But neither do I accept the propaganda that "they're in it for the money." All that kind of bullshit is coming from well-heeled corporate sources who see animal rights activists and that movement as deeply threatening to their bottom line.---Mona- (talk) 03:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree this article is a fucking joke. There's absolutely NOTHING rational about it. --Phocks (talk) 06:46, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
 * --JorisEnter (talk) 08:01, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

WTF? is going on on this article
Where's Pokemon? Where's the fact that one of the CEOs of PETA rode in leather car seats? Where did all the snark go? Dandtiks69♪♫ (talk) 04:40, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * -Mona- happened. Anything that doesn't polish her "Pulitzer Prize winning Civil Libertarian" Glenn Greenwald's knob (never forget his title, ever) or express exactly Mona's view is verboten.  If it doesn't have a source in spite of common knowledge or humor, it's gone unless the rest of us want to have a citation for every single sentence.  Anything she wants will get a source from some extremist fringe of the web and it's up to the rest of us to prove that the citation is wrong, even when the name of the source alone should be enough to discredit it. CorruptUser (talk) 13:56, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Is this is why I had to fix a whole lot of disgusting punctuation errors the other night? Dandtiks69♪♫ (talk) 17:32, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Rebuild the snark!--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 17:33, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Alright! But don't we at RW do original research in the first place? Dandtiks69♪♫ (talk) 17:35, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * How are we going to put the fact in that the CEO had expensive automobiles with leather seats, showing that it might be just a money-making scam? Dandtiks69♪♫ (talk) 17:39, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It gets worse, -Mona- wrote a praise piece for his/her King here on RW! Can we delete or rewrite it to be more critical? 69.121.20.54 (talk) 00:03, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If it passes a AD vote, yes.--"Paravant" Talk & Contribs 00:12, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If I keep seeing this kind of stuff happening, then this isn't going to end well. Dandtiks69♪♫ (talk) 00:22, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * At the Greenwald talk page I SOLICITED any negative points anyone wanted that were not already included. No one answered me.---Mona- (talk) 00:26, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Dandtiks, this article is far too smeary-y of PETA, but I don't have a strong view about them. So if the rest of you want to carve them up with no thought to anything exculpatroy or positive, have at it.---Mona- (talk) 00:29, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What worries me is that we may have been a little extreme at portraying these nuts, but we are RW after all. Dandtiks69♪♫ (talk) 23:18, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't really have a dog in this fight either, but very few RW articles say things like, "Mmm, a tasty bowl of porridge, only slightly marred by a whiff of rodent droppings." Instead, the gist tends to be something like "Eewww!! This is full of rat shit..." I see no reason to change that. Alec Sanderson (talk) 23:52, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

http://www.animalcharityevaluators.org/
While it doesn't specifically mention PETA, it sums up nicely the largest problem with PETA. Carpetsmoker (talk) 01:53, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Animal Testing Question
With regard to the animal testing section, I think it is bit ridiculous to claim these people are hypocrites because they take medicine to save their lives. Wouldn't this be like calling a group dedicated to pacifism "a bunch of hypocrites" because the leaders used violence in self defense? Or claiming someone who is "supposedly" against murder a hypocrite for killing someone to save their life? RockyRob97 (talk) 13:29, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Another animal kidnapping
I heard they took a girl's Chiwawa and euthanized it recently. Is this true? The Rational Gamer, WonderKirby577 Let's chat!  03:47, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

There are two sentences about the same incident that seem to be in conflict with one another. From the 'Stealing a Dog...' section is the sentence "In October 2014 two PETA employees snuck onto private property to grab a pet chihuahua, which ended up getting euthanized". The linked sources indicate that the dog was sitting on the owner's porch right outside their door. However, in the 'Astroturf' section it is stated "The closest they have actually come to this was Maya the Chihuahua, who didn't have a collar on and wasn't near her owners' home, meaning it was likely an accident." Can a mod please either clarify or correct this discrepancy?

PETA's Euthanasia
PETA explains in great detail why they euthanise and why no-kill shelters are a bad idea in today's world here: http://features.peta.org/petasaves/ (including two nice infographics)

For those who fail to understand it, they also explain here: https://www.peta.org/about-peta/why-peta/no-kill-shelters/ And then, again here: https://www.peta.org/issues/companion-animal-issues/animal-shelters/kill-label-slowly-killing-animals/ They cover it again here slightly: https://www.peta.org/issues/companion-animal-issues/overpopulation/euthanasia/ They have this video explaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8638gGWfBXc And then they have this video showing no-kill shelters in practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P79Vgvo6b8

Can we please end this whole "PETA are hypocrites because they euthanize"? RockyRob97 (talk)
 * Nope. The fact that they think they have reasons for killing healthy animals is irrelevant. People who eat animals have reasons for killing them, people who use insulin have reasons for using products tested on animals. You don't get to compare meat eating to the holocaust and then insist that your 'animal murders' are acceptable. Scribbinus (talk) 10:10, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. However, even if we accepted your idea, PETA is still terrible for a wide variety of reasons. RoninMacbeth (talk) 15:34, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

A Few Problems
"PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is an American animal rights organization and vegan cult." - Citation needed.

"They oppose hunting, fishing, animal testing, pets, seeing eye dogs (!!!), and zoos while promoting a vegan diet - Yes, they are an animal rights group, not an animal welfare one. All animal rights groups want to eventually end guide dogs, it seems out of place to say this is unique to PETA. Surely this complaint should be moved to Animal rights instead?

"compare the simple act of eating meat to both the Holocaust and to the mass lynching of African-Americans" - They compare factory farming and slaughterhouses to them, and there are parallels when you see how those places are run and let go of the pre-scientific concept of human exceptionalism.

"No fur, no meat, but euthanasia is OK?" - I brought up the problems with this in the above section. That and the fact that the promoters of PETAKillsAnimals is the Center for Consumer Freedom, a group funded by the fast-food industry FFS.

"Animal testing" - As I said above, it is ridiculous to claim these people are hypocrites because they take medicine to save their lives. Wouldn't this be like calling a group dedicated to pacifism "a bunch of hypocrites" because the leaders used violence in self defense? Or claiming someone who is "supposedly" against murder a hypocrite for killing someone to save their life?

"On 23 September 2008, PETA issued a press release[16] asking Ben & Jerry's to stop using milk from dairy animals, and instead start using — uh, um - human breast milk" - The attitude of the person who wrote this is exactly what they were trying to get across. If it is "weird" to do this, surely it is just as weird (if not more so) to use cow breast milk. Mastermind it ain't.

Also, I don't have an exact quote from the article itself for this but I think it is important. The article likes to slander PETA for it's stupid, over the top campaigns. I think one should consider PETA's response to this: "PETA’s mission is to get the animal rights message out to as many people as possible. Unlike our opposition—which is mostly composed of wealthy industries and corporations—PETA must rely largely on free “advertising” through media coverage. We will do extraordinary things to get the word out about animal cruelty because we have learned from experience that the media, sadly, do not consider the terrible facts about animal suffering alone interesting enough to cover. It is sometimes necessary to shake people up in order to initiate discussion, debate, questioning of the status quo, and, of course, action." https://www.peta.org/about-peta/faq/why-does-peta-use-controversial-tactics/. RockyRob97 (talk) 11:36, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * PETA's tactics are slactivism and RationalWiki do not support that. Plus, if you disagree with us, write an essay.--Delibirda (talk) 12:13, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Both African Americans and Jewish people have stated they find the comparison grossly offensive - especially since both slavery and the Holocaust were justified by likening those humans to animals. So let's not lionise them. Scribbinus (talk) 14:14, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Based on the lede...
By implication then the vast industries of slaughter are perfectly rational, and instead of something akin to the holocaust (people died, animals die, what's the difference?) - these industries are, what, cuddling them?

While later sections may be valid examples of irrationality (notwithstanding the making of points) the lede seems almost sponsored, sarcasm included, by the meat industries... it may employ unusual tactics, but is not the majority of food containing meat more of an insidious, cult-like tactic where people barely even know that it is there, where it's even from (horse meat scandal), and how it's created?

This is actually the first article I encountered that seems to be a propaganda piece, and now I wonder if the one on cigarettes was written by Marlboro...


 * This is a little bit like when TERFs insist that if you criticise them, you must hate women. You can criticise PETA without being in favour of factory farmed meat. There's a lot to criticise. Scribbinus (talk) 10:12, 17 January 2020 (UTC)