Today the Center for Consumer Freedom criticized the celebrity supporters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in a full-page advertisement in Variety for endorsing the animal rights group even as it kills thousands of animals in its care. The ad coincides with the airing of an HBO documentary about PETA’s president titled, “I am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA.”
The ad reads:
PETA Supporters Have Blood on Their Hands
As Americans learn more about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and its eccentric founder, Hollywood stars should know the whole story. Despite the well-known animal rights group’s $30 million budget, it spends very little actually caring for adoptable animals. Instead, it kills them. By the thousands.
Government records show that between 1998 and 2005, PETA killed more than 14,000 dogs and cats at its Virginia headquarters. (The group refuses to release its 2006 numbers.) In 2005, PETA killed 90 percent of the pets in its care. Some were thrown in trash dumpsters. Most were incinerated. PETA’s donors footed the bill.
That’s not “ethical.” It’s hypocritical.
“Ingrid Newkirk runs the most disingenuous animal group on the planet,” said Center for Consumer Freedom Director of Research David Martosko. “PETA takes pet lovers’ donations with one hand while administering lethal injections with the other.”
Martosko continued: “What’s next? Will Greenpeace start harpooning whales? Alec Baldwin, Pam Anderson, Alicia Silverstone, and the rest of Tinseltown’s finest should think twice before throwing their support behind a compromised, hypocritical group like PETA.”
