Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away. This means that PETA will be able to once again browbeat the public into avoiding their turkey dinner. Would it be Thanksgiving if these people didn’t show up to pressure us into giving up our turkey dinner?
PETA will bring its “Hell on Wheels”, turkey transport truck, to Bristol Farms Santa Barbara in California. The vehicle has pictures of turkeys in crates. According to a release, it will play recorded sounds of the turkeys’ cries as they are slaughtered and prepared for human consumption.
The truck will “bombard shoppers with subliminal messages every ten seconds suggesting that people become vegans” as part of a tour of 30 states to “raise consciousness about the 46 million Turkeys killed each year for Thanksgiving.”
This organization, which aims to make everyone adopt a vegan diet raises these concerns amid the ongoing bird flu epidemic that is “continuing to spread throughout the U.S.A.”
PETA says that “breeding animals and raising them for food creates hotspots of potentially deadly zoonotic disease.”
PETA’s Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman says that the organization makes the usual argument: “Behind each trussed-up turkey, there was once a sensitive, living individual who had been crammed into a truck and endured a horrifying, miserable journey until their death.”
Despite its fervent claims about those who eat only plants (which are living beings), history shows that the organization is not as committed to saving animals as they would like us to believe.
According to PETA, more than 84% of the animals that were brought into their shelters in 2011 were euthanized. It is often criticized for killing adoptable animals, which brings into question the supposed “animal welfare” commitment of PETA.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, behaved in 2011 in an unremarkable manner. It euthanized the vast majority of the dogs and cats it took into their shelters.
They killed 713 dogs, adopted 19, and sent 36 to shelters that do not necessarily practice “no-kill” practices. In the case of cats, they impounded 1211 and euthanized 1198, while transferring eight to other shelters. They also found homes for five. PETA has also taken in 58 companion animals, including rabbits. The organization killed 54 of the animals.
The figures are not good for an animal rights organization.
PETA’s adoption rate for 2011 was only 2.5 percent for dogs and 0.4 percent for cats.
Even though PETA acknowledges that it never turns away an animal — “the sick and injured, the aged, the aggressive, and the unsocialized …” – this doesn’t change that Virginia animal shelters had a kill rate that was 44 percent lower.
Even though PETA is the first organization to save pets during heat waves or hurricanes, the fact remains that at one of their shelters, they kill 84 percent (of the animals that are deemed “unadoptable”) within 24 hours after arrival.
It has also received criticism for its bizarre marketing campaigns. It has, for example, used Holocaust imagery to compare animal farming with concentration camps. The group seems to agree with Hitler that Jews and other victims of these camps were like animals.
PETA also hasn’t hesitated in using horrifying events like murder, cannibalism, and even the Holocaust in their ads, which has angered a lot of people, especially the Jewish community. PETA has been banned from using Holocaust images in their advertising by the European Courts of Human Rights.
The organization has also misled animal activists more than once. This leaves many (including vegans) “disgusted and angry” with the organization. PETA’s recent anti-shear campaigns, using a fake but bloody lamb mannequin as a means to convey a fake and bloody message, is a good example.
PETA’s behavior is well-known on social media as well as in the real world. Like most of their messaging, the “Hell on Wheels Tour” is more likely to repel people than attract new followers.
