All Against PETA

Give thanks for all the wonderful things in your life.  Give thanks for the life lost so that you eat today, no matter what form that life comes in; and don’t let anyone make you feel bad about what you put on your plate.  If you’re a vegetarian/vegan, hold your tofurky (or replacement meal of your choice) high and proud. If you’re an omnivore don’t let someone bully you out of what you want to eat.  Be happy and spend today with people and animals you care about.

“Although ferals are fearful of humans, they are still members of a domesticated species, and they are ill-equipped to survive on their own. Feral cats do not die of “old age.” Many are poisoned, shot, tortured by cruel people, attacked by other animals, or hit by cars. Others die of exposure, starvation, or highly contagious fatal diseases, such as rabies, feline AIDS, feline leukemia, and feline infectious peritonitis.” -PETA

PETA once again spreads false rumors about animals, which is ironic, being as they’re the self-proclaimed experts on what’s good and bad for animals.  They encourage people to trap feral cats and take them in for euthanasia; and I have a few things to say on this:

1. Cats are one of the only species to domesticate themselves.  What we call the common house-cat actually chose to stay by humans to make use of the food and shelter.  In fact, anyone with a cat will tell you that that cat does what it wants, when it wants.  My own will disappear for days if he’s not happy with me (usually when I get back from a trip).
2. Cats have been living feral in human communities for 10,000 years; they are quite capable of taking care of themselves given the opportunity.  They are successful hunters and survivors, which is why we allow our cats to roam free while dogs are typicaly confined to a space (house, yard, etc).  Do they still get hit by cars? Yes, but so do many non-domesticated animals in human communities. PETA will tell you otherwise.
   
   “Although ferals are fearful of humans, they are still members of a domesticated species, and they are ill-equipped to survive on their own.”  
    
3. Cat trapping is very dangerous to cat owners.  I remember a few years back where I came across a case of a man setting cat traps in the alley behind his house, then taking in the animals he caught to the local pound.  Many of these animals were put down for being feral.
   
   Meanwhile home owners within a 3 block radius started complaining that their cats were missing. Turns out the cat traps weren’t just catching feral cats, but pets too.  Many owners don’t collar their cats (and many who try quickly find out that cat’s who don’t want to be collared wont stay collared), and there was no way for the local shelters to know who many of those cats belonged to.

The stereotypes PETA perpetuates are based off of the view of feral cats as a nuisance, and the fact that they aren’t as plump and their coats as shiny as your typical house cat.  Animals are not a nuisance within human society, they have as much of a right to it as we do.  When overpopulation becomes a problem spaying and neutering is an acceptable option, but please don’t trap cats to turn in for euthanasia.

Skin Game

The above video links to a multimedia news story by Bob Chipman.

It highlights how the recent incident involving PETA and Mario is really just a call to attention, and in that case, he decides to give PETA exactly the attention they asked for. 

Analysis by Kieran Mulvaney 

Charles Wickersham was spearfishing off Florida’s Anna Maria Island last weekend when he saw something swimming toward him. Moments later, a 10-foot-long bull shark had grabbed his thigh. The 21-year-old doesn’t remember a great deal of what happened next, but the shark swiftly let go, and Wickersham, thanks to swift action from his fishing buddies, was rushed to a hospital, where, 800 stitches later, he has recovered strongly.

For Wickersham, the attack, while frightening, ended well — or at least, far better than it might have.  For People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, it presented an opportunity.

Apparently finding inspirational irony in the notion of “man spears fish, big fish bites man,” PETA announced this week that it had prepared a billboard advertisement featuring a picture of a shark with a human leg (or “drumstick” in PETA’s parlance) in its mouth next to the words: “Payback is Hell. Go Vegan.” The group said it aimed to place the billboards on and around Anna Maria Island, where Wickersham was attacked.

To emphasize the organization’s sensitivity, an accompanying PETA blog post was headlined “Spear-Fisher Becomes Live Bait” and, with an intentional wink to the audience, referred to the ad as “biting.”

Not altogether surprisingly, this news was not especially well-received. In a remarkably understated response, Wickersham’s mother said simply that the campaign was “over the top” before adding that she didn’t wish to dignify it with any further comment. A local angler said that if he saw one of the billboards, he would “burn it down.”

Contacted by the New York Daily News, PETA’s Ashley Byrne pointed to the fact that “Americans alone kill 12 billion fish for food every year,” before adding, “We are glad that Mr. Wickersham will be OK. We hope that after this painful and horrible experience, he and other fishermen will consider the pain that fish feel, and we hope they will consider taking up another pastime.”

That didn’t go down too well, either.

“If you want to lead a campaign saying humans should value and protect the natural environment and use resources more wisely, or that we should cause less suffering, I’m onboard with that,” David Shiffman, a shark conservation biologist and blogger who has launched a Twitter campaign urging PETA to withdraw the ad, told Discovery News. “But if you want to argue that humans and fish are somehow morally equivalent, stay the hell away from my family.”

PETA insists that the purpose of the campaign is to “make the point that the deadliest killers in the water aren’t sharks — they’re humans.” But Shiffman, who is a Ph.D. student at the University of Miami and blogs as WhySharksMatter on Southern Fried Science, argues that it does the opposite, that as well as being offensive to families of victims, the ad demonizes sharks and perpetuates their image as man-eaters.

That view was forcefully articulated by Kevin Zelnio, a blogger at Deep-Sea News, who argued that “the real whammer for this ad is that it vilifies and plays on our existing fears of sharks as evil, man-eating, ocean-fun killers. This makes it harder for those people who work tirelessly in shark conservation to ACTUALLY save animals’ lives and educate people about … unsustainable harvesting and an unfounded perpetuation of a damaging stereotype.”

I think this story has a few good points, but the one I’d like to point out is the perpetuation of sharks as man-eaters.  

Every year only around 60 shark attacks are reported.

Of those reported sharks kill less than 10 people a year. 

And yet many sharks are killed every year, not just for food, but because of fear.  We’ve been taught to fear sharks by movies like jaws, the way the media glorifies shark attacks like they’re the norm, and now by PETA. Thanks to ads like this sharks are dying for no reason than because they’re sharks.  

Congrats PETA, way to get your message across.

As promised, I’ve been doing my best to find you an organization to support.  I’ve yet to hear from Animal Saviors, but I have gotten one reply from a close and trustworthy contact. I’ll share it with you:

Hey!

I don’t know that one (Animal Saviors), but if they are using PETA footage, I’d be suspicious.  They’d have to have PETA’s permission to use it and that would probably include some sort of pay-back.  

If the fur animals are wild (tigers, snow-leopards, etc.) I’d suggest World Wildlife Fund.  A search of their website would probably indicate whether they have a fund for illegal fur trade.  If the animals are domestic, I don’t know who to suggest.

Take care. 

World Wildlife Fund is a great choice, but I’ll keep looking for a group that tends to the domestic animals PETA is currently campaigning for!