Tell PETA where to go

I love animals. I've adopted pound puppies (including the Princess), I support shelters and rescue groups, I've given money to the Gorilla Foundation, and at one time I thought seriously about going into animal language research working with Bonobos. But, I hate PETA. Hate them. Every single thing they stand for. See, they want us to think that coddling animals is more important than helping people.

Go sign this petition to tell the IRS to revoke PETA's non-profit status, then come back here and read my story.

PETA and their ilk claim to help animals. They don't. One of their favorite aims is to "liberate" animals from research facilities and food/fur farms, including rats, rabbits, monkeys, and apes.

Here's a story that proves my point: Several years ago animal rights activists decided to liberate a colony of albino rabbits at a facility associated with the University of Oregon. The building in question sat next to an empty field that was also next to Interstate 5. Well, before I move on, I should point out that not only are albino rabbits white, but they are mostly blind. So the activists opened all the cages doors (I'm sure crying "Go, be free!!! or blasting "Born Free"--Ed.) and the rabbits ran out. Let's put it this way, the ones that survived the birds of prey (white rabbits don't blend in to a brown field) ran across I-5. Can you say squish?

A similar story from Britain. Somewhere in the north of England, animal rights activists "liberated" several thousand minks from a fur farm. Well, guess what? the next year several endangered species of birds in the area were nowhere to be found. Gee, I wonder what happened to them?

And what happens to animals in the buildings that you FIREBOMB???? I don't think that blowing up the animals in the lab facility contributes to "preventing animal cruelty," do you?

A personal story: The bastards put a mole in one of our animal facilities, and she filmed 60 hours of what she called animal cruelty over 6 months of work, including mice with tumors and rats having seizures. I ask you, would you tell your Mother that she can't have her chemo because it means that a mouse would get a tumor? Would you prevent your child from getting epilepsy treatment because a rat had seizures? I'd also like to point out that these animals, simply because we know that they are sick, get the best veterinary care available. The PETA mole also seems to have deliberately sabotaged the health care of sick animals to get it on film. We have a system whereby sick animals can be euthanized humanely by trained staff after researchers mark their cages with a certain card to indicate that the animal needs to be put down. As an animal care technician, she was responsible for euthanasia of sick animals in certain areas that were assigned to her. Instead, she seems to have removed the indicator cards (off film) so that she could complain to her supervisors (on film) that these animals needed treatment they weren't getting. Unfortunately for her, we also have to document the euthanasia requests separately, and after the PETA video of our facility was released, it was discovered that most if not all of the incidents she reported were animals that she should have taken care of.

BTW PETA's complaints have been thoroughly investigated by the USFDA (who oversees animal facilities that recieve federal funding) and to date only one researcher was disciplined, for something he did on film that would have been legal except that it was not listed in his animal use protocol.

Whenever I meet a PETA activist I ask 2 questions: First: do you bathe or use personal products? Because I hate to tell you, it doesn't matter whether your individual products say "cruelty-free", each product must consist of an FDA approved mixture of chemicals, and guess how they got approved? Animal testing at some time in the past. Otherwise it couldn't be sold in the US. Second: Do you use medicine? What if you were diagnosed with a terrible disease? Would you refuse treatment because it was developed using animal research?

And frankly, how many of them wear leather??!!?!?!?!
Last time I looked leather = animal.

Look, PETA freaks (if you're still reading this), researchers aren't heartless. We need our animals to be as healthy as possible to get accurate results. We keep them clean, feed them well, and pay attention to their social and emotional needs. We go out of our way to minimize their distress. I respect my animals. They're the reason I can do my research. If I need to hurt them any more than giving them a shot for any reason, it bothers me. There are experiments that I can't do, even though they cause the animal no pain (done under anesthesia, without survival) because it makes me too sad. Yes, sometimes what we do is painful to them, yes, sometimes it makes their life more difficult, but would you rather be in their position, or mine? Would you rather that we do these experiments on you? It used to be that way, you know, and back then animal research was deemed less cruel.

Like dairy farmers, there's no percentage in wanton cruelty for researchers. None.

Maybe you should be asking yourselves why the welfare of animals is so much more important to you than the welfare of children who grow up without proper nutrition or housing, or why children can't learn to read, or even why we can't feed all the hungry people in our own country? Are animals THAT much better than people?