Media campaigns and public demonstrations
Most recently (in 2003), PETA has received media attention for its boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).
PETA is well known for aggressive media campaigns and public demonstrations for animal rights. Reception of the group's actions is sharply polarized.
PETA is also famous for its attacks on large corporations for their mistreatment of animals. PetCo and Procter & Gamble are examples of companies which PETA claims are exploiting animals for profit. According to PETA, PetCo confines animals in filthy enclosures, where they are commonly left to die, and P&G tests its many products unnecessarily on animals.
PETA supporters say that the organization has been able to protect the lives of many animals, including closing the largest horse slaughterhouse in the nation and stopping the use of cats and dogs in wound laboratories. They believe the group's often radical actions to be justified to combat what they see as avoidable cruelty. They also claim that critics fail to address their fundamental belief that animals deserve some kind of moral consideration.
While most critics of PETA would probably not indentify as animal rights supporters many vegans, vegetarians, and other animals rights supporters object, if not to PETA's goals and successes, at least to many of their messages and tactics. For example, Feminists for Animal Rights (FAR) have published articles critisizing PETA for its sexism and exploitation of women.
Some critics claim that PETA is deceptive and uses immoral means to achieve its ends. Adrian R. Morrison of the University of Pennsylvania, for example, claims that the group has "cleverly edited" 60 hours of video tape stolen from his laboratory by the Animal Liberation Front into a damning 30-minute segment, that it cooperated with radical groups, and that it used questionable tactics to silence, discredit and smear their opponents. He writes:
- Two of the attempts to ruin my reputation were particularly despicable, but, fortunately, they were unsuccessful. PETA sent a letter with a copy of The Village Voice article to my neighbors, informing them that I was an animal abuser. My neighbors ignored or openly rejected the letter: one builds up credibility as the local Scoutmaster. A series of scurrilous articles on my contributions to science that were commissioned by the American Anti-Vivisection Society were laughed at by my colleagues. That society later protested publicly when the American Association for the Advancement of Science awarded me their Academic Freedom and Responsibility Award just a year after the raid.
A campaign was launched in the late