PETA President Tracy Reiman Tackles Your Tough Questions and Tricky Situations

Why does PETA do stupid stunts like offering to replace Punxsutawney Phil with a “weather reveal” cake? It’s embarrassing and hurts your credibility.

Oh, there’s a method behind the “madness”! Ask yourself: Do you see news articles titled, “PETA Met With a Company Today”? We do things like that every day, but that’s not what gets reported because it’s not titillating, confrontational, or sexy. So, we make sure PETA’s name gets out there so that reporters think of us when something important is going on, and people remember that PETA is watching everything, that we are basically the animal police when any species is being exploited.

Here are examples of how provocative things work: After PETA members set fire to donated General Motors vehicles, smashed them with sledgehammers, and handcuffed themselves to cars at auto shows, GM ended crash tests on animals. Mumbai banned horse-drawn carriages following efforts by PETA India that included founder Ingrid Newkirk hitching herself to a carriage and dragging it through the streets. And when hundreds of news outlets covered the cake offer and Phil’s dismal life in captivity, countless people commented that he should be freed. Instead of being a thoughtless way to have fun at an animal’s expense, now it’s a serious topic of debate. What’s truly embarrassing is being complacent.

Why are you against cage-free eggs? Shouldn’t PETA support improvements for farmed animals?

Omelet you in on an egg industry secret: “Cage-free” doesn’t mean “cruelty-free.” Fighting for it so that people can carry on buying cruelly warehoused chickens’ eggs is like fighting for less sharp banderillas in a bullfight instead of urging people not to attend. We’ve been inside these “cage-free” warehouses where thousands of hens are packed so tightly that they can’t even flap a wing. Cage-free sheds usually have only a hole in the wall that leads to a dirty pen and is seldom open (not during winter, nighttime, or rainy weather or now because of bird flu) – if they can reach it. Many can’t because they can barely move.

Being manipulated to produce far more eggs than normal depletes hens of calcium, and up to 86% suffer from painful broken bones. Plus, they can have part of their beaks sliced off, breast blisters, and ammonia burns. Every year, the US egg industry kills 350 million unwanted male chicks, too! Cage-free housing is “better” for hens like kicking your dog six times is better than seven. Help hens!