People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA; ) is an American animal rights and vegan non-profit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and originally led by Ingrid Newkirk, its co-founder.
Founded in March 1980 by Newkirk and animal rights activist Alex Pacheco, the organization first gained attention in the summer of 1981 during what became known as the Silver Spring monkeys case.Schwartz, Jeffrey M. and Begley, Sharon. The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, Regan Books, 2002, p. 161ff. Pacheco, Alex and Francione, Anna. The Silver Spring Monkeys, in Peter Singer (ed.) In Defense of Animals, Basil Blackwell 1985, pp. 135–147. The organization opposes factory farming, fur farming, animal testing, and other activities it considers to be exploitation of animals.
The organization's controversial campaigns have been credited with drawing media attention to animal rights issues, but have also been widely criticized for their disruptive nature. Its use of euthanasia has resulted in legal action and a response from Virginia lawmakers.
History Ingrid Newkirk
Ingrid Newkirk co-founded PETA with Alex Pacheco in March 1980. Inspired by Peter Singer's 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Newkirk persuaded Pacheco to join her in forming the organization, at that point just "five people in a basement", as Newkirk described it. They were mostly students and members of the local vegetarian society, but the group included a friend of Pacheco's from the UK, Kim Stallwood, a British activist who went on to become the national organizer of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.* For the "five people in a basement" quote, see Schwartz, Jeffrey and Begley, Sharon. The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force. HarperCollins, 2002, p. 161. For the early membership of PETA, and Pacheco's background, see Phelps, Norm. The longest struggle: animal advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA. Lantern Books, 2007, p. 229. For Kim Stallwood's involvement, see Liddick, Don. Eco-Terrorism. Greenwood Publishing Company, 2006, p. 53.
Silver Spring monkeys
The group first came to public attention in 1981 during the Silver Spring monkeys case, a dispute about experiments conducted by researcher Edward Taub on 17 macaque monkeys inside the Institute of Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. The case led to the first police raid in the United States on an animal laboratory, triggered an amendment in 1985 to the United States Animal Welfare Act, and became the first animal-testing case to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which upheld a Louisiana State Court ruling that denied PETA's request for custody of the monkeys.
Pacheco had taken a job in May 1981 inside a primate research laboratory at the institute, intending to gain firsthand experience of working inside an animal laboratory.Pacheco, Alex. "Testimony on the Silver Spring monkeys case", U.S. House Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology, PETA. Retrieved June 26, 2010. Taub had been cutting sensory ganglia that supplied nerves to the monkeys' fingers, hands, arms, and legs—a process called "deafferentation"—so that the monkeys could not feel them; some of the monkeys had had their entire spinal columns deafferented. He then used restraint, electric shock, and withholding of food and water to force the monkeys to use the deafferented parts of their bodies. The research led in part to the discovery of neuroplasticity and a new therapy for stroke victims called constraint-induced movement therapy.Doidge, Norman. The Brain That Changes Itself. Viking Penguin, 2007, p. 141. Johnson, David. Review of The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force , curledup.com, 2003. Retrieved June 26, 2010. For information about the neuroplasticity studies, see Leary, Warren E. "Renewal of Brain Is Found In Disputed Monkey Tests", The New York Times, June 28, 1991. "Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy" , excerpted from "A Rehab Revolution", Stroke Connection Magazine, September/October 2004. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
Pacheco went to the laboratory at night, taking photographs that showed the monkeys living in what the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research's ILAR Journal called "filthy conditions".Sideris, Lisa et al., Institute for Laboratory Animal Research, ILAR Journal V40(1), 1999. He passed his photographs to the police, who raided the lab and arrested Taub. Taub was convicted of six counts of cruelty to animals, the first such conviction in the United States of an animal researcher; the conviction, though, was overturned on appeal.Schwartz, Jeffrey M. and Begley, Sharon. The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, Regan Books, 2002, p. 161. Norm Phelps writes that the case followed the highly publicized campaign of Henry Spira in 1976 against experiments on cats being performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Spira's subsequent campaign in April 1980 against the Draize test. These and the Silver Spring monkey case jointly put animal rights on the agenda in the United States.Phelps, Norm. The longest struggle: animal advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA. Lantern Books, 2007, p. 233. For the view that the case was pivotal to the animal rights movement, see Leary, Warren E. "Renewal of Brain Is Found In Disputed Monkey Tests", The New York Times, June 28, 1991.
The 10-year battle for custody of the monkeys—described by The Washington Post as a vicious mud fight, during which both sides accused the other of lies and distortion— transformed PETA into a national, then international, movement. By February 1991, it claimed over 350,000 supporters, a paid staff of over 100, and an annual budget of over $7 million.Carlson, Peter. "The Great Silver Spring Monkey Debate" , The Washington Post, February 24, 1991.
Locations PETA was based in Rockville, Maryland, until 1996, when it moved to Norfolk, Virginia. It opened a Los Angeles division in 2006 and also has offices in Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California.
PETA has international affiliates including PETA India (Mumbai), PETA Asia-Pacific (Manila, Philippines), and PETA UK.
Philosophy and activism
Profile PETA is an animal rights organization that opposes speciesism, and the abuse of animals in any way, such as for food, clothing, entertainment, or research.
In 2025, PETA's website claimed they had 10.5 million supporters, and received donations of $80 million for 2024.
Campaigns and consumer boycotts The organization is known for aggressive media stunts, combined with a solid base of celebrity support—in addition to its honorary directors, Paul McCartney, Alicia Silverstone, Eva Mendes, Charlize Theron, Ellen DeGeneres, and many other notable celebrities have appeared in PETA ads."Pictures: PETA's Famous Faces," Chicago Tribune. Retrieved June 22, 2015. Every week, Newkirk holds what The New Yorker calls a "war council", with two dozen of her top strategists gathered at a square table in the PETA conference room, with no suggestion considered too "kooky or unkind". PETA also gives an annual prize, called the Proggy Award (for "progress"), to individuals or organizations dedicated to animal welfare or who distinguish themselves through their efforts within the area of animal welfare.
Many of the campaigns have focused on large corporations. Fast food companies such as KFC, Wendy's, and Burger King have been targeted. In the animal-testing industry, PETA's consumer boycotts have focused on Avon, Benetton, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Pond's, Dow Chemical, General Motors, and others. The group's modus operandi includes buying shares in target companies such as McDonald's and Kraft Foods to exert influence.For example, as shareholders of YUM! Brands, which owns KFC, PETA submitted a shareholders' resolution asking for more humane treatment of the animals KFC processes. For the Yum story, see "PETA resolution among five for Yum shareholders", Business First, May 18, 2005. For some of the companies PETA has boycotted, see Friedman, Monroe. Consumer Boycotts: Effecting Change through the Marketplace and the Media. Routledge 1999, p. 181ff and particularly p. 186. For the purchase of shares in McDonald's and Kraft, see "Peta buys stock to gain influence in US boardrooms", The Daily Telegraph, May 24, 2010. The campaigns have delivered results for PETA. McDonald's and Wendy's introduced vegetarian options after PETA targeted them; and Polo Ralph Lauren said it would no longer use fur.For McDonald's, see "McDonald's eyes PETA-friendly option", CNN, December 29, 2004. For Wendy's, see "Wendy's steps up animal welfare standards", USA Today, September 5, 2001. For Polo Ralph Lauren, see "Peta claims victory as fashion house drops fur", Associated Press, June 10, 2006. Avon, Estée Lauder, Benetton, and Tonka Toy Co. all stopped testing products on animals, the Pentagon stopped shooting pigs and goats in wounds tests, and a slaughterhouse in Texas was closed down.
As part of its anti-fur action, PETA supporters have infiltrated hundreds of fashion shows in the U.S. and Europe and one in China, throwing red paint on the catwalks and unfurling banners. Celebrities and supermodels have posed naked for the group's "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign—some men, but mostly women—triggering criticism from some feminist animal rights advocates."Fashion and Dress," Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2006. "Here's the rest of your fur coat" . Retrieved June 26, 2010; also see webcitation.org. Francione, Gary. Rain without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement. Temple University Press, p. 74. The New Yorker writes that PETA activists have crawled through the streets of Paris wearing leg-hold traps and thrown around money soaked in fake blood at the International Fur Fair. They sometimes engage in pie-throwing—in January 2010, Canadian MP Gerry Byrne compared them to terrorists for throwing a tofu cream pie at Canada's fishery minister Gail Shea in protest of the seal slaughter, a comment Newkirk called a silly chest-beating exercise."Pie hit should earn PETA 'terrorist' label: MP", CBC News, January 26, 2010; "Pie tossing is terrorism, MP says" , Toronto Star, January 26, 2010. "The thing is, we make them gawk" she told Satya magazine, "maybe like a traffic accident that you have to look at."
PETA has also objected to the practice of mulesing (removing strips of wool-bearing skin from around the buttocks of a sheep). In October 2004, PETA launched a boycott against the Australian wool industry, leading some clothing retailers to ban products using Australian wool from their stores. In response, the Australian wool industry sued PETA, arguing among other things that mulesing prevents flystrike, a very painful disease that can affect sheep. A settlement was reached, and PETA agreed to stop the boycott, while the wool industry agreed to seek alternatives to mulesing.Smith, Wesley, A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement, Encounter Books, 2010, pp. 94–98.
In 2011, PETA named five orcas as plaintiffs and sued SeaWorld over the animals' captivity, seeking their protection under the Thirteenth Amendment.Emily Feldman, "PETA Sues SeaWorld Over Killer Whale Enslavement," NBC10 7 February 2012. A federal judge heard the case and dismissed it in early 2012."California: Suit That Called Whales Slaves Is Dismissed" Associated Press February 8, 2012. In August 2014, SeaWorld announced it was building new orca tanks that would almost double the size of the existing ones to provide more space for its whales. PETA responded that a "larger prison is still a prison." In 2016, SeaWorld admitted that it had been sending its employees to pose as activists to spy on PETA. Following an investigation by an outside law firm, SeaWorld's Board of Directors directed management to end the practice.