PETA2
Background
Founded in 1980, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is the largest animal-rights organization in the world. Dedicated to establishing and protecting the rights of all animals, PETA's guiding principle is the belief that "animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment."
Toward that end, the organization focuses its attention on what it believes are the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: in factory farms, laboratories, the clothing trade, and the entertainment industry. PETA strives to end the use of animals for research, for entertainment and in clothing, as well as to convince people everywhere to become vegetarian and to be kind to animals.
Since its founding, PETA has exposed animal cruelty in factory farms, slaughterhouses, research laboratories and circuses, resulting in numerous instances of canceled funding and closed facilities, and hundreds of charges filed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. PETA launched the famous Silver Spring Monkeys case in 1981, resulting in the first arrest and criminal conviction of an animal experimenter in the United States on charges of cruelty to animals, the first confiscation of abused laboratory animals, and the first U.S. Supreme Court victory for animals in laboratories. PETA has also provided information and materials to educate millions of people about the plight of animals throughout the world.
PETA's advocacy tactics have taken many forms. The organization is perhaps best-known for its well-publicized street demonstrations, public protests and controversial billboards, but it has also used direct marketing; e-mail marketing; print, radio, TV and Web advertising; letter-writing campaigns; organized boycotts; book, magazine, music and video publishing; concert event organizing; leaflet dissemination; celebrity appeals; a mobile spay/neuter clinic; traveling speakers; and press releases accompanied by video footage of its investigative reports.
On the Internet, PETA and its affiliates maintain 66 websites in addition to the flagship PETA.org, including GoVeg.com, FurIsDead.com, HelpingAnimals.com, CowsAreCool.com and peta2.com, the site for PETA's Youth Division. Together, those websites receive more than 32 million visitors per year.
PETA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation headquartered in Norfolk, VA, with offices in New York City and Los Angeles and affiliates in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, India and the Asia-Pacific region. The organization has 162 employees, and its revenue in 2005 was $27,846,730.
Eighty-five percent of PETA's budget goes directly into programs that advocate for animals. In addition to more than one million members and supporters, the organization has an activist network of more than 55,000 volunteers and a youth activist network of more than 200,000 youth volunteers.
