I thought I would start this thread after seeing the thread posted: "Do fish feel pain?" equated to PETA.

I would first like to say that I am not an animal right's activist and have never been a PETA member and never will be. I'm sure I will be blasted for this post. However, here goes...

Some of what we hear is this: they are a bunch of nuts; they equate animal life to the lives of human beings! They are against hunting, fishing & animal experimentation. Some of them are against owning dogs and cats as pets. No zoos allowed; Never take an animal to a kennel - take them with you on vacation! Some claim that Jesus Christ never ate fish and he himself, was a vegetarian (wondering, how he fed the five thousand?). They do not eat meat, use animal products of any kind (I guess all they wear is tennis shoes?) and are all vegetarians themselves. They are indoctrinating our children to be anti-hunting and anti-fishing (no more Musky fishing?). On top of that, some of them have stolen animals from laboratories or thrown bombs to blow laboratories up in the past (actually, this was a group called the Animal Liberation Front). One last thing I would like to add: their executive vice-president was fired two weeks after being hired because the came to work (Norfolk, Va. headquarters) wearing a leather coat - true story!!

All of the above statements are true in some form or other. Now here are some positive things about them:

In 1981, I was part of a team of police officers serving a search warrant on a federally subsidized laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland. We were assisted in the handling of the animals by well known PETA members, Alex Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk. Both, I believe are still high ranking in the organization today.

As a result of the investigation, the laboratory lost its' federal funding because they were mistreating monkeys, not only during experiments, but in their everyday treatment. This was the first time that a Federally-subsized lab was held accountable for animal treatment! Experiments included shocking them, disabling body parts (arms and legs)and poor living conditions such as poor food and filthy cages. On top of that, no affection whatsover was given these poor helpless creatures who would bite their own fingers or toes off due frustration by the way they were being treated. These animals were shown no respect whatsover!! An example of that lack of respect kind of jumped out at me when I found a severed monkey hand on the lab director's desk being used as a paperweight!! I also found dead monkeys floating in chemicals inside a barrell (a barrell of monkeys!!! ), stacked like cord wood. This itself, was a danger to the employees themselves.

This well-funded organization has thrived since then, with thousands of members all over the world including a lot of very well known people. Although most of them do not agree with animal experimentation at all, their activities have resulted in better treatment of animals and more healthful working conditions for laboratory employees that experiment on animals. In addition, some forms of experimentation have changed (ex. - crash dummies in cars instead of pigs; other methods of testing gunshot wound impact other than shooting pigs, etc.)and the devlopment of better artificial fur. I also believe that a lot of us (myself included) are more aware (because of PETA) that we should respect animals and threat them well. I think that this is especially true about hunters and fisherman.

Some of these people ARE nuts - some aren't. Do not underestimate them - they will not go away.

Ready to be blasted - thanks, Tom













Remember...Fish don't live in ugly places!:P

Remember...fish don't live in ugly places!

Hi,

I am sure Saddam Hussein has managed to put forth a nice deed here and there as well.

PETA is an organization that would like nothing more than to take your right to fish and hunt away, their fingerprints are all too often all over every piece of anti fishing,antihunting and antigun legislation.

For petes sakes they are going after MILK!!!

Way TOO radical

what really frustrates me about an organization like PETA is that their interests SHOULD be very similar to outdoorsmen- which is conservation, ethical/humane treatment of animals, etc. so they should really be working WITH outdoors groups, not against us (???)

they really have radical views and the wrong approaches... i want to see animals treated humanely too- i am sure most of us here feel them same- i don't like seeing animals being abused... but so many of their angles are so far-fetched- just not even economically viable... do any of them realize the multi-billion dollar industries they are opposing? good luck!

Thanks for your comments. I expect to get many more (I posted it on all of the major boards). Some of the responses kind of make me chuckle or smile at times. Nothing wrong with that.

However, whether you smile or not at some of the comments, those comments do show how some people take them very seriously. If you don't - watch out. They are very serious about what they are doing and will not go away.

For your clarification: These people aren't my buddies. As a matter of fact, I agree - some of them are kind of nutty.

As far as the investigation goes...they were not part of it. They were there to help us move the animals. This was the first action of its type in the US by anyone! Pacheco (formerly worked on a whaling ship) and Newkirk (at the time) were Humane Society Officials and experts at handling monkeys. Without their help, the animals would have hurt themselves (or us) out of frustration. These were not "pets" but animals that had been treated so badly that I couldn't even use a flash to take their picture without them biting their fingers or toes off. Most of the monkeys were taken to the National Institues of Health Farm in Poolesville, Maryland after we seized them. Some were taken to Texas for care and were later kidknapped (monkey-knapped?) by animal lovers to protect them. Most either died or were euthanized because they could not adapt to normal living condtions and were either a danger to themselves or anyone handling them. PETA members at that time felt that the animals were better off dead than living in the condition they were in.

Remember...fish don't live in ugly places!

I think it has been proven that PETA sent money to the terrorist crowd (Animal Liberation Front?) that set fire to the new buildings at Vail, CO in 2001. This is the same organization that set fire to a fur store in Bloomington, MN and set fire to the research wing at the University of MN. PETA sent them money. I don't see that as a terribly humane way to act.

I agree with you in one point, they are not going away. After that I can see no logical reasons for your comments.

This isn't personal, follow the money and one determines where the heart is.

CP

Not sure if you were referring to my comments or not. However...logical reason for my comments is this:

I believe that PETA is a danger to our hunting and fishing rights. If it were up to them, we could not do those things at all. In my opinion, most hunters and fisherman don't take them as seriously as they should. Most of the time, any referance to them on any of the boards is nothing but bashing them without explaining what the problem is. As a result (although), people really aren't being educated as to why they really are a problem other than: "they are a bunch of nuts."

I agree, they are a bunch of nuts and if you'll look at my comments again (other than their help in the monkey raid and SOME better treatment of animals), you'll realize my comments are really there to stimulate some sort of information gathering to make hunters and fisherman realize that we must take a stand against them.

Thanks for your information - it was quite informative. Tom
Remember...fish don't live in ugly places!

I take your point and could not agree with you more.

If you look at what is going on in England, and give serious consideration to the similarities between our cultures, you should be very alarmed.

Kid, you are right on in saying that PETA and the other anti's are counting on us to be ill-organized and ill-equiped to counter their organized rhetoric and their political will.

There are some financial extreme-heavyweights on their side.

I am convinced that if we sit idle we will loose our hunting rights, our gun ownership rights and our fishing rights in that order.

If you think; guns and hunting don't affect me because I don't hunt and don't own guns, just wait for the other shoe to drop.

Sorry about the rant, but I love the outdoors too much to losse it or see my son loose his rights.

CP

You again, are absolutely right. This does kind of steam all of us up. I appreciate your comments.


Remember...fish don't live in ugly places!

There's a web site dedicated to exposing these vegetable eating terrorist.

www.fegan.net/peta.htm

Beef ,it's whats for dinner

Mike K.

If these people get their way muskies will hire lawyers and sue you for catching them! http://www.wsba.org/barnews/2003/2/karp.htm

Wow: great websites. I think I will add the People Eating Tasty Animals site to my website.


Remember...fish don't live in ugly places!

Remember...fish don't live in ugly places!!

Lady Angler :)
I was shocked to read what you witnessed! Thank GOD for people like you! I don't know enough of the political side of PETA to make any kind of statement except this:
Have these people ever stopped to think what would happen if hunting was not allowed? Have they ever seen a starving deer or a mangled one by wolves? As long as people hunt and fish responsibly, and eat what they kill (or practice catch & release), I say to each their own. As for myself, I've hunted and learned to respect what it is all about. I'll teach my children and grandchildren too. Ya know, I'll bet if you watched some of these "fanatics", they would bite into a juicy steak if tempted!

Signed,
A meat-eating, hunting, fishing, practical hunter and fisherman!

Thanks for your post. The organization is 100% against eating meat and fish of any kind. Of course, the membership may differ slightly. As mentioned earlier, they fired a high-ranking official after he showed up two weeks after he was hired wearing a leather coat. I know this person personally and can attest that he personally was not a vegetarian nor that great an animal lover. I believe he took the job for the money.

Although a lot of these people are experts when it comes to animals, they are not necessarily experts in conservation. They can't seem to understand that overpopulation ends up with starving, sick & poor quality animals. They also don't show good sense when it comes to weeding out overpopulated areas. Instead of allowing hunts, they think that "bambi" should be either captured and released in the wild or given contracpetives. At first thought, the release idea sounds good, but it is not realistic. For example - how do you capture all of these critters without hurting them? Or how to you catch them at all. They've tried contraceptives here locally. Although it does work, they must "shoot" them with contaceptives (like a tranqualizer gun)on a regular basis for it to work. They've (DNR) also found that it seems that deer have multiple births if you mess with their breeding habits. Kind of like mother nature is trying to make up for it. We see heards of deer with multiple bucks in them - what does that tell you.

On top of that, these ideas all cost a lot of money. I agree that the best way to control population is to allow hunters to shoot them.

In terms of fishing - a lot of areas would have no fish at all if it weren't for money from fisherman used in stocking programs.

kid

Its sound s like you've been reading the other petas web site.
They got some good reading on that site.
As a outdoors person and a American ,it make me sick to hear about these dumba$$es trying to take our hunting and fishing privilges away. With all the problems in the world like starving children and disease through out our planet ,these guys can't find some other worthy cause?

Pretty sad ain't it?

Mike .

fishkopp: actually, my knowledge of these people is more "hands on" than it is from reading about them. As mentioned in my original post, I was involved in the "monkey raid" in 1981. Although the originators (notably Alex Pacheco & Ingrid Newkirk) were animal activists prior to the raid, it was actually the beginning of PETA. Since it started here in Montgomery County, Maryland, a lot of their tactics were tried here before anywhere else.

One of their first tactics was to go in the woods and make noise on opening hunting day to scare away the deer. This resulted in a law being passed making it illegal to do this. Our department was locking them up when we got the fuel to do this. Since Maryland is a liberal state, I believe the law was passed more to protect them from being hurt than it was to stop them from interfering with hunters. However, it could be deemed as disorderly conduct. Anyway, we got the law.

We also have fur-selling stores in Chevy Chase (near the Wash. DC line). They have broken windows, destroyed furs, poured blood over furs & I think had a woman naked in a cage in demonstrations. I believe the destruction is the "Animal liberatioin front." Of course these people are also PETA memebers.

I'm not sure what they are doing against fishing other than demonstrating and a star posing nude in their calendar.

This bothers me more than anything else: I visited a local library about a year ago. In the library was a PETA display against animal cruelty. There were pictures of eskimos beating seals to death! These people were called "hunters" on the poster. This information was there for children to see!! No doubt an attempt to brain wash them against hunting. Never thought about it at the time, but I should have asked the library if I could put up a fishing exhibit.

As I've said, they will not go away. They are patient and willing to wait. Sort of like what the communists were doing under Kruschev!