Help!

PETA is constantly under vicious and vigorous attack by people who have two goals in mind: to do all that they can to stop us from winning animal rights victories and to cripple our ability to expose animal abuse. But we are not about to let them succeed.

Industry giants and their sleazy front groups are going after PETA for one reason: We’re making tremendous progress in our campaign to end cruelty wherever it occurs, from slaughterhouses to laboratories, the exotic-animal trade to the fur trade, and sleazy roadside zoos to miserable circuses. Our opponents are very upset about the effectiveness of our investigations, including the one that we conducted on turkey farms owned by Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., in West Virginia. That investigation led to the first cases in U.S. history in which factory-farm employees faced felony cruelty-to-animals charges for abusing birds. And that scares them!

Some attacks come from the very deceptively named Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF)—a despicable front group for huge animal-abusing corporations such as Philip Morris (think cigarette tests on animals) and KFC (think chickens being scalded to death). CCF uses smear tactics against PETA in print ads, subway-car ads, letters to the editor, news releases, and on TV and the Internet. We might be tempted to laugh at their low, childish, frat boy-style tactics and dirty tricks, but we are too busy helping animals who are in deep trouble.

One television ad attempts to scare people away from helping by painting us as terrorists! Others distort our excellent progress in getting vivisectors to replace animals in experiments by pretending that we are stopping progress that could save babies’ lives! It has been said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people start to believe it, and that’s what our opponents in animal-abusing industries are counting on. What’s more, they have almost unlimited industry funds to spend to try to make their lies stick. Let’s not let them do it!

Given our groundbreaking success in winning reforms in the factory-farming industry and promoting meat-free meals, it’s hardly a surprise where CCF’s funds come from. Companies that are heavily involved in animal suffering and slaughter—such as Armour Swift-Eckrich, Tyson, KFC, Perdue, and Cargill, as well as fur promoters and others—are desperately hoping that if they can’t use the truth as their best defense, then CCF’s pricey campaign against PETA will turn public attention away from the ways in which they hurt and kill animals.

Companies that test on animals in cruel ways and those that cart elephants and tigers around in chains or small, barren boxes also support CCF’s efforts to put animal abuse behind a thick smoke screen.

Please join us in defeating their sleazy efforts! Right now, PETA continues to use shareholder activism, the largest youth activist network for animals in the world, and every tool at our disposal to help animals in need by shining a light on cruelty. Won’t you please stand with us at this critical time by showing that animals are important to you and that our work to help them means the world?

On behalf of all the animals who will benefit from your compassion and generous support of our work, thank you!

Very truly yours,

Ingrid E. Newkirk, President

PETA