PETA has no excuse facilitating the mass killing of lobsters. Anyone who cares about animal rights should condemn PETA's speciesist ideology and campaigns. Please send your money and volunteer time to abolitionist groups!

 

I've noticed that you don't have http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/ in the links column on the right hand side. Considering that Gary Francione is perhaps the most influential abolitionist author, I'm hoping you might consider adding it.

 

Hey Marc, thanks for the heads up! I'm off to add it now.

And welcome to the blog, Brandon!

 

Hello,

I just stumbled on your blog today. I am a vegan who has been very frustrated by the PETA organization, and what's worse is that I get people blaming me for offensive PETA campaigns. The organization's stunts have gotten it so much publicity that a lot of people see PETA's opinions as representative of the entire vegan/vegetarian population.

So, thank you for this blog! I am so glad that there are other vegans who are willing to go against PETA...I have friends who are also vegan and don't like PETA, but kind of just put up with it because they agree with PETA's basic principles.

Thank you thank you thank you.

 

Here's a letter I received from PETA today, which sets the record straight as to PETA's position and their involvement in this event:
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Dear Brandon,

Thank you for inquiring about PETA’s involvement with the Child & Family Resources, Inc., (CFR) fundraising event. We appreciate the opportunity to clear up any confusion about this unfortunate incident.

First, please let us assure you that PETA believes, as our motto says, that animals are not ours to eat—period. Slaughtering animals for food is never acceptable.

However, we recognize that change will not happen overnight, and while we’re working toward a vegan world, we’re also committed to doing whatever it takes to make life better for the animals who are suffering right now. If animals are going to be killed, we want to eliminate as much of their suffering as possible.

Animal rights advocates fought hard to convince CFR to hold a fundraiser that didn’t involve offering live lobsters for sale to be boiled alive and eaten. When event organizers refused to hold an alternative event, PETA insisted that if CFR was determined to kill lobsters, it should at least use the Crustastun, a machine designed to kill them quickly via electric shock rather than slowly in a pot of boiling water. CFR agreed, and PETA helped make the arrangements. Unfortunately, despite numerous efforts to ensure the arrival of the Crustastun, we were extremely upset to learn that a series of UPS errors caused the machine not to make it in time for it to be used at the fundraiser.

To be clear, no PETA staff members killed lobsters during the event—with the Crustastun or otherwise—as has been reported (all such reports have since been corrected). All the lobsters were supposed to be killed using the Crustastun by the machine’s inventors or by the charity’s staff members. Since CFR insisted on killing lobsters this year, we hoped to at least spare these animals from a horrible death. It can take three agonizing minutes for lobsters to die in boiling water, but the Crustastun is designed to render them unconscious and kills them in five to 10 seconds. Of course, our preference would be that no lobsters be killed at all.

For information about our campaign to help lobsters, please visit http://www.LobsterLib.com. For more information about effective advocacy for animals who are raised and killed for their flesh, please see http://www.GoVeg.com/effectiveAdvocacy.asp. To order our “Vegetarian Starter Kit” for yourself or a friend, please go to http://www.PETA.org/vsk/.

Thanks again for contacting PETA and for your concern for animals.

Sincerely,

The PETA Staff
http://www.PETA.org

 

Hmmmm, honestly, I'm not sure that clears much up. All it says to me is that PETA don't have their shit together enough (or give a shit enough) to properly plan for something like that. At my work I send and receive UPS packages every day -- UPS, for all the bad things about them, is not a particularly difficult company to work with and packages almost always arrive on time if you fill out the (simple) paperwork correctly. It was a stupid thing for them to be involved in to begin with, and it backfired pretty badly.

 

I think PETA should have continued opposing the event until the lobsters were killed (or even better- intervened to save the individual lobsters from death). Had PETA done this, they likely would have gotten positive press coverage for lobsters and helped others learn why they shouldn't eat them. Since PETA has now removed anything relating to the CrustaStun on their website, I hope this means they have learned their lesson. Animal rights means no compromise.