FACT+SHEET

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an international nonprofit charitable organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, with affiliates in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, India, and the Asia-Pacific Region.

Founded in 1980, PETA is dedicated to establishing and defending the rights of all animals.PETA has been responsible for such breakthroughs as closing the largest horse-slaughter operation in the United States, shutting down a military laboratory where animals were shot, and stopping the use of cats and dogs in all “wound” laboratories.

PETA convinced Mobil, Texaco, Pennzoil, Shell, and other oil companies to cover their exhaust stacks after showing how millions of birds and bats had become trapped in the shafts and were burned to death.

PETA first uncovered the abuse of animals in experiments in 1981 and launched the precedent-setting “Silver Spring monkeys” case.

“Meet Your Meat,” a video produced by PETA and narrated by Alec Baldwin, is a powerful look at each stage of life of animals raised for food. It was distributed to every member of Congress along with a letter from Baldwin that encouraged them to “protect animals from the array of abuses that are standard in the farmed-animal industry.”(

Producing a little more than 2 pounds of beef causes more greenhouse-gas emissions than driving a car for three hours and uses up more energy than leaving your house lights on for the same period of time.

Laying hens live in battery cages stacked tier upon tier in huge warehouses. Confined seven or eight to a cage, they don’t have enough room to turn around or spread even one wing.

Each year, around the world, millions of birds, cats, dogs, farmed animals, fish, mice, monkeys, rats, rabbits, and other domestic and wild animals are subjected to a wide variety of experiments in the name of biology, psychology, biochemistry, physiology, genetic manipulation, and bio-warfare.

Members of the public are ultimately the ones who—knowingly or unknowingly—fund animal research. The largest proportion of funding comes from publicly funded government granting agencies such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the U.K. Medical Research Council. Animals in the highest dose groups may endure severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, convulsions, seizures, paralysis, and bleeding from the nose, mouth, and genitals before they ultimately die.

The Draize eye- and skin-irritation/corrosion test dates back to the 1940s .During this test, rabbits are often immobilized in full-body restraints while a substance is dripped or smeared into their eyes or onto their shaved skin. Animals may suffer swollen eyelids, irritated and cloudy eyes, and inflamed skin, and in the case of irreversible corrosive damage, they may endure ulcers, bleeding, bloody scabs, or blindness.