People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been known to exaggerate claims about animal abuse and negatively represent animal industries in its advertisement attacks by often showing only the most abused animals (i.e. animals with tumours, bloody with cuts, bruises, and scars, etc.). That is not to say the organization hasn’t done good in illuminating cases of animal abuse, but in exaggerating its advertisements it has unfortunately brought the organization’s validity, integrity, and honesty into question.
For instance, in an anti-sheep shearing campaign from April 2015, PETA showed graphic footage of sheep at an unknown farm being sheared, then modeled Jona Weinhofen, the lead guitarist of I Killed The Prom Queen, holding a bloody and sheared lamb. PETA later admitted the bloody lamb was a prop made of foam. While the footage from the farm is likely real, it is unlikely that this is how all farmers treat their sheep.
American and Canadian farms are held to Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) audits, so there are checks and balances put in place to prevent animal cruelty. Canada’s internal audit performance and testing requirements holds farmers to stringent guidelines that must be followed; failure to comply to such audits can result in the termination of the farmer’s license to farm.
A government document released last year by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services reported that from the years 1999-2018 PETA has on average euthanized 84.46 per cent of total animals received (i.e. strays, abandoned animals, failed adoptions, etc.). PETA, in response, claimed they euthanize the animals because they are often brought in disfigured and near death. However, it is hard to believe that this number of disfigured or sick animals adds up to a whopping 84 per cent.
The recent incident at the Excelsior Hog Farm in Abbotsford serves as an example of PETA spurring controversy in local context. The video of the pigs which were suggested, but not confirmed, to belong to the Excelsior farm came to light in early April 2019. The source remained anonymous, although the video itself was distributed by the PETA organization. The video displayed pigs in poor condition on the farm. Some had hernias, others cuts, a few clips showed the pigs too weak to stand, and finally, a mortality pile due for incineration. Sad music and a mournful narrator illustrated the horrific elements of the video encouraging outrage and frustration from its viewership.
In response to the video, 65 members of a local animal rights group known as “Meat the Victims” showed up at the Excelsior farm in protest. The protest was mostly peaceful, but the police did confirm that one person was arrested for breaking and entering.
All I can say to this is thank goodness that due process exists. These cases need to be validated before actions are taken, otherwise videos like these can permanently damage livelihoods and cause people to lose their farms. The owners of the Excelsior farm believe that elements of the video were staged and taken out of context. For instance, whether the pigs actually belonged to the farm or even if the footage was only of the sickest pigs and not of the majority of the healthy pigs on the farm came into question.
“Some of those pictures could not have even been from our farm. We are not sure. I find it’s very hard when someone puts out information that’s incorrect about how we do things here as a family farm,” Ray Binnendyk, one of the brothers who operates Excelsior, told CBC news.
“It’s very disturbing to see what traction this gets in the media for people that are implicating us as criminals,” Binnendyk said.
Ultimately, where is the certainty? To provide validity for the video content the anonymous source should have been a public source able to provide a stronger point. Instead, we are left with a money grab by PETA, who will ultimately use this controversy to make a great deal of money from donations. I have no doubt that animal cruelty happens, but the way this event has played itself out was rather unfortunate. Due process is necessary and public interference simply makes the process harder on the auditors who now have to investigate the claim, and for the farmers living out the ordeal. If the original “source” genuinely cared about the farmer’s livelihood and the welfare of the animals, then the most logical move would be to submit the video for private investigation and not a media shitshow. This time the protests were peaceful, but next time, they might not be.
