FURTRADE hits back against animal rights activists with a tough new campaign in Germany.
The International Fur Federation targeted an anti-fur demo by activists in Hamburg with its own demo.
Two trucks carried a massive cartoon exposing the hypocrisy of PETA, one of the main groups, which protests against the fur trade.
PETA’s finances have been mired in controversy and the provocative cartoon showed PETA in the guise of a cigar-chomping vulture looking down greedily at a starving puppy, which it sees as prey.
The demo which took place on September 23 was organised by the local group The Hamburg Animal Protection Association of 1811 together with Animals United and PETA.
It started at 12 o’clock at Hamburg Rathausmarkt and moved through Hamburg city and ended at 2pm with speeches.
The IFF trucks were in the city near the demo to get its own message across.
For years, the fur industry has avoided targeting anti-groups in the face of abusive and misleading attacks.
But in a new initiative, the industry has decided to call out activists on their long history of, “false claims, hypocrisy, greed and intolerance aimed at misleading and bullying the consumer”.
The posters were launched in Germany on buses earlier this year and marked the start of a world-wide campaign.
The poster campaign is aimed at informing well-meaning donors, who hand over millions in cash to PETA, that much of their money is wasted on staff costs.
PETA’s massive payroll structure has been revealed at their operations in Germany and is likely to raise serious concerns among donors.
In 2015 the US registered charity, now the biggest animal rights group in the world, received $63million in grants and contributions.
A staggering $10, 676,326 went on wages for its army of staff.
And $46,114,330 went on “functional expenses” to keep the organisation going of which $1,416,417 went on legal bills and $16, 053,883 were simply listed as “other” functional costs.
It’s “functional” expenses alone represent a huge spend swallowing up 75 per cent of the $63million it was gifted.
The figures emerged in Peta’s US 2015 Return of Organisations Exempt from Income Tax documentation.
For many years, it was believed PETA had a tiny number of paid staff.
In fact, they have a multi-tiered hierarchy of up to 57 “managers”, “senior co-ordinators”, “co-ordinators” and “junior co-ordinators”.
Although donors may find these statistics distasteful, they may be surprised to learn there is nothing illegal in what PETA has done.
But they may feel entitled to put their money into more caring charities.
Behind the initiative is Mark Oaten, the International Fur Federation’s CEO.
He said: “PETA is a bloated organization which takes millions from well-meaning people every year.
“Our mission is to explain to the public how their money is being wasted and swallowed up by a giant charity with an extremist animal policy which would ban them from even owning pets.
“This is coming as a painful shock to those who have donated generously and we expect this to substantially dent PETA’s donor base as people choose to place their donations elsewhere.”
