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 German bus poster launch marks the start of a hard-hitting, world-wide campaign, involving advertising in major cities, including train stations, festivals, newspapers and at other strategic points.
The bus 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.
The provocative cartoon shows PETA in the guise of a cigar-chomping vulture looking down greedily at a starving puppy which it sees as prey.
Figures show 42 cents of every euro or dollar raised goes straight into a fund marked, “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 public handed the charity €4,078,794 in donations and legacies.
But they could be dismayed to learn that in the same year, €1.7 million was spent on salaries and staff overheads.
And an astonishing €1,516,373 was spent on, “public relations work”, including spending cash on media campaigns telling the public and potential donors what important work they carry out safeguarding animal welfare.
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”.
The bill for this army of activists came to an eye-watering €1,728,583 in 2015 – 42% of PETA’s entire cash donations.
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:
“How PETA and other animal rights activists mislead the public is of real concern.
“Few people realise, for example, that in 2016, PETA slaughtered 1,411 cats and dogs. This was almost 72% of the animals which came into their rescue centres in the US state of Virginia.
“Many of their donor’s would pull the plug immediately, if they realised all this.
“It is time someone called them out and set the record straight.
“Animal welfare is close to the heart of every right-thinking person.
“But PETA and many of their animal rights groups are not about animal welfare.
“They are about a politically driven agenda based on false claims, hypocrisy, greed and intolerance aimed at misleading and bullying the consumer”.
