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.
At the head of Peta Deutschland, based in Stuttgart, is director Harald Ullmann.
Having worked for PETA USA from 1986 to 1993, Ullmann is closely connected to the USA’s radical animal protection and environmental movement.
He received fierce criticism for being in charge of PETA Deutschland during the highly controversial PETA ‘Holocaust’ campaign which compared Jews to animals.
As a consequence, in 2005 PETA was fined €6,000 by the Stuttgart District Court on charges of ‘incitement’.
PETA repeatedly appealed this conviction. But in 2010, the fine was increased to €10,000.
Ulmann is known to make strong and highly emotive speeches, often speaking without thinking or simply not concerned about the ramifications of his words.
Examples include: “The world would be a better place for the animals without people. The greatest plague in this world are the people.”
To justify the Holocaust campaign Ullmann said, “The victims have been exchanged. Previously it was the Jews, traveling people and today there are animals.”
Recent statistics indicate that the number of animals killed by PETA has grown rapidly over the last seventeen years.
At the peak of their activity in 2009, PETA killed 97,3% of the adopted animals and only a little percentage of cats and dogs made it through the adoption process.
Dr Daniel Kovich, an investigator from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in the USA, conducted an inspection of PETA’s animal shelter at its Virginia headquarters in July 2010.
Dr Kovich determined that “the facility does not contain sufficient animal enclosures to routinely house the number of animals annually reported as taken into custody.”
He also found that year that 245 of the 290 animals (84%) that PETA took into custody were killed within 24 hours. Only 17 were reported as adopted or in foster homes. PETA’s shelters also failed to meet PETA’s OWN published guidelines for operating a humane animal shelter.
Mark Oaten, CEO of the International Fur Federation, said: “It is bound to come as a shock to many of PETA’s loyal donors to discover a lot of their money has not been used to fund animal welfare projects directly but to pay for a vast bureaucracy of management and activists. And to fund a massive PR campaign, boasting to the public what supposedly wonderful work they carry out.
“This is in addition to the shocking statistic that PETA kills up to 97% of its adopted animals, many within the first 24 hours.
“These facts do not equate with an organisation whose primary purpose should be investing in the welfare of animals, rather than boosting their pay packets or paying to advertise to the world how marvellous they are.
