A UNIVERSITY researcher targeted by Peta was left fearing for her life after receiving a string of hate emails.
Christine Lattin, a post doctoral researcher at Yale University in America, said she received 50 vile messages a day.
She said the emails were from Peta supporters and began flooding into her inbox after the group attacked her on its website over her research on sparrows and stress.
Peta also orchestrated three protests against her work and the publicity resulted in her receiving more messages which included: “You should kill yourself, you sick bitch!”
She also received messages on Facebook and Twitter including “What you’re doing is so sick and evil” and “I hope someone throws you into the fire”.
But defiant Lattin said: “I am not going to stop.
“PETA is not going to win.
“Every time I went to check my email or Twitter, my heart started racing.
“I worried there might be another message.
“I worried about the safety of my family.
“But Im not going to stop doing my work.
Latin is a self-professed animal lover with a background in bird rescue but that didn’t matter to Peta.
The group has now been accused of of trying to destroy her career.
Lattin is working on the theory that birds respond differently to stress, depending on the species and her work is primarily observational making her an unusual target for the activists.
She added: “This has been one of the worst summers of my life.
“I care about these birds, and I’m really proud of my science. It makes me really upset to have it twisted and used against me.”
Peta also filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a Massachusetts district attorney over her work and sent letters to Lattin’s funders and to Yale, urging them to stop supporting her research.
In these complaints—and in additional posts to its members—Peta alleged that Lattin had killed about 250 birds and performed painful experiments and that her work had no relevance to conservation or other species.
One protest against her involved activists gathering outside a conference building in Long Beach, California, where she was presenting her work.
Peta signs read: “Christine Lattin: Stop Torturing Birds!” A month later, posters appeared across Yale urging the university to shut down Lattin’s work, and more than a dozen PETA supporters held signs on a busy street corner in downtown New Haven, Connecticut.
And in August, Peta posted a video on its Facebook page featuring ominous music and pictures of Lattin with text claiming that she lured birds from the wild to torture them.
The video received nearly a million views, and protesters demonstrated again, this time outside Lattin’s research building.
Peta has also shared her home address and a Google map of her location with its supporters.
Lattin says that some of the threats against her were so specific that she was told to forward them to police.
Critics say PETA’s actions are irresponsible.
“If any criminal activity happened, it would be on their head,” said Tom Holder, the director of Speaking of Research, a London-based international organisation that supports the use of animals in scientific labs.
Peta says it has no intention of ending its campaign.
“We’ll stop the moment Yale says ‘No more,’ and not one minute before that,” a spokesman said.
