People Energetically Teasing Abusers
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2000:
As encore to its brief “Got beer?” c a m p a i g n parodying the National Dairy Council’s “Got milk?” ads, PETA placed a parody ad asking “Got zits?” in the May 31 edition of the student newspaper at Central High School in Brookfield, Illinois. The ad argued milk can aggravate acne. High school papers in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, California, and Vermont refused the ad, said PETA campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich.
Irritating cowpokes too, PETA asked Wyoming governor Jim Geringer to remove from the state’s license plates the bucking rodeo horse which has been the state symbol since 1936.
Petco, trying to compete with P E T s M A R T by also offering in-store adoption space to shelters and rescue groups instead of selling purpose-bred puppies and kittens, is nonetheless under boycott by PETA for failing to respond effectively to complaints about store care of ferrets, rodents, birds, and reptiles––most of them species exempted from protection by the federal Animal Welfare Act. Details are online at . P E T s M A R T also sells rodents, birds, and reptiles obtained from breeders, but most complaints known to ANIMAL PEOPLE have focused on the philosophical issue of selling animals rather than on care. PETsMART Charities c h i e f Joyce Briggs told the 1999 No-Kill Conference that she believes the constant presence of humane society and rescue group personnel in the stores ensures good care. The Petco adoption program as yet attracts far fewer participants.
Former Las Vegas performer Bobby Berosini in early May paid P E T A $340,230 in legal fees and interest owed since the Nevada Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that PETA had not libeled him by asserting in 1989 that he beat the orangutans he used in his nightclub act. The Nevada Supreme Court verdict overturned a $3.1 million Las Vegas District Court judgement issued in 1990. Berosini forked over the money after a federal magistrate at PETA request ordered him to return to the U.S. $2 million he had allegedly transferred out of the U.S. to evade paying up.
