It's that time of year for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to begin another cycle of fundraising. How do we know? PETA's strategic messaging always includes an incredibly outrageous target to highlight.
Past campaigns have included the "Holocaust on Your Plate" Campaign in 2003 that compared farm animals in slaughterhouses to victims of Nazi concentration camps. Then they attempted to "rebrand" fish as "Sea Kittens." They argued that people wouldn't hook, drown, or eat kittens, so renaming fish would spark empathy for aquatic wildlife. (I've heard of people who hate cats enough that they already drown and eat them.)
PETA placed billboards suggesting a link between dairy consumption and autism, featuring a bowl of cereal shaped like a sad face with the headline "Got Autism?"
If you think that's silly, PETA frequently targets pop culture by attacking video games for fictional animal cruelty.
They criticized Mario's "Tanooki" suit for allegedly promoting the wearing of real raccoon dog fur.
PETA released a parody game titled Pokémon Black and Blue, which claimed the franchise promotes animal abuse and enslavement.
They created a parody version of Cooking Mama titled Mama Kills Animals that featured bloody imagery of turkey preparation.
One of their longest-running media strategies involved celebrity models posing completely nude in high-profile print and billboard advertisements to protest the leather and fur industries.
Do you notice a pattern here? PETA’s media strategy relies on provocative, shock-value public relations tactics designed to spark intense media coverage and outrage.
They're also notorious bullies. One of their current campaigns targets the small city of Ocean City, N.J., and its homage to the Hermit Crab. Ocean City is a town of about 11,000 people on the Jersey Shore and is a popular weekend getaway for New Yorkers and Marylanders.
It's one of 32 dry towns in New Jersey, although after PETA is through with them, they may want a good bracer.
PETA is targeting the annual "Miss Crustacean Pageant" and "Hermit Crab Races" in Ocean City, scheduled for August 19. You should know that the Jersey Shore, including Maryland, is crab crazy. The Crab Races are fun because crabs are entertaining creatures even in the wild. Watching Hermit crabs fight is astonishing.
Leave it to PETA to spoil the party and look like hysterical activists at the same time.
“Times change, and traditions evolve,” PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk said in a letter to Ocean City’s mayor. “Just as New England no longer promotes whaling but sells everything that celebrates whales, Ocean City has a similar opportunity to transition toward compassion.”
Whaling and crab races? Sure, I can see the connection, can't you?
Ms. Newkirk prognosticates that a pageant focusing on robots rather than Remoulade could include “a crab-friendly pageant that recognizes participants for protecting coastal wildlife and features activities such as bobbing for crab apples and crab-walk relay races.
”PETA offers to provide artificial crustaceans to run the races, but Ms. Newkirk did not detail in her letter what kind of automaton would effectively mimic the hermit crabs. “Rather than holding events that encourage the capture and use of hermit crabs as entertainment, the city could preserve all the fun with remote-controlled crab races and other animal-friendly activities that leave real crabs in peace,” Ms. Newkirk wrote.
The crab controversy partly stems from PETA’s longstanding objection to people keeping hermit crabs as pets. PETA says that hermit crabs can live up to 40 years and thrive in colonies, socializing alongside their own species. Hermit crabs avoid human beings and can feel pain or die if they are forced out of their shells. They require proper humidity and space, PETA says.
“Hermit crabs are not toys, trinkets, props, or pets,” Newkirk wrote in the letter to Mayor Jay Gillian. “If the purpose of the pageant is truly to promote responsible ‘pet ownership,’ then the best way to support that goal would be to stop normalizing the purchase and confinement of hermit crabs altogether.”
In 2023, PETA called crabs “feeling individuals, not food.” She added, “When it comes to feeling pain and fear, a crab is no different from a cat, a dog, or a human being,” Newkirk said at the time. Studies have confirmed that crabs feel pain, but whether they experience pain the same way a human does is fantasy. No one knows, and until we can ask them, it will remain a mystery.
PETA annoys people. They believe that's the key to a successful campaign. I'm sure they have marketing experts who tell them what works and what doesn't. If they ever asked me, I'd tell them that I am more determined not to give them any money because of their approach to protecting animals.
I can say that what might work for most animal lovers doesn't work for me. I am first and foremost pro-human. I think we should care for animals, especially rare and endangered ones. But life, ecology, and environmentalism are all about tradeoffs. And sometimes those tradeoffs short the animals.
That's the way it needs to be.
