According to our friends at KSPR, the animal rights extremist group PETA is planning to launch a protest over very questionable allegations against the Dickerson Park Zoo. PETA is claiming they have documents that prove the zoo donated a kangaroo and a greater kudu to a man that has been accused of selling animals to hunting ranches. However, the PETA website does not have these documents available for public viewing so there is no way to see if the documents actually exist or the source of this information. All of the PETA accusations thus far have not been backed with any credible evidence yet they’re going to rush out to draw attention to themselves on Thursday.
The sad part of this action is it feeds into PETA’s public image as a fringe group with questionable ethics. There’s no doubt animal cruelty happens in America but the PETA folks take it to such an extreme that the average person (like me) just thinks they’re off on an extremist rant again especially when there’s no solid documentation to back it up. Some organizations have the credibility to say they know something and not be able to provide the proof up front…but PETA is not one of them.
If they have this “proof” then they need to either post it on their website for critique or provide it in some other public way. As is, it just seems like PETA’s on a rant again and this time using the Dickerson Park Zoo to advance their agenda.
More info:
Edit: PETA e-mailed late today with some info I’m going to attach. As I read it, I don’t see any solid connection that the animals from the Dickerson Park Zoo are being used for what PETA is claiming. There’s certainly insinuations it could be happening but nothing definitive. In one case, they provide examples of one man while claiming the woman they were sold to might be related to him. It’s a real stretch to make that connection.
record-of-acquisition-disposition-or-transport-of-animals_dickerson-park-zoo1.pdf
buddy-jordan_fox-news-report-1.pdf
san-jose-mercury-news_disposition-of-zoo-animals-1.pdf
Second Edit: This came in later today from Lisa Wathne of PETA:
No, PETA is claiming that the zoo has released animals to at least one
person - animal dealer Buddy Jordan - who in the past has
sold/transferred many animals to bad situations, including hunting
ranches. We will never know if the kudu or kangaroo that Dickerson Park
gave to Jordan end up on hunting ranches. The point is that the zoo is
playing Russian roulette with the life of any animal that it turns over
to Buddy Jordan. It is a despicable situation.
PETA is a reputable organization with a proven track record of busting animal abusers and exploiters like the people involved in this. They’re a certified non-profit organization and wouldn’t be able to make claims without evidence to back it up. As a member of the public you have the right to request and receive copies of the same documents they do–and as a journalist it’s your responsibility to look into things BEFORE you spout off about it, not their job to do your research for you.
Their protests may turn off people like you who generalize individuals who do more than simply whine and complain about things that need changed “extremists,” but the demonstrations also drive other people who bother to research into the organization and the issues before passing judgement directly to their website. That would be why their membership continues to steadily increase so much and why their blog alone (not even counting their websites) netted 36,496 unique hits last month and yours can’t even breach a couple of thousand.
PETA? Reputable?
I remember when I attended a Norfolk Admirals game in Virginia (at the Scope, right across from PETA headquarters) there were a bunch of PETA activists dressed up in animal suits engaged in what seemed to be overt sexual activity. Right in front of kids. Wonderful means to try to get across a message.
Haley…you obviously didn’t read the blog or you would have seen I went to PETA’s website to find evidence to back up their claims. None was there. I did the research you want to pretend wasn’t done.
Caring about animals and not wanting to contribute to their suffering and murder is not extreme; it’s compassionate.
—————
Like animals? http://www.chooseveg.com/vegetarians-save-lives.asp
Wanna lose weight? http://www.chooseveg.com/obesity.asp
Care about the environment? http://www.chooseveg.com/global-warming.asp
No Jason, I did read your blog, and as my comment says, you have the ability to request the same documents they requested. It’s not like they’re hiding it from you–anyone from the public has the right to access those records records and most journalists know to do this before complaining that someone else didn’t do it for them.
Haley, if any group is going to make a public protest claiming they have a document to prove an allegation against another group then they have the responsibility to make that information available to the public.
I don’t have to request public documents for anything…I’m not making the claim that something wrong is going on. To this point, PETA is not backing it up.
No they don’t Jason–they have a responsibility to ask the authorities to investigate further, which they have done. The authorities should have been keeping track of sales of this nature in the first place, so groups like PETA shouldn’t have to do their work for them either–but they have provided them with the publicly accessible documents. As for public protests in the meantime, PETA has shown time and time again that these kind of actions put additional pressure on oversight groups (the AZA in this case) to actually do their job and look into it further.
As a fellow journalist and midwesterner I’m just shocked to see you complaining that the documentation wasn’t presented to you directly when it takes very little effort to request it yourself. It’s further confounding to observe you seemingly insinuating that the lack of a copy and paste job of the documentation on their website makes the existence of it invalid when you know full well they couldn’t go to the media about it if it wasn’t true. They handle so many awful cases of this nature every day they couldn’t possibly keep all pertinent documentation on their website for each case and shouldn’t have to since everyone has the right to obtain that info themselves in the first place.
It just seems like instead of recognizing the atrocities committed by the zoo you’re using extremely flimsy logic to shift the negative attention to the people who brought their dirty deeds to light simply because you disagree with their beliefs. Or maybe you work at the zoo?
Interesting, Haley…your internet service provider says you’re in Weston, Virginia…not the Midwest…
If you really were a journalist as you claim then you would know that when someone claims they have proof of something they have the responsibility to back up their claims. It’s absurd to say someone can make a claim and then the public is responsible to find out if they’re telling the truth.
If PETA has nothing to hide and the claim is valid with solid documentation then there is zero reason for them not to make it available online.
In the interest of providing some info, Reston is a suburb of Washington DC near Dulles Airport (I’ve been there many times). Reston is the corporate headquarters for Sprint so I am assuming that is the service provider.
Reston and the entire DC region is three hours NW of Norfolk, Virginia where PETA HQ is located. Just a hop skip and a jump up US 13 to I-95, or I-64 to I-95.
That said I think “Haley” is someone from PETA HQ.
Thanks Chris. I found a comment from her on an Earth First! Journal site that says:
“I’m also really not sure what you find so offensive about the photo featuring Betcee May. Let’s face it, we must utilize tactics appealing to the average person (”remote people”) these days. It may be an appealing image that drives traffic to the site, but once they’re in it’s clear that many look at the actual issues at hand.”
So she’s obviously part of PETA in some capacity as shown by saying “we must utilize tactics.” It would have been nice had she admitted that at the beginning instead of claiming to be a midwestern journalist.
Totally discredits anything her previous posts and anything from here on out.
Super Sleuthing!
Super Sleuthing, indeed! I was just going to ask Haley how much PETA was paying her but you guys beat me to the punch.
Suddenly, Haley is quiet. Her silence is deafening.
Too deafening.
I side with Jason on this one. PETA does have good intentions, BUT they have no scruples when it comes to action. I respect the premiss, but damn. If this “Haley” person does work for PETA this proves the whole point about their tactics. Anybody check out the HBO special on PETA? I didn’t see how this was supposed to help their cause.
I feel like having a cheeseburger now.
Let’s see what we have here:
* Jason can’t handle someone disagreeing him let along making legitimate points that deserve an answer, so instead of even attempting to address these holes in his writing he decides to try to divert attention by leveling personal attacks at the person disagreeing. His buddies join in.
* I’m accessing the internet from a location utilizing Sprint, an international ISP headquartered in Virginia. Obviously this means I’m “one of them,” must be from Virginia instead of the midwest, and can’t be a reporter. This also means my points are void.
* I have a real journalistic career and don’t have time to school amatuer bloggers all day so I leave this tiny site for awhile–no, obviously I’ve clearly been “called out” by detective Jason as a fraud and must have been too scared by Jason’s ability to query an IP on the internet in attempt to stretch it into a conspiracy theory in attempt to avoid accountability for his own writing to answer his accusations.
* I have an obvious knowledge of smart marketing and media but that couldn’t be because I’m a lifelong journalist–no, I’m also an environmentalist (very different belief system)–so again, I must not actually be from the midwest and I must be “from the other side.”
The fact of the matter is this blog is devoid of substance and contains nothing other than biased conjecture. You can hypothesize all you want but when you make outright claims insinuating shadiness/irresponsible watchdogging, any legitimate journalist is going to tell you the same thing–you must back it up with fact. Whining that the people who bothered to investigate simply by requesting documents open to public record (really what they did takes little work and anyone, especially a journalist, would be able to do it) didn’t bother to provide the documents to you instead of researching into the facts yourself doesn’t cut it.
I’ll leave you and your three other readers to return to your normal routine of agreeing with one another and/or enjoying the silence of a blog devoid of attention/comment. I hope I was able to at least invoke somewhat of a sense of journalistic integrity here but given your sad dodging of my points and attempts to divert the attention on to anything other than your empty writing I highly doubt it. I’m sure with your personable, approachable debate style and flawlessly fact-checked content your blog will be climbing the Alexa ratings in no time without anyone calling you out on your lack of resourcefulness/fact ever again, no worries.
Your points were addressed and you ignored them in an attempt to continue to push your agenda. The reason people think your points are invalid is because you continue this charade of being someone you are not.
Not only that, but as far as I’m concerned, someone who resorts to ad hominem attacks on someone else’s stomping ground without failing to provide any substance is paltry, for lack of a better term.