PETA Going Ape Over Aflac Commercial
That zany group the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is upset because the health and life insurance company Aflac used an orangutan in one of its commercials, as reported by the Columbus, Ga., newspaper the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
PETA shot off wild accusations that implied the orangutan used in the Aflac commercial could be one of many apes in the entertainment industry that can only be taught through dominance, beatings and electrical shocks.
As Maj. T.J. “King” Kong would say, “Shoot, a fellah could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.”
PETA said that there were a few thousand complaints sent to Aflac and is urging the insurance company to pull the ad and to never use the little walking carpets in commercials again. But maybe Aflac can find a better use for orangutans in general by donating them to cancer research labs as experiments to benefit humans.
What? You think PETA would object to having orangutans be used to see if new cancer drugs actually work? Sure they would, but at least these animals would die for a good purpose. And if PETA complains about it, then they really are hypocrites.
It was just reported by Newsweek that since 1998, PETA has killed nearly 85 percent of animals, that’s 17,000 pets, the organization “rescued.” And get this. The organization that loves animals so much says that putting them to sleep is a necessary evil to rid the world of over-populated pets. So it just seems unusual that PETA isn’t exactly crazy about the idea that extra hard work can prevent the majority of these animals from being killed.
Newsweek interviewed attorney Nathan Winograd, author of “Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America,” and Bonney Brown, executive director of the Nevada Humane Society, who both say that there are better alternatives, such as P.R. and media outreach programs and improving volunteerism at animal shelters.
“…We can find homes for virtually all of the healthy animals we are now killing,” Winograd told Newsweek.
PETA claims that it’s not possible to have no-kill animal shelters and that those shelters across the nation actually turn away animals. But Brown insists that is not the case and they are doing it much cheaper than PETA’s $30 million budget.
In addition to bizarre attacks on celebrities for wearing fur or implying that an insurance company may be abusing an animal, whose favorite pastime is picking fleas off its mate and eating them, it seems that PETA doesn’t have its priorities in order in the actual protection of healthy animals.
Maybe it’s best if they clean up their own act first before condemning an international health insurance company for using an entertaining circus animal.
