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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is an organization dedicated to expanding and protecting animal rights. We often picture its members pouring paint on fur coats or doing some other radical action to get their point across. Recently, I stumbled upon their new campaign, “Sea Kittens,” which attempts to make the fish we eat seem cuddly as cats. By doing this, children and their parents are supposed to feel awful for eating a fish because they are just like kittens. One can even go on their Web site and read about fish going to college in a “storybook”. a bit far-fetched, I must say.
This is an awful approach to animal protection and conservation. In a time when much of our conservation efforts need to be put toward getting our youth back into the outside world, this is the last thing our kids need to see. So many of our children are disjointed from nature and do not have an appreciation of what we should be protecting and conserving. When I was young, my father took me fishing, hiking, snowshoeing and anything else that got us outdoors. Those are some of the most memorable moments of my life. I am now a wildlife ecology student in my last year of school and intend to take part in conservation efforts when I graduate.
Being of this mindset, nothing saddens me more than the response I get when I ask my two little nieces what they would like to do while we are at my parent’s camp on a pond in Southern Maine. With all of these options, they invariably tell me to put in a movie. How does our natural world stand a chance with this type of attitude from the young?
I believe, as PETA does, that all animals have rights. But how far do we go? Should meat-eating animals not eat other animals because they are stifling their prey’s rights? Protecting species, including fish, should be a top priority, but making all creatures into something you could cuddle up with at night or play dress-up with – as you can on PETA’s Web site – doesn’t do this.
The problem most people see with hunting and fishing is that we have done it unsustainably for so long that many deem it morally indefensible. Now that we have found this to be an issue, the focus should not be on cessation of these activities, but on teaching our kids to do them in a sustainable manner. This will be key to any future conservation efforts. I think that PETA needs to realize conservation today needs to be focused on getting our youth back out there hiking, skiing and even hunting or fishing.
I am not against PETA. I just feel that this campaign is going in the wrong direction. I chose to become a vegetarian nine years ago based on my disgust with how animals were treated on factory farms. At the time, being about 14 years old, this translated into thinking to myself, “I want to work with animals, so why would I eat them?” I sympathize with animals just as much as any PETA member. My question is, how far do we let this sympathy take us, and is PETA really helping at all?
Andrea Long is a senior wildlife ecology student.
