PETA can't afford to save pets, but offers to pay to fix Cleveland's potholes

By Chad D. Baus

As Buckeye Firearms Association reported recently, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has published documents online showing that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) killed 95 percent of the adoptable pets in its care during 2008. Despite having a $32 million budget, PETA does not operate an adoption shelter. Instead, since 1998, PETA has opted to "put down" 21,339 adoptable dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens instead of finding homes for them.

As the CCF points out, PETA's hypocrisy isn't difficult to understand: Killing adoptable cats and dogs – and storing the bodies in a walk-in freezer until they can be cremated – requires far less money and effort than caring for the pets until they are adopted.

And it now appears we know what they've been saving their money for: filling potholes in the City of Cleveland.

Recently, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the president of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Roger Eaton offered to pay to fill Cleveland and other U.S. city's potholes if they're allowed to brand repairs with a chalked-on message saying that the road has been "Re-Freshed by KFC."

According to the news article, KFC started the project in its hometown of Louisville, KY, to market its "Fresh Tastes Best" campaign.

In response, PETA issued a press release to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson offering to "double the payment that KFC has offered the city."

If Cleveland agrees to reject KFC's plans to stencil its ads on the patched holes, PETA will pay the city $6,000 toward street repairs in exchange for ads that depict an evil Colonel Sanders next to the tagline "KFC Tortures Animals."

"Cleveland streets may have suffered winter damage, but it's nothing compared to what chickens endure on the way to KFC's buckets and boxes," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "KFC needs to focus on the holes in its animal welfare policy and try to patch up its reputation for cruelly produced food."

As noted above, PETA has a $32 million annual budget. But instead of investing in the lives of the animals in its care, the group is offering to fill potholes in the City of Cleveland. According to the CCF, this is typical behaviour for PETA, which spends millions on media campaigns telling Americans that eating meat, drinking milk, fishing, hunting, wearing leather shoes, and benefiting from medical research performed on lab rats are all "unethical."

As CCF Research Director David Martosko observes, "PETA hasn't slowed down its hypocritical killing machine one bit, but it keeps browbeating the rest of society with a phony 'animal rights' message."

According to a follow-up story in the Plain Dealer, "fifteen towns grabbed spots in line after KFC cooked up the pothole project and issued an open invitation to America's mayors", but the cash-strapped City of Cleveland won't be among them.

Andrea Taylor, Mayor Frank Jackson's press secretary, is quoted as saying "we're not biting on this one."