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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA; ) is an American animal rights nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. PETA says that its entities have more than 9 million members globally. Founded in March 1980 by Newkirk and animal rights activist Alex Pacheco, the organization first gained attention in the summer of 1981 during what became known as the Silver Spring monkeys case. The organization opposes factory farming, fur farming, animal testing, and other activities it considers to be exploitation of animals. The organization's controversial campaigns have been credited with drawing media attention to animal rights issues, but have also been widely criticized. Its use of euthanasia has resulted in legal action and a response from Virginia lawmakers. History Ingrid Newkirk Ingrid Newkirk was born in England in 1949, and raised in Hertfordshire and later New Delhi, India, where her father—a navigational engineer—was stationed. Newkirk, now an atheist, was educated in a convent, the only British girl there. She moved to the United States as a teenager, first studying to become a stockbroker, but after taking some abandoned kittens to an animal shelter in 1969 and being appalled by the conditions that she found there, she chose a career in animal protection instead. She became an animal-protection officer for Montgomery County, Maryland, and then the District of Columbia's first woman poundmaster. By 1976 she was head of the animal disease control division of D.C.'s Commission on Public Health and in 1980 was among those named as "Washingtonians of the Year." In 1980, after her divorce, she met Alex Pacheco, a political science major at George Washington University. He volunteered at the shelter where she worked, and they fell in love and began living together. Newkirk read Peter Singer's influential book, Animal Liberation (1975), and in March 1980, she persuaded Pacheco to join her in forming People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, at that point just "five people in a basement," as Newkirk described it. They were mostly students and members of the local vegetarian society, but the group included a friend of Pacheco's from the UK, Kim Stallwood, a British activist who went on to become the national organizer of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection. Silver Spring monkeys The group first came to public attention in 1981 during the Silver Spring monkeys case, a dispute about experiments conducted by researcher Edward Taub on 17 macaque monkeys inside the Institute of Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. The case led to the first police raid in the United States on an animal laboratory, triggered an amendment in 1985 to the United States Animal Welfare Act, and became the first animal-testing case to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which upheld a Louisiana State Court ruling that denied PETA's request for custody of the monkeys. Pacheco had taken a job in May 1981 inside a primate research laboratory at the institute, intending to gain firsthand experience of working inside an animal laboratory. Taub had been cutting sensory ganglia that supplied nerves to the monkeys' fingers, hands, arms, and legs—a process called "deafferentation"—so that the monkeys could not feel them; some of the monkeys had had their entire spinal columns deafferented. He then used restraint, electric shock, and withholding of food and water to force the monkeys to use the deafferented parts of their bodies. The research led in part to the discovery of neuroplasticity and a new therapy for stroke victims called constraint-induced movement therapy. Pacheco went to the laboratory at night, taking photographs that showed the monkeys living in what the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research's ILAR Journal called "filthy conditions." He passed his photographs to the police, who raided the lab and arrested Taub. Taub was convicted of six counts of cruelty to animals, the first such conviction in the United States of an animal researcher; the conviction, though, was overturned on appeal. Norm Phelps writes that the case followed the highly publicized campaign of Henry Spira in 1976 against experiments on cats being performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Spira's subsequent campaign in April 1980 against the Draize test. These and the Silver Spring monkey case jointly put animal rights on the agenda in the United States. The 10-year battle for custody of the monkeys—described by The Washington Post as a vicious mud fight, during which both sides accused the other of lies and distortion— transformed PETA into a national, then international, movement. By February 1991, it claimed over 350,000 supporters, a paid staff of over 100, and an annual budget of over $7 million. PETA India PETA India was founded in 2000 and is based in Mumbai, India. PETA and the NGO Animal Rahat, authorized by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), participated in a nine-month investigation of 16 circuses in India. After it was said that "animals used in circuses were subjected to chronic confinement, physical abuse, and psychological torment", AWBI, in 2013, banned the registration of elephants for performance. PETA India put up billboards prior to a 2020 annual religious event Eid al-Adha where animals are ritualistically slaughtered. The billboards depicted goats with the words "I am a living being and not just meat. Change your view towards us and become a vegan." and "I am ME, Not Mutton. See the Individual. Go Vegan." Muslim clerics wanted to take down the billboards, saying that it was hurtful to their religious sentiments. In July 2020, PETA put up billboards saying "This Rakshabandhan, protect me: Go leather-free". Locations PETA was based in Rockville, Maryland, until 1996, when it moved to Norfolk, Virginia. It opened a Los Angeles division in 2006 and also has offices in Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California. In addition, PETA has international affiliates. Philosophy and activism Profile PETA is an animal rights organization that opposes speciesism, and the abuse of animals in any way, such as for food, clothing, entertainment, or research. In 2020, PETA's website claimed they had 6.5 million supporters, and received donations of $49 million for 2019. Campaigns and consumer boycotts The organization is known for aggressive media stunts, combined with a solid base of celebrity support—in addition to its honorary directors, Paul McCartney, Alicia Silverstone, Eva Mendes, Charlize Theron, Ellen DeGeneres, and many other notable celebrities have appeared in PETA ads. Every week, Newkirk holds what The New Yorker calls a "war council," with two dozen of her top strategists gathered at a square table in the PETA conference room, with no suggestion considered too "kooky or unkind". PETA also gives an annual prize, called the Proggy Award (for "progress.... Discover the Joe Peta popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Joe Peta books.