THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: ANOTHER VIEW
SOURCE: By CARLA BENNETT
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Much has been written about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' forthcoming move to Norfolk, and some residents are nervous.
Although we campaign worldwide, we live in peace. We won't be running naked down Granby Street flinging red paint. We'll be scouting out good non-leather shoes and vegetarian restaurants.
We may hold a protest of two, but we're more likely to sit down with our ``enemies'' over a coffee or beer to discuss our differences than to get into a shouting match.
Our job is to get people talking and thinking about all sorts of animals and how we treat them. Our anti-fishing campaign has certainly done that.
I'm an ex-fisher myself. My dad was a fishing guide in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. We fly-fished for trout, cast for muskies, trolled for Northern pike and still-fished for walleyes. The only thing was, I hated to see a fish thrashing on a hook. So I'd go fishing with Dad, hoping I wouldn't catch a fish. If I hooked one, I'd hope he was little so I could throw him back. Then I learned that most fish thrown back die later. That's when I abandoned my rod and reel.
Tradition may rank fishing right up there with apple pie and the American flag, but no one can pretend that fish are inanimate objects. They treasure their fish lives, they struggle to survive, and, yes, fish do feel pain.
They also communicate fear, pain and stress with sounds inaudible to humans. They use their sensitive tongues, mouths and lips like hands to gather food, build nests and sometimes to incubate their eggs. Some show compassion: For a whole year, one fish in a pet store supported on his broad back a deformed tankmate. He would swim him around the tank and, when feeding time came, to the surface.
PETA knows the world will never be cruelty-free. But we also know that most folks who learn of animals' feelings and suffering will extend their compassion to them.
As the great humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who would stoop to move a worm from hot pavement to cool earth, put it, ``The man who is guided by the ethics of reverence for life stamps out life only from inescapable necessity, never from thoughtlessness.'' He said each person ``must live daily from judgment to judgment, deciding each case as it arises, as wisely and mercifully as he may.''
PETA encourages dialog. Savvy editors do, too. People exercising their First Amendment rights in lively, thought-provoking letters and opinion pieces, pro, con or in between, add zest to the newspaper.
The Montgomery Journal, which covers a large area of suburban Washington, D.C., wrote recently, ``Yes, even we get weary and annoyed at PETA's calls and letters from time to time. But they have challenged us to think, which almost no institution bothers with trying to accomplish anymore.''
You're welcome to visit our new headquarters in Norfolk. You'll find we're a friendly bunch who laugh whenever we get a chance to offset our distress over the horrendous cruelty cases we deal with each day. Our flashy, sporty gimmicks make press, but the daily chores of helping a child find an alternative to dissecting a cat, prosecuting a furrier for injecting minks with insecticide, or pulling drowning animals from raging floodwaters seldom do.
Our members are right-wing, left-wing, pro-life, pro-choice. We have a nun in North Carolina and an ex-hunter in Montana. But we all have one thing in common: We don't like cruelty to animals, any of them.
In our offices you may also meet rescued animals, our ``animal companions,'' as we call them. When there's a vet visit or no one home to help out, they are welcome to come to work with our staff. So are children. On any given day, eight or 10 dogs, several cats and an occasional baby are hanging out in our offices.
We look forward to seeing you soon. MEMO: Carla Bennett is advice columnist for PETA's Animal Times magazine.
by CNB