A pair of activists with the animal rights group Folks for the Moral Therapy of Animals had been arrested on Thursday whereas trying to dump a truck’s value of manure outdoors the Manhattan places of work of a rival animal welfare group.
However the protest could have raised much less of a stink than supposed, as organizers acknowledged that a lot of the animal dung remained frozen stable to the truck mattress.
“Because of the freezing temperatures, it didn’t all fall out,” defined Ashley Byrne, a PETA spokesperson. “Someone had to go up in the truck and start shoveling it out, and he was apprehended by the police before he finished.”
The stunt was the most recent escalation within the group’s ongoing marketing campaign in opposition to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or ASPCA, over their backing of an animal welfare certification program.
PETA has alleged that the “sham” certificates — handed down by the International Animal Partnership — seems on merchandise that come from manufacturing unit farms and different places with a documented historical past of cruelty.
They’ve referred to as on the ASPCA to depart the partnership’s board in a collection of protests and full-page advertisements that accuse the group of “humane-washing.”
AP
On this photograph offered by PETA, a dump truck crammed with frozen manure sits on a avenue outdoors the places of work of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in New York. (PETA by way of AP)
A spokesperson for the ASPCA, in the meantime, defended the board for “setting basic standards” within the market, including the battle boiled right down to a philosophical distinction with PETA.
“Unlike the ASPCA, PETA has no interest in building a more humane farming system,” the spokesperson mentioned. “Instead, they seek to eliminate all animal agriculture, and our diverging views on the utility of animal welfare certifications stem from this fundamental difference.”
In response to a separate PETA protest final yr, the International Animal Partnership defended its “robust oversight mechanisms.”
“Certification programs minimize the risk of objectionable practices, swiftly punish it when it is uncovered and tirelessly reduce missteps,” the group mentioned.
The 2 PETA activists, who weren’t recognized, had been issued summonses for unlawful dumping, in keeping with a police spokesperson. They’re due again in court docket on Feb. 11.
Police additionally confiscated the dump truck, together with its remaining contents which had been sourced from an animal sanctuary in New Jersey, Byrne mentioned, including: “There was fairly a little bit of manure left within the truck when it was taken into police custody.”
