Famous Vegans - Ingrid Newkirk

Ingrid Newkirk in New York City, 2007.

Ingrid Newkirk

Born June 11, 1949. She's a British-born animal rights activist and the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world's largest animal rights organization. She founded PETA in 1980, together with Alex Pacheco. You can check out the books she has written at this link.

PETA focuses its main attention on the four areas in which the largest number of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in the clothing trade, in laboratories, and in the entertainment industry. They work through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.

PETA works hard to improve animal welfare, but Ingrid Newkirk is also firmly committed to abolitionism. PETA's slogan is: "animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment."

The trailer of I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA:

Quotes by Ingrid Newkirk:

When asked about how she became vegan, she answered:

"Someone made fun of me for putting milk in my tea in the morning. He said, "Do you eat veal?" I said, "Of course, not." He then explained how the dairy industry created the veal industry and if we weren't stealing the milk from the calves, the calves wouldn't be in crates. I was mortified. Then I learned that if you pay for eggs, you subsidize the chicken meat industry, and that the only difference between the two is that egg-laying chickens suffer for longer. They all end up hanging upside down by their legs, screaming. "

When asked about what led her to form PETA, she answered:

"I always cared about animals, but Peter Singer's book, Animal Liberation, made me realize that I also believed animals should not only be treated kindly within the context of using them, but that they are not ours to use. As I learned more, I thought it would be useful to share that information. PETA was founded in 1980."

"if you're against cruelty and you look at what happens to animals in slaughterhouses and on factory farms, you have to be completely against eating meat. And we don't need animals. It's the 21st century. It's healthier for us, better for the environment and certainly kinder to be a vegetarian."

When asked about how she can justify advocating animal rights in a world filled with poverty and starvation, she answered:

"Perhaps one of the most important things you can do for human beings is wean them off an animal-based diet. It hardens the arteries and runs up our health-care costs. The last thing a poor person can afford is a heart attack or cancer or a stroke. And that's all linked to a meat-based diet. I think animal liberation is human liberation "

When asked about her response to critics who think PETA is too radical and too aggressive, she answered:

"I think Chrissie Hynde said it best, "Rather go too far than not far enough." We have to be aggressive when those we stick up for have no voice. I don't consider it radical to say cruelty is wrong and that animals should be respected. I consider it radical to eat corpses, put electrodes in animals' heads, make elephants live in chains in the circus, and poison animals we consider a nuisance."

"The problem these days is that you do something sensible and right and the press yawns. You have to be controversial, to shake things up a bit, to make hard comparisons to get attention, to start people thinking, even if people hate you for it. The message, not the messenger, is what’s important. Arguing is better than nothingness. And as it has been said, new ideas start with argument as defenses are worn down, ultimately comes acceptance."

"People try to trivialize all social cause messages when they are relatively new because the message makes people with certain habits, uncomfy. We expect that, and we’ll use humor, sex, jokes, whatever we can to get the subject raised. Silence is the enemy."

"We may do silly things sometimes, but we always have a serious point. We'll pretty much do anything--as long as it's not violent."

When asked about whether she has any fun fighting for animal rights or whether it's all seriousness and horror, she answered:

"We would have all jumped off a ledge by now if we hadn't had some fun along the way. I think people who don't know peta often miss the fact that we're poking fun at ourselves while we're trying to get people to open their eyes."

When asked about what animal product she would advice people to stop using, if she could only choose one, she answered:

"Eggs are probably the worst. The hen is not only slaughtered for meat when she is tired and older and maybe sick (I’ve stood in chicken slaughterhouses and seen mucus coming out of their beaks), but for 1-3 miserable years crammed into a cage with about 7 other birds, unable to stand on solid ground because of slanted wire slats, being splattered with the waste of chickens above her, her feathers being worn away and sores forming because overcrowding forces her against the wire. The stench of the sheds these chickens live in is enough to put you off her eggs forever and her life is worse than any prisoner of war has ever endured. It takes 22 hours with the lights left on constantly for one egg to be produced. Then there is being thrown into a crate, often breaking wings and legs, to be trucked in all weather to the slaughterhouse, hung up by her legs and having her throat slit. Can’t call us civilized for what we do to these small birds."

When asked about advice for people who are concerned about the treatment of animals, she answered:

"I recommend people concentrate on the positive so as not to burn out or get depressed: there is so much each of us can do, from putting newsletters around town, to showing a video at a table at a mall, to getting a bill introduced before our city council to ban chaining dogs or having animal circuses. PETA has all the materials anyone could need, and the advise. All we need is enough people to get busy for the animals."

"we may be big, but we are small compared to even one of our enemies, so please join us, use our materials, use our videos, become one of our activist contacts, be part of it our 'Army of the Kind.'"

Quotes are from her 2003 interview with VegFamily, her 2005 interview with Backyard League and her 2008 interview with Time Magazine.