Dear Friends,
The success of the animal liberation movement depends on humans seeing other animals as they see themselves: as thinking, feeling individuals who want and deserve autonomy. In 2023, PETA made solid progress toward this goal in our vital work for animals. Below is just a glimpse.
We unveiled a massive immersive exhibit on the National Mall right under the Capitol dome called The Council of Animals (What to Do About the Humans), created by artist Quill Hyde and featuring a 7-foot-tall polar bear, a towering 1,200-pound elephant, a 6-foot-tall rhinoceros with a chicken perched on his back, and a coyote voiced by Battlestar Galactica actor Edward James Olmos. The exhibit seeks to answer the question “If animals spoke in a language we could understand, what would they say about us?” Thousands of visitors to Washington, D.C., sat and listened to the message!
Our eye-opening traveling exhibit Without Consent began its West Coast tour this year at UCLA with an influencer-led event on campus. Without Consent describes the true experiences of nearly 200 dogs and other animals who have been harmed and killed over many decades in experiments that they did not and never could consent to. Since launching in 2020, the exhibit has traveled to 25 cities, inspiring people to contact their legislators to oppose animal testing and the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) funding of it. This year, neuroscientist and Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik drummed up attention for Without Consent on social media, and the debut event received attention from Visión Latina, among many other media outlets.
Renowned novelist Jonathan Franzen helped share one of the most important messages in my new book 250 Vital Things Your Cat Wants You to Know by urging people to keep cats indoors for their own safety and to protect wildlife. We honored director and writer James Gunn for using Rocket Raccoon’s desperately sad origin story to expose the horrors of experiments on animals in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and we juxtaposed footage from the movie with real-life animal experiments in a video that was viewed more than 1.5 million times!
That’s just a tiny peek, but inside you’ll find much, much more. Please keep reading and don’t miss any of our accomplishments! All our supporters—especially our Vanguard Society, Augustus Club, and Investigations & Rescue Fund members—played a vital role in the victories of 2023. I hope they make you feel good and motivate you to become even more active. It’s been a banner year, but we still have a lot more to do!
With kind regards,
Ingrid Newkirk
President
Board of Directors and Officers
Ingrid Newkirk, Secretary
Michael P. Rodman, Chair
Jeanne Roush, Treasurer
Honorary Board of Directors
Nanci Alexander
Pamela Anderson
Pinky Cole
James Cromwell
Alan Cumming
Kate del Castillo
Edie Falco
Anjelica Huston
Bill Maher
Marco Antonio Regil
Alicia Silverstone
Lily Tomlin