Why All The Hate Toward Reptiles By Mack?

Here's the funny thing from my perspective ... I live in the heart of pig country. We torture and slaughter 40 million pigs each and every year. When organizations like PETA come in and secretly video the animal abuse in the hog industry, we hear the animal ag respond with many of the exact same claims Rich came out with. Here's the truth - there is terrible abuse in any large scale animal "agriculture" - no economic way around it.

Do you care? Then rathe than attack PETA et al, and whine about their tactics, change your consumer habits. Stop supporting big box pet stores, stop eating industrial pork.

Attacking the messenger is weak. We can accept the ugly reality they expose and make informed consumer decisions in response.

Originally Posted by caffeinecynic

I think Webslave covered it best in this thread. I will quote what he had to say:

I feel like arguing over opinions on PETA is straying too much off the real topic at hand. Lets look at this regardless of who provided the video. It seems we can all agree this video is likely of RBM. Clearly there is some pretty serious husbandry problems at the location the video was shot.

Regardless RBM should not be pushing all the blame onto the poor employees at the bottom of the pole as it appears. To get this corrupt...to be using double-sided tape to catch escaped animals is a clear sign the company is corrupt from top to bottom. The company and its employees are not being looked over very well if things like this truly happen.

I hope over time this can be sorted out and RBM can shed some better light on what has happened within the company. People should also remember PETA was only going to show the bad things about RBM. Seeing many people have had good experiences with them I am going to assume it is not all starving animals stuck to tape.

My point was, and is, that this footage was likely shot by plant employees from PETA. There is no telling how much of this was sanctioned by Reptiles by Mack. Double-sided tape, for instance. Who's to say that was something that RbM told them to do? And not something they did and then recorded for the sake of the video? I do not at all put it past a PETA representative to fabricate a scenario inside a reptile facility in order to further their propaganda.

I'm not defending Reptiles by Mack. I've never bought from them, or animals from pet stores, and I don't intend to start. The fact that there was not more attention paid to their staff, from the top to the bottom, that this video was allowed to even be created suggests to me there is at the very least a managerial problem, and maybe much more.

My opinion is just that because this is PETA we're talking about, I don't know how much of this I believe was Reptiles by Mack and how much was created by people working at their establishment under PETA's employment - simply for the sake of this video. I think we're all aware that PETA is perfectly willing to sacrifice animals' safety and health to make their message have a bigger impact and because of that willingness, it is important to consider the source the message came from before you condemn the company completely.

I don't doubt there are quite a few things Reptiles by Mack could do to improve their habits, and I also don't doubt that this ugly spotlight on them will at least bring them some heat. I do look at anything provided by PETA with a grain of salt, because they're willing to do a lot of terrible things with little regard for the animals they're hurting, in order to send their message.

Yep, exact same things the hog industry says about PETA etc every time they put out a video of large scale hog industry abuse. In fact, Iowa has passed a law that makes it illegal to record the abuse now!

Got an animal abuse problem? Dont fix it, make it illegal to record it!

Originally Posted by caffeinecynic

Who's to say that was something that RbM told them to do? And not something they did and then recorded for the sake of the video? I do not at all put it past a PETA representative to fabricate a scenario inside a reptile facility in order to further their propaganda.

[quote=thamnophis123;1893794]Here's the funny thing from my perspective ... I live in the heart of pig country. We torture and slaughter 40 million pigs each and every year. When organizations like PETA come in and secretly video the animal abuse in the hog industry, we hear the animal ag respond with many of the exact same claims Rich came out with. Here's the truth - there is terrible abuse in any large scale animal "agriculture" - no economic way around it.
Curiousity Question: Are you a vegan? Are you advocating that all Americans become vegan?
Do you care? Then rathe than attack PETA et al, and whine about their tactics, change your consumer habits. Stop supporting big box pet stores, stop eating industrial pork.

Attacking the messenger is weak. We can accept the ugly reality they expose and make informed consumer decisions in response.[/QUOTE

It isn't attacking the messenger to advise caution in response to them, ESPECIALLY when they have proven in the past that they lie, which PETA has proven time and again, We don't know if it wasn't the PETA "employees" themselves who maimed the animals videoed. Further, that video was spliced so many times that many of the animals may not have even been in the facility!

~Beau

As Beau mentioned, PETA has proven time and time again in their radical proclamations that they have absolutely no problem brutalizing animals, outright lying, and manipulating footage to suit their message. I do not know anything about the hog industry and have no interest in discussing it, but I will state outright that I know enough about PETA to know this is classic behavior for them - and because it is classic behavior, I take everything they say with a grain of salt.

The fact of the matter is, PETA has done a lot of damage to their own image. Look up 'PETA lies' on Google. There's a flood of information on the subject.

Originally Posted by caffeinecynic

As Beau mentioned, PETA has proven time and time again in their radical proclamations that they have absolutely no problem brutalizing animals, outright lying, and manipulating footage to suit their message. I do not know anything about the hog industry and have no interest in discussing it, but I will state outright that I know enough about PETA to know this is classic behavior for them - and because it is classic behavior, I take everything they say with a grain of salt.

The fact of the matter is, PETA has done a lot of damage to their own image. Look up 'PETA lies' on Google. There's a flood of information on the subject.

Well said.

I was going to charge in here and really start to get heated put looks like Mr. Schronski and Ms. Hammonds already put out the fire.

Speaking of fire...

If a convicted arsonist comes into your living room holding a gas can, matches, and says, I think your garage is on fire, is it attacking the messenger to suspect him of something?

Attacking the messenger in a logical fallacy ONLY when the messenger is innocent of the act and only relating the act.

But peta is known for a lot of untrustworthy acts, before

I posted the link to show that when you want to create a hit piece against a company, you can take anything and make it look bad. Even PETA themselves.

Well lets look ay our options here ...

On the one hand you could choose to believe an animal rights group went undercover at a facility housing many thousands of animals and secretly video taped the sick, diseased and dying ones - something that anyone who has spent time in the animal wholesale industry has seen many, many times ...

OR

You can choose to believe that the animal rights group ripped limbs off animals, injured them in ways that made them look like they were dying, created glue boards then stuck live, healthy animals on to them, deprived animals of water so they could then film them drinking, some how caused infections and stayed around long enough to film it developing, etc.

I know which scenario seems more likely to me. I suppose if you want to bad enough, you can choose to believe the highly unlikely one. Sorta like religion in that way I suppose.

By the way, I dont know much about PETA. I googled as someone suggested but dont see anything but anti-PETA propaganda. I understand all too well that animal advocacy groups are routinly attacked by those who are gullible enough to believe the propoganda. But are there any actual facts, reported by actual reliable sources that show a pattern of abuse by PETA? I'd be glad to see it if there is ...