Guest Pitch: PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk’s ‘Naked Truth’ Tour Hits San Francisco

For Immediate Release:
November 19, 2013

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

The woman who founded the country’s most controversial animal rights group, PETA, is on a nationwide speaking tour that comes to San Francisco’s Century Club Building on December 4, and I thought you might be interested in interviewing Ingrid E. Newkirk about PETA’s landmark victories for animals since its founding in 1980.

She can describe the huge change in attitudes that has taken place, the early victories that put PETA on the map—such as the first-ever convictions for cruelty to animals in laboratories and on factory farms—and major breakthroughs that PETA has made in just the last few months to stop animal abuse, including the following:

• After a PETA campaign, Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., agreed to replace the use of ferrets in invasive intubation exercises with life-like human simulators.
• Eleven bears who had languished in barren concrete pits at Chief Saunooke Bear Park in North Carolina were finally freed following a PETA undercover investigation that forced the roadside zoo to surrender its exhibitor’s license. The bears were transferred to an animal sanctuary in Dallas, where they roam, dig, swim, and climb trees—in other words, where they can finally be bears.
• A two-month undercover investigation by PETA revealed thousands of neglected, dying animals at Global Captive Breeders—the largest U.S. company that bred and sold reptiles and rats for the “pet” trade—and led to the largest rescue of neglected rats in U.S. history and the largest seizure of animals ever in California. The company’s owner and former manager have each been charged with 106 counts of felony cruelty to animals.
• Each of the top 10 advertising agencies in the U.S. has signed PETA’s pledge never to use great apes—such as baby chimpanzees, who are torn away from their mothers shortly after birth and beaten into obedience—in their advertisements.

Other current topics that Newkirk could discuss include the world’s first in vitro hamburger; Blackfish, the movie that’s keeping kids and their parents away from SeaWorld; “ag-gag” bills designed to stop the videotaping of abuses on factory farms; and designers and actors—including Stella McCartney, Ann Taylor, Ryan Gosling, Penélope Cruz, and Kate Winslet—who are helping PETA change animals’ lives. She could also discuss PETA’s efforts to promote animal rights in San Francisco, such as persuading the city’s UnionBanCal Corporation to ban glue traps from all of its more than 400 locations, convincing SEGA to pull an ad featuring a baby chimpanzee and Gap Inc. to pledge never to use great apes in its advertisements, and ranking AT&T Park and Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum among the top 10 vegetarian-friendly ballparks in 2011.

Please let me know if you would like to arrange an interview with Ingrid E. Newkirk. She is available for interviews on December 4, 2013. Thanks very much for your consideration.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.