The Most Extreme and Controversial PETA Protests of All Time

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, known as PETA, has a long history of condemning the abusive treatment of animals. Founded in 1980, PETA is a nonprofit organization with a complex history of achieving animal rights reforms and raising public awareness of animal suffering. Some positive animal welfare acts they have been responsible for include convincing brands not to use fur and exposing animal cruelty in circuses.

Despite the good, PETA often has controversial ways of spreading its message. Because of this, when you mention PETA, people generally have strong opinions about the organization, either good or bad. Some feel PETA’s campaigns are extreme and only result in media sensationalism rather than causing real change.

PETA has had many controversial campaigns through the years, and though it was hard to choose, we’ve rounded up a list of some of the most outrageous. Read on for seven of the craziest stunts PETA has done in protest.

7: PETA Attempted (and Mostly Failed) to Dump Frozen Manure Outside the ASPCA’s Offices

In January 2025, two PETA activists were arrested outside the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) offices. The activists were attempting to dump a truck full of manure outside the offices to protest an ASPCA policy. However, because it was January in Manhattan and temperatures were freezing, the majority of the manure stuck to the truck bed in a solid mass.

It might seem strange that PETA is fighting with another animal welfare organization. However, PETA claims that the ASPCA’s Farm Animal Certification is given to farms with a history of animal cruelty. The ASPCA has countered that it comes down to “philosophical differences.” The ASPCA advocates humane farming practices, while PETA’s goals are to end all animal agriculture and have everyone eat a plant-based diet.

6: PETA’s ‘Fur is Dead’ Campaign Terrorized Children Attending the Nutcracker

Through the years, PETA has raised awareness of the cruelty of wearing animal fur through various protests and campaigns. One of the most famous ways it’s done this is through its “Rather Go Naked” campaign where celebrities pose naked to protest the fur trade.

However, PETA has also been involved in some bizarre stunts that many regard as distasteful. In 2003, in cities across the country, PETA activists stood outside holiday performances of The Nutcracker and handed out anti-fur pamphlets to families with children. But the pamphlets didn’t simply say that wearing fur is bad, they were titled, “Your mommy kills animals.”

The pamphlets had graphic images of skinned animals. With captions like, “Ask your mommy how many animals she killed to make her fur coat,” you can imagine this could be upsetting to kids. Did this campaign do anything to change minds or end the fur trade, or did it just upset children and their parents after a positive day of seeing a holiday ballet?

5: PETA Protested Eating Pork by Putting Naked Pregnant Women in Cages on Mother’s Day

PETA has long been encouraging people to eat vegetarian and plant-based foods. But they’ve had some controversial methods of getting this message across. In 2008, a PETA campaign meant to discourage eating pork put naked, pregnant women inside cages on a London street.

On a chilly day in London, PETA put a naked, pregnant woman inside a cramped cage on a busy street. In images of the campaign, the crowd gathered around the site can be seen bundled up in coats and hats. The stunt fell on Mother’s Day, which is celebrated in March in England. The woman was positioned on all fours in a cramped, metal cage meant to simulate the cramped conditions of pigs. Although the stunt did gain a lot of media attention, many question its effectiveness. Did anyone that day who witnessed the heavily pregnant woman in a cage decide to forego eating pork? We’ll never know.

4: PETA Passes Out ‘Unhappy Meals’ to Children Outside of McDonald’s

Perhaps PETA’s strategy here was to start with the next generation by targeting children. However, their methods tend to leave people feeling disturbed rather than sympathetic to farm animals.

In 2009, in protest against the method of slaughtering chickens, PETA launched a campaign against McDonald’s. McDonald’s is a large buyer of poultry, and a decision to only purchase humanely slaughtered chicken could influence the industry. While targeting McDonald’s makes sense, PETA’s method of attack left many shaking their heads.

PETA handed out Unhappy Meal boxes to families that depicted a deranged-looking Ronald McDonald wielding a blood-soaked knife. Around him were bloody, mutilated chickens. Inside the box, kids found a bloody plastic chicken and other “blood” or ketchup-soaked items. In the end, this campaign, or some of the others PETA has waged against McDonald’s, may have had some effect. Starting in 2017, McDonald’s announced they were committed to more humane ways of slaughtering chickens.

3: PETA Compared Meat Packers to Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer

In 1991, serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Police discovered he had murdered 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991. The news of his capture and grisly crimes gripped the nation, stunning people by its cruelty and the number of years Dahmer had roamed free, preying on the public. PETA, however, decided this was an opportunity for media attention.

In August 1991, just one month after Dahmer’s arrest, PETA took out a newspaper advertisement comparing meatpackers to Dahmer. While some papers rejected the ad, it ran in The Des Moines Register. The public response to PETA’s ad was not in sympathy for animal welfare, but horror at the violent imagery in the ad. The nation was reeling from the horrific crimes committed against the young men and boys, and many felt PETA took this one much too far.

2: PETA Purchased a Burial Plot Next to Colonel Sander’s Grave for 1 Billion Chickens

McDonald’s is not the only fast food joint that has drawn the ire of PETA. For decades, PETA has spoken out against Kentucky Fried Chicken’s use of chicken suppliers that inhumanely slaughter chickens. In 2008, PETA launched one of its more creative protests against the chicken chain.

Colonel Harland Sanders founded Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1930. Known as The Colonel, he was not only a real person but an iconic mascot for the KFC brand. Colonel Sanders died in 1980 and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky. In 2008, PETA purchased a burial plot that was less than a few hundred yards from Sanders’. On the plot, they erected a headstone to commemorate the death of one billion chickens. The headstone had a poem about chickens, but the first letter in each line spelled out “KFC Tortures Birds.”

Today, KFC is still mired in controversy regarding its chicken welfare policies. Although the company announced “new global chicken welfare guidelines” in 2020, animal rights groups call their claims “misleading.”

1: PETA’s Campaign Compared the Slaughtering of Livestock to the Holocaust

In 2003, PETA’s “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign created instant controversy. This time, PETA compared cruelty to farm animals with the death of millions of Jews in concentration camps during World War II. The protest was via a traveling exhibition that depicted suffering animals next to pictures of inmates in concentration camps. Again, if PETA was hoping to garner favorable attitudes toward the plight of farm animals, what they got instead was horror and outrage.

Holocaust survivor, Abraham Foxman, who was also the national director of the Anti-Defamation League at the time told The Guardian that PETA’s stunt was, “outrageous, offensive and takes chutzpah to new heights.” Foxman agreed animal abuse was wrong. But he continued, “The effort by PETA to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent”.