The organisation, founded in Newkirk's basement in a suburb of Washington DC, now occupies several stories of a headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. The PETA building looks and feels much like any corporate headquarters except for the dozens of dogs wandering around and sitting on special mattresses. Employees are encouraged to bring their pets to work. Many also take part in civil disobedience campaigns and boast long arrest records. For example, Kristie Phelps, who runs a campaign against circus animals, occasionally strips naked, paints her body with tiger stripes, and crouches in a cage outside the Big Top for an hour to dramatise the plight of caged circus beasts.
Nothing promotes discussion and dialogue better than a naked woman in a cage.
PETA can call on a cadre of film stars, entertainers and supermodels to publicise its campaigns. PETA's latest target is Burger King, with its 11,330 restaurants in 58 countries selling 2.6 billion hamburgers a year. PETA wants Burger King to fall into line with McDonald's, which last year, after an 11-month campaign, agreed to unannounced inspections of its slaughter houses. It said it would halt the practice of starving chickens to encourage egg production, increase the space given to battery hens and stop slicing off hens' beaks. Last week, a dozen PETA supporters showed up outside a Burger King in Washington, set up a video screen on the sidewalk showing horrific slaughterhouse scenes and started handing out leaflets to passersby.