The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are once again calling on Auburn to ground all pregame eagle flights, specifically PETA staff writer Jennifer O’Connor who in a letter to the editor published in today’s Opelika-Auburn News hints that she’s simply doing the will of the Auburn people.
“We received many calls and emails from Auburn University students who are upset that Spirit smashed into a window while being used as a promotional prop,” O’Connor writes.
Promotional prop? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prefers the term “educational presentation.”
From the Southeastern Raptor Center website:
The role of Auburn University’s eagles is to promote wildlife conservation as a part of the education initiatives of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Southeastern Raptor Center. The USF&WS permits the Raptor Center to house eagles and use them on hundreds of educational presentations each year – including Auburn’s home football games.
O’Connor claims that in addition to thousands of screaming fans (it’s more of a drone in Jordan-Hare, we’d say), animal mascots— Auburn’s eagles presumably included— are terrified by “loud noises such as air horns, marching bands and fireworks”… none of which, of course, are used during the eagle flights.
Ah, but what about those mascots who might be targeted for cruelty by rival fans, “like the ram used by the University of North Carolina who was gutted, had his throat slit and his shoulder cut off.”
Sure, that happened. But what O’Connor is either ignorant of or conveniently fails to mention is that the killing wasn’t a Wolfpack prank before the big game but an isolated incident that occurred not on campus during football season but on the family farm of the ram’s owners in February, and involved a starving, drunk vagrant with possible mental problems. Of course, there was that one time that the Tarheels’ ram was killed by its son in a coup, but as long as Spirit doesn’t sire any bad seeds ambitious enough to commit patricide, we should be good to go.
It’s our tress we have to worry about.
You can read O’Connor’s letter in it’s entirety here.
Related: Auburn almost had a giant eagle mascot / Family in Auburn luxury box recalls eagle encounter
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PETA needs to focus on making celebrities pose for nude photos more than worrying about our Eagles.
When their own employees killed Dogs and threw them into dumpsters did they protest themselves? Who did they write their angry letter to then?
I freaking hate those people.
well since they are such official carriers of the people’s wishes can we see some stats?
Well I think that…hold on a second, my steak is ready, gotta go.
If the people at PETA had any idea of the amazing work done by the people at the Raptor Center, they would know better than to write such things. As it is, this letter is from an uninformed source and should therefore be ignored.
If you have the chance to see one of the Raptor Center’s presentations – every Friday before home football games at 4:00 – you should go. Those people do a fantastic job of caring for several species of birds and of educating the public about them.
“Many.”
Comments here, on the previous PETA entry, on the O-A letter and pretty much everywhere else to the contrary …
What about the time the Tar Heels mascot was killed… the actual guy in the costume: http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/genrel/032607aaa.html Where was PETA’s outrage then?
If you asked Dr. Boyd (dept of biology), he’d probably say, pith ob PETA.
Get over yourself PETA. Use your considerable resources to help all the poor abused and homeless animals in the world. Our eagles are loved and cared for by the entire Auburn family!!!!!
PETA is a perfect example of an organization which has a cause that most people would support if their leadership wasn’t simply batpoo crazy. (No offense to bats.) They have made their organization into a joke,