People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) College Campaign Coordinator Loring Harkness spoke at last week’s installment of the EnviroThursday lecture series.

Harkness lectured to an audience of about 25 students on the treatment of animals in meat and poultry plants, the health benefits of vegetarianism and veganism and the ecological footprint of factory farms.

“The protection of animal rights has nothing to do with the perception that certain animals are cute, precious and the like,” Harkness said. “It is about simply respecting the fundamental interest of animals…which simply include eating, providing for their young and having room to roam around.”

Harkness showed two PETA-produced videos during the lecture. The videos graphically portrayed the maltreatment of pigs, chickens and cows at particular factory farms where PETA investigators shot undercover footage.

“If you are compelled to look away throughout the film, don’t,” Harkness said as he introduced the second film that consisted of pig and cattle slaughter sequences with macabre footage of some factory farms.

“[PETA’s fundamental] belief is that all animals deserve the most basic rights—consideration of their own best interests regardless of whether they are useful to humans,” Harkness said. “Like you, they are capable of suffering and have interest in leading their own lives; therefore, they are not ours to use—for food, clothing, entertainment or experimentation or for any other reason.”

Harkness said he does not equate animals to humans. He did draw parallels between human suffering to what he described as the plight of millions of animals. After passing out a PETA poster that juxtaposed caged chickens with Holocaust victims, Harkness said, “Animals are our modern-day slaves and need to be protected…. The average American is responsible for the death of 2,000 animals throughout their lifetime.”

Such parallels led to mixed feelings among many audience members. “I thought [the video] was a little disturbing,” Julia Eagles ’06 said. “I felt a little uncomfortable with the correlation between the Holocaust and racism and animal rights.”

“I think that he definitely has an agenda,” Katie Schousen’07 said. “Some of the posters he showed about the Holocaust went a little too far.”

Harkness also spoke at length about the comparable ecological footprints of factory farms and vegetarianism.

“Twenty vegetarians could be fed on the respective amount of energy and feed used to raise farm animals that would, in turn, only feed one person,” he said. “You cannot be a meat eater and call yourself an environmentalist.”

“Something that I really liked that he talked about was price,” Lis Pixley-Fink ’07 said. “I have not thought about that before—that when you are buying an item for say, $5, you never think about the additional environmental cost.”

Harkness addressed the personal and global benefits of becoming a vegetarian and offered “vegetarian start-up kits” to audience members.

Harkness’ lecture marks the beginning of his PETA-sponsored nationwide tour of college campuses intended to promote vegetarian cafeteria options and the sale of ethical products in college-run ventures such as Macalester’s Highlander store.

“I will be back to Mac,” Harkness said. “PETA will offer on-campus, action-orientated programs, where students will be able to organize animal rights campaigns and learn more about the philosophy of animal rights and the [animal rights] movement itself while getting college credit.”