straight this welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. some we pet, some we skin, some we eat. we destroy their wild habitats while we agonise about the loss of the campaign group

like drive a car or vote, although they might do better but they do need the right to be respected. possibly can understand them. and we should curb some

of our habits that cause "human supremacist worldview. " well, i think we have to get over ourselves as a species, that doesn't fit into the human species as sort of trash. i mean, as you said earlier, we might pet them, we might skin them. we decide. one animal among many. a different instrument. we all have interest

in staying alive. 0h, they do indeed... ..as we know it. they are conscious, they can think of the future, they have their own forms of communication. we don't understand them, but they understand more human understand of theirs. they're very canny.

many people watching this, listening to you, devote their entire lives to fighting for animal rights in the way you have. i would have been an awful football player! i was angry at it. countries, all that is hidden away. for angora, for example, and other animals for different things.

i went behind the scenes at the circus, and i realised i went to the circus and enjoyed it, because i didn't have a clue that i was actually contributing to the suffering of animals. because i've inspected laboratories, i've been the animal wasn't a volunteer, they didn't want to be part of that — and that there are options. yes. you made a commitment very early on to direct action, how far have you been prepared to go? well, i think as far as we go,

is, in the old days, we would lie down in front of a fur store, for example, or a laboratory, so that we could get people's attention most people don't know that, distaste for violence, and so we have to show them.

yes, you express deep yes, you express deep distaste for violence, but you have used all sorts of tactics which, frankly, contravene the law. i mean, you invade people's properties, you throw paint at their items of clothing, you use subterfuge and lies to infiltrate laboratories. never. never, ever, ever. we're very careful. we have excellent legal advice and we never tell a fib. if we're going in, we may leave something out that says we're peta members or we're peta staff. that's not deception, isn't it? well, it could be, but what they're doing

the course of years. mind "razing a building if it was used as what i said was... but violence is not something that we involve ourselves in at all. because they went public with it, of, quote, "providing material, support "and resources to known domestic "terrorist organisations." did you ever? they did.

front in america. it does start in britain, because there were various groups here. but what we would do is we set up a confidential line and show that to the world. and of course, not being able to find the alf, the fbi yeah. yeah. butjust to be clear about this, then, we know that is why would they focus activists working with groups like the animal liberation front have targeted specific scientists. they've used things like letter bombs and incendiary devices. they have, frankly. they have, frankly. oh, yes, they have, but it's the sort of thing that people will pick up on rather than — i think the focus is

in the wrong place — in the wrong place — is why would they focus on that, to say, "leave them alone," when what is being revealed is that with, often, our tax money, we're showing that experimenters... in the united kingdom, i think it was 2.6 million animals they used last year, yet we don't have a cure for the common cold. they're dropping them into vats of water and seeing how long

and entirely against it? as we would see ourselves. and when it comes to that kind of collective good medical research, do you think you take the public with you? well, yes. there was just a poll that showed that two thirds of the british public are opposed to the use of animals in experiments. but may i say... of course, it depends what kind of experiment. and what do we get for it? i mean, the experimenters love to say, "oh, well, look, but if you look at the whole

spectrum of what's going on, but get rid of the 95." it's called the research modernisation deal. i want to stick, if i may, with this idea of taking the public with you. your organisation has become well known around the world unfortunately, i think so. and the reason, of course, is that you can'tjust have the facts any more. let's be clear to our audience what i'm talking about. let's take one, for example. a dead raccoon was

thrown onto her plate. i think it was to get her attention as letters hadn't, formal complaints hadn't. and she was still using coyotes, wolves, i don't know, all sorts of big cat fur in vogue. other vogues in other other vogues in other countries had stopped countries had stopped actually promoting fur, actually promoting fur, and she was hard at it. and so i think this activist decided they would go and make a scene, and that's and she was hard at it. what they did. whether you, on reflection, but for us, always we go straight to the person who is doing something that's abominable, we show them what we have and we ask them, "please, here is the alternative. will you switch?" will you switch?" escalate, of course. escalate, of course. well, ijust wonder — well, ijust wonder — you know, it's an interesting word, "escalate" — you know, it's an interesting feel you've escalated too far and actually abandoned decency and human morality in your

pursuit of your own agenda, body, the naked female body, in your sensational stunts.

powerful that he bashed powerful that he bashed up his girlfriend. up his girlfriend. she laughs you have to see it. you have to see it. you're laughing. you're laughing. many people listening to this many people listening to this will find that repulsive. will find that repulsive. well, it wasn't like that. well, it wasn't like that. that's how some people that's how some people are characterising it. i mean, the bottom line are characterising it. here is that we're picking up on the most extreme things and then making them even more extreme when, actually, i mean, we litigate, extreme when, actually, i mean, we litigate, we legislate, we are behind we legislate, we are behind the scenes talking to the scenes talking to corporations, but the press is just hellbent on taking something that is gimmicky and using it. something that is gimmicky and using it. and that's why we use gimmicks, and that's why we use gimmicks, because otherwise silence is because otherwise silence is a social cause's worst enemy. a social cause's worst enemy. sure, but you didn't... never mind not taking the public with you on some of these campaigns —

you clearly didn't take some of your own colleagues with you. your own colleagues with you. i'm looking at the words of gary francione, who worked closely with you in peta. in 2011, he said this of your own use of sexual and, as he would see it, misogynist images in your campaigning — he said, "the notion of using sex "and sexism to sell the animal rights issue "started to emerge, and it made no sense. "as long as we commodify women through sexism, "we will continue to commodify non—humans." he was saying, you know, it simply doesn't... gary's a man, and he likes to say things, and he's quite hateful to some people! but i'm a woman, and if i want to take off my clothes, i absolutely will. and any other woman should have the right to do that, especially to make a serious point. and it's notjust done frivolously. a reporter from the times said to me, "you take off your clothes all the time. "let me have the photographer take your picture naked, "standing on your office desk." and i said, "it doesn't work that way. it's for a cause. "i'll go down..." — and i did — "..to smithfield market, "and i'll hang

naked with the pigs, "and you can see that our flesh looks the same. "i'm about the same size, and i wouldn't have wanted to die "in a bad way any more than them." and that's what we did. it's not for titillation, it's not exploitative. it is people saying, "please listen to us. "animals are suffering and we need to stop it, "and we'll show you how easy it is not to buy into "this way of life." do you ever feel you've gone too far? for example, using holocaust imagery and putting images of people who had emerged from the death camps side by side with animals in, for example, slaughterhouses. leading jewish figures described that campaign as, quote, "outrageous, deeply offensive." another one that really upset civil—rights campaigners in the black community was an exhibition photograph that peta used, which put a seal being bludgeoned side by side with a civil—rights protester being beaten at a lunch counter in

the united states. i don't think we did that one. we certainly did holocaust on your plate, which a jewish member of our organisation, peta, funded and asked us to do. and we set up a camp and we said, you know, "victims are victims. it's all wrong." and we actually said, "were we in existence back "during that time, i hope that we would have been "the people trying to do something "to stop anti—semitism, to stop the extermination." maybe we wouldn't have had the nerve, like most people didn't have the nerve, to speak up. they were afraid. but we were saying it's a parallel. that was yesterday. be upset today with the horrors that are happening in today's factory farms, which are concentration camps where the animals are being exterminated for nothing more than a ham sandwich. honestly, do you think most people around the world see an equivalence, as you've just described it, between the nazi extermination of millions and millions of people, six millionjews, and the factory farming of chickens and pigs?

no. and that's why it's such a hard job, is that we have to get people to get over themselves and stop thinking about only atrocities that happen to human beings. those are atrocities, and they shouldn't happen to human beings, but there are atrocities that are now happening to other sensitive, sentient beings that we are part of. when people make a choice, they pay with their money. they may give, you know, £100, £10 to a charity that helps protect animals, and yet they go to the marketplace and they'll buy a coat, a pair of shoes, a briefcase, a sandwich, whatever it is, a cosmetic, that deliberately causes suffering to animals and they just don't know about it. let's talk about the positive relationships that human beings forge with animals, which you also seem to say are morally unacceptable, that is, human beings keeping pets, human beings

using guide dogs — those who are blind use guide dogs — those who keep animals for sport, whether it be pigeon fanciers who race their birds, or horse lovers who race their horses. all of these different relationships between human and animal, which many would find positive, you find deeply problematic. not at all. i mean some, yes. pigeon racing, for example. we've tried to stop it across the channel.

but, no, the basic pet — i've written a book about keeping dogs, a book about keeping cats. and the compassion, please go to the shelter. and, briefly, on shelters. i must put this to you. you run your own you run your own shelters at peta. shelters at peta. one. one. just one, in virginia. just one, in virginia. well, the one in virginia well, the one in virginia is now hugely controversial is now hugely controversial in itself because, in itself because, as i understand it, in 2023 as i understand it, in 2023 you received over 3,000 cats and dogs in the shelter. nearly 80% of them nearly 80% of them were exterminated. were exterminated. you in peta kill your animals. they weren't exterminated. they weren't exterminated. they were euthanised, which is very different. somebody held them in their arms and let them go, because... them go, because... they were killed. they were killed. yes, because they were yes, because they were in a world that didn't in a world that didn't want them, and... your ratio of... your ratio of... wait. wait. wait, wait, wait. wait, wait, wait. no, you cannot leave it there. no, you cannot leave it there.

you cannot leave it there. you cannot leave it there. our ratio of euthanasia is high because we are the only shelter in that entire low—income area that allows people to bring animals who are ridden with cancer, who are aggressive, who have been out, have heartworm that they can't cure, and come to us, and free of charge we will take them in and we will euthanise their animals, because they cannot afford transportation, let alone veterinary care. and all the other shelters around us are no—kill, which sounds so marvellous, but they send the animals who have to be euthanised to us to do what they consider the dirty work. and we will always do that. and we open our doors to anyone, and come and watch it and see who these poor animals are. i think in the course of our conversation, i have truly felt your passion, your passionate care for animals. i want to end by really considering your attitude to human beings. she chuckles

in the course of your very long career in this cause, have you come to have more or less faith in us humans and our ability to change in the way you want us to change in terms of our relationship with animals? i think people are people all over the world and we have changed. i mean, we've changed in many, many social issues, notjust in animal protection, of course. we've had to wake up to the fact that our bias, our prejudice, our discrimination was causing misery, and we had to come to grips with that and change. so i've seen so much change in the a0 years that peta has been in existence.

see enormous change, and i know enormous change i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. my pleasure. thank you. but in the short term for tuesday, we are going to see some wet weather that will be moving its way eastwards through the day in association with this

some of the rain will be fairly heavy, but there's some but as you can see through the morning, western and south western parts of scotland. 30—60mm of rain could fall, which could give rise to some but you can see the line of the weather front — here through the second half of the afternoon. will see a mix of sunny spells and hefty showers. so there goes our band of increasingly light corner through the evening.

many places will stay dryjust a bit more cloud building, i think across parts of england and wales, and a few showers, wintry over high ground. temperatures between 7—10 degrees in most places. will tend to slip away northeastwards. we'll pick up more of an easterly flow off and with that, well, just the chance of one or two wintry showers. but certainly we are going to see temperatures dropping and into the weekend. could be one or two showers, some of those could be wintry,

you are by logging on to the bbc weather app.

live from washington. this is bbc news.

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