Green Daily

Mostly when I write about PETA it's with rolling eyes and a serious dose of sarcasm. Their methods can be pretty extreme and polarizing, which is usually a bad way to get supporters.

However, sometimes they have really good campaigns, like "No More Monkey Business."

Apes, like most animals in show business, are taken from their mothers when they are very young because it's the easiest way to train them. Their careers are brief, usually finished by the time they are eight because they are too hard to manage when they get older. Mature apes are strong!

Since they are domesticated when they are so young, these animals don't have the skills to be released back into wild. That means that they spend the rest of their lives -- many live to be as old as 60 -- in some kind of captivity.

The lucky ones go somewhere like the Save the Chimps sanctuary in Florida. The less lucky ones wind up in bad roadside zoos.

PETA, very intelligently, wants to eliminate the economic benefit of using apes. Their suggestions include things like walking out of a movie that has apes in it, and demanding a refund from the theater manager.

That's not really my style. Plus, who doesn't realize before you buy a ticket that Planet of the Apes is going to have some real primates in it? But I do agree with the goal of the "No More Monkey Business" campaign: people should stop using apes, including chimps, orangutans, or even those little spider monkeys, in television shows and movies.

So ... I sort of joined PETA and got the free activist kit for the campaign.

I know! That totally puts me over the eco-crazy edge. It's one thing to be someone who "always carries a reusable shopping bag" (eco-friendly) and totally another to be someone who "talks to strangers about endangered animals" (eco-intense).

In my defense, I mainly ordered the kit because it came with orange stickers that say "Gee whiz!"

If you're ready to tip-toe into this deep green area with me, the PETA site has some easy and not-that-radical things you can do to support the campaign, like sending emails to shows that use apes and asking them to stop. There is also list of companies and ad companies that have already agreed not to use apes anymore, so you know the campaign is working. And seriously, the stickers are pretty cool!