Pet Peeves

Hostile press, fickle audience — who needs unconditional love more than a celebrity? Maybe that's why so many of them adopted pet causes:

FIONA APPLE
Animal attraction: Turkeys Gesture: Induced gobbler guilt with taped message for PETA's Vegetarian Holiday Hotline (lampooned in song ''Basted in Blood,'' performed on Saturday Night Live by Sarah McLachlan, with lyric ''Ain't no difference between Hitler, Stalin, and the folks at Butterball'').

BRIGITTE BARDOT
Animal attraction: Russian dogs and cats Gesture: Protested Moscow mayor's rumored plan to kill thousands of homeless dogs and cats as part of city's 850th-anniversary cleanup.

KIM BASINGER
Animal attraction: Beagles Gesture: Crusaded to save 36 puppies scheduled to have legs snapped to test osteoporosis drug. After pharmaceutical company rolled over, Basinger and other PETA activists showed up to collect dogs. Lab prez sniffed at ''publicity stunt'' and tearful Basinger (''I was looking into the eyes of a devil'') was denied the pups, which were given to shelters.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG
Animal attraction: Frankie the cat Gesture: The actress spotted this badly burned tabby in the New York Post, frequently called animal shelter for progress reports on Frankie's scorched ears and broken leg, then took him home.

EDWARD FURLONG
Animal attraction: Kittens Gesture: Unable to forget video of kittens at Nebraska research hospital ''circling and crying in...pain'' after their skulls had been cracked open, nerves severed, and heads stitched back up, he offered to find cats homes and pay costs of convalescence. Six months later, lab experiments were terminated.

JOHN WATERS
Animal attraction: Chickens Gesture: So not everyone's St. Francis. He told The New York Times Magazine: ''I don't have a problem if they test...cosmetics on them. Eyeliner has been important in my life. If 10 chickens have to die to make one drag queen happier, so be it!''