PETA and the animals recently lost a dear friend and supporter, award-winning actor Richard Kiley. Widely known as the creator of the title role in the musical Man of La Mancha, for which he won his second Tony Award, his television career also included The Thorn Birds and the series A Year in the Life, both of which earned him Emmy and Golden Globe Awards. Among the films in which he appeared were The Blackboard Jungle, The Little Prince, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and Patch Adams.

Mr. Kiley narrated PETA’s video “No Gravy for the Cat” about the horrific sleep-deprivation experiments on cats at Texas Tech University. A member of PETA for many years, Kiley and his wife, Patricia, shared their home with their beloved dogs and cats, all rescued strays.

We will miss Richard Kiley.

Dressed in wedding gowns drenched in red paint, four "brides" gathered outside Vera Wang's Bridal House in New York City to urge the designer to take a fur-free vow. Even in the midst of declining fur sales, Wang has shown fur designs, including coats made from hamsters.

Tell Vera Wang to divorce herself from the ugly, cruel fur industry.

Contact her at 225 W. 39th St., New York, NY 10018;
212-354-8922.

Guests at the Hillgrove Farm bed and breakfast in England often didn’t realize that its owner ran the last facility in the U.K. to breed and sell cats for experiments. For years, activists—as many as 3,000 people at once, including PETA staff—demonstrated against the place. Similar huge and heated demos helped close Consort, a dog-breeding facility in England.

Now, Hillgrove has closed! Its remaining 800 cats were whisked away to animal shelters and put up for adoption.

Armed with a can of spray paint, a giant “chicken” climbed a Chick-Fil-A billboard in Houston, Texas, and redesigned its slogan, from “Eat Mor Chikin” to “Eat Mor Vegeez.”

About 95% of chickens raised for food in the United States are factory-farmed. They suffer painful debeaking and declawing, intensive confinement and genetic manipulation and are fed massive amounts of growth hormones. Factory farms try to “grow” the most and biggest chickens as quickly and cheaply as they can in the smallest possible space. Many birds become so crippled that they’re unable to reach their food and they starve to death.

Chicken is no “health food.” It’s loaded with cholesterol, fat, pesticides and hormones. Plus, an estimated 1,700 people die every year from salmonella poisoning, which originates in egg hatcheries and broiler houses.

PETA’s Morgan Leyh gave presentations to students at elementary schools in New York about elephants and how they suffer in circuses. The children wrote to PETA, thanking Morgan for the valuable lessons about magnificent elephants.

During “Fur Week,” animal-friendly designers Todd Oldham and Manolo showcased their own “fur collections” on a New York City catwalk. Models donned Neanderthalesque bikinis made from fur coats donated to PETA and redesigned by the two men. The demo caused quite a stir and was featured in newspapers around the world, including the New York Post and the Vancouver Sun.

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PETA sent Gil, our 6-foot-tall mascot for PETA’s Anti-Fishing Campaign, to Cleveland, Ohio, where he joined activists tackling “sport” fishing. In Worcester, Massachusetts, Gil greeted diners at the Sole Proprietor restaurant, asking them to eat veggies, instead of fish.

Why the fuss about fishing? Because fish feel pain—whether they are hooked and yanked out of the water by “sport” fishers or entangled in nets and slowly suffocated as they are dragged out of the ocean and onto the decks of commercial fishing boats.

Millions of birds and other animals are hooked, strangled, entangled and/or drowned by discarded fishing hooks, monofilament line and lures. Wildlife rehabilitators note that fishing litter is the single greatest cause of injuries to aquatic animals. Countless sea turtles, dolphins, sea birds and seals slowly die in commercial fishing nets every year.

Go Tides! Go veg! Who’d have guessed that the PETA staff would be at Harbor Park, serving as ball girls and boys to the Norfolk Tides, farm team to the New York Mets? Well, there they are, chasing stray balls in full “Go Veg” T-shirt regalia and synthetic catching mitts. There’s even a “Go Veg” sign just beyond the outfield fence, and the food vendors sell veggie dogs and Boca Burgers. At every home game, PETA also gives away a vegetarian cookbook to a lucky-number winner and has a full-page “Don’t Eat Babe” ad in the Tides’ program.

Tired of taking off your shoe in Tai Bo class to prove it’s nonleather? Order PETA’s “Fake Leather” stickers to slap on your sneakers. Call 800-483-4366 to order ($1.25 per set of two). In the U.K., ring 0181 785 3113.

P&G Trafficking Cruelty

PETA’s giant “rabbit” hung a banner over motorway pedestrian bridges to alert commuters to P&G’s cruel animal tests. Banner hangs took place in Southampton, Plymouth, Norwich, Newcastle and other British towns.