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PETA launched an international campaign. I was arrested during the protests that changed U.S. and European companies’ minds over leather and cost the Indian leather trade 1.26 billion rupees. Fearful of losing more revenues, the government promised to clean up the cruelties, and the Council for Leather Exports also pledged to improve conditions if PETA would give them a chance. PETA, in good faith, agreed to a year’s moratorium on the campaign.
After a year, the government and the leather traders have failed to come through. Now we need your help to push them to stop the horrendous suffering of these cattle. The story of one gentle bullock may convince you, as it did me, that we can’t wait another day. PETA President Ingrid Newkirk watched this patient old “gentleman,” who had served his people faithfully, being sold with hundreds of other cattle at auction. He was weary after so many years of labor in the fields, and he could not keep up with the other animals on the 100-mile march in the terrible heat. The drovers—men whose job was to get the cattle across state lines for illegal transport to slaughter—beat him with a stick across the bones on his back where there is no padding of muscles for protection. When that didn’t work, a driver rubbed hot chili peppers into his eyes and then twisted his tail, joint by joint, until every bone was broken.  The pain that this stoic, gentle old bullock endured is almost unimaginable, but worse was to come. He was herded, along with the others, to an out-of-the way spot where trucks were waiting. Six or seven cows could have fit into each truck, but the handlers forced as many as 24 animals into the tiny space! They struggled to find footing, unintentionally stepping on and goring their companions—just think how this felt to animals who had warmed themselves by their families’ fires after a long day of work, who had stepped gingerly around toddlers playing in the yard, and who often stood in the doorways of their families’ huts, taking part in the household activities in their own way.Their lives end in beatings and torment When the bullock could not climb onto the truck, old and tired as he was, he fell back hard onto the ground. The handlers beat him and rubbed more burning peppers into his eyes, but it was no use. His pelvis had shattered. Ingrid knelt by the bullock’s side and cradled his enormous head in her arms. She gently washed the peppers from his eyes and spoke quietly to him, calming his fears. He was no use to the traders any longer because they could not truck him to slaughter. They would have left him to die in the dust by the roadside. Speaking to him all the while, Ingrid injected an overdose of tranquilizer into him and the patient old bullock left his tortured life behind. He was “lucky,” if one can use that word, that his nightmare ended so peacefully. The other cattle, stuffed into the truckbeds, were jostled and bounced over deeply rutted roads, slipping and falling onto each other’s horns. Some were crushed to death. At the slaughterhouse, after days without a sip of water or a blade of grass, the survivors were forced down on their sides, and their feet were bound. Then, in full view of their companions, the slaughterhouse worker pulled a knife across their throats, one by one, and left them to bleed to death. The blade was so dull that it sometimes took a full five minutes for the cows to lose consciousness. There is so much that we can do to stop this abuse, which goes on day after day even though it’s in violation of India’s anti-cruelty laws. Please join me now in ending the death marches, truck transport and horrible slaughter of these gentle souls! For the animals,  Chrissie Hynde
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• Please write to India’s prime minister and ask him to stop the abuse of cattle:
There is no need for any leather, but as long as people buy it, we will help change the way the industry does business.
