PETA wrote to the general manager of the Lowell Spinners Baseball Club in Massachusetts, an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, after learning that the club had scheduled several events featuring Greenville Wildlife Park's cruel traveling zoo.

Even though Greenville Wildlife Park claims to be a rescue operation, it breeds exotic animals to amuse customers with cute babies. We explained that dragging tigers, bears, and monkeys around the country is stressful and that allowing dangerous wild animals to interact with the public was flirting with disaster.

The Lowell Spinners' general manager called PETA to notify us that the club had decided that it was best to "steer clear" of such cruel exploitation of animals; it canceled all the scheduled events.

Read more about the cruelty within the Exotic Animal Trade.

After learning that a Virginia Beach nightclub was holding weekly Fear Factor contests that required contestants to swallow live goldfish, we immediately wrote to the club owner to urge him to do away with the cruel contests. We also let him know that another local bar had recently decided to stop holding similar contests after receiving complaints from PETA and local residents. The owner agreed that the contests are cruel and inappropriate and stopped hosting them.

PETA learned from a member that the Greenville Wildlife Park planned to make appearances at libraries all across New Hampshire and other venues in the region. We sent a mailing to the 250 libraries in the state and to other businesses where the exhibit was scheduled to appear.

Our letters explained that Greenville Wildlife Park has been cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture repeatedly over the past several years for failing to comply with the minimal standards of animal care set forth in the federal Animal Welfare Act. For instance, the facility was cited for chaining a cougar cub to the floor, failing to provide environmental enrichment to an infant chimpanzee who was observed rocking, and failing to provide proper veterinary care and food and water sources to its animals.

The director of the Smyth Public Library let us know that he was canceling a planned appearance by the facility at his library and thanked us for the information we provided, as he stated that he had been "misled" by Greenville Wildlife Park.

PETA received calls of concern about bird displays at various Von Maur department store locations. Von Maur is an upscale department store chain with 20 stores in six Midwestern states. We wrote to the president of Von Maur asking that the company consider dismantling the displays and allowing the birds to go to sanctuaries. We explained that even under the best of circumstances, a cage in a department store is no place for a bird.

The president of Von Maur thanked us for the information that we had provided and, after several weeks of consideration, decided to allow the birds to be released to sanctuaries, ending the 125-year tradition of keeping birds in the stores. Von Maur officials said that without our offer of assistance in finding homes for the birds, the release may never have been feasible.