Written by PETA
Today marks PETA's 32nd birthday. Over the past three decades, PETA has saved countless animals from abusive situations. Here are just a few of the animals we will never forget and who can thank the millions of supporters who make the work of PETA and its affiliates possible:
Ruby
© PETA
Ruby was adopted into a loving home after a PETA undercover investigation at Professional Laboratory and Research Services, Inc., got the workers indicted on felony cruelty-to-animals charges, the 250 dogs and cats at the facility surrendered, and the place shut down!
Coming Home
© Kip Malone
Coming Home, a horse used for racing, was sold to a meat buyer when she stopped winning races and was hours from being sent to slaughter when PETA rescued her.
Ruby and Rusty
© Wendy Cassidy/Phoenix Herpetological Society
After a PETA investigation got international exotic-animal dealer U.S. Global Exotics shut down, a record-breaking 26,000 animals were seized, including Ruby and Rusty, two kinkajous, who were sent to the beautiful, spacious Phoenix Herpetological Society sanctuary.
Jerry
© Rachel Cobb
Crippled, nearly blind from an eye infection, and infested with lice, Jerry was rescued in the nick of time by a PETA investigator from a dairy factory farm and retired to a spacious sanctuary for lots of long-overdue TLC.
Parineeta
© Sean Noronha
PETA India staffers rescued Parineeta from the side of the road, where she had been abandoned with a broken leg after spending years hauling building materials for railroads. She now lives in the beautiful Nilgiri hills with other retired working animals.
Nudge
Nudge spent nearly 10 years confined to a tiny cage in a filthy "no-kill" warehouse. A PETA investigation got the hoarder shut down and the animals removed forever. Now Nudge has a wonderful home and all the snuggling that she can handle.
Miranda
Miranda's owner was going to eat Miranda and her sisters until a PETA staffer came along and talked the man out of the idea. Now, instead of being on the dinner table, Miranda and her siblings happily run and play around it—and the rest of the house.
Alaska
Alaska was forced to live in a cramped cage and perform for the Suarez Bros. Circus in temperatures that topped 100 degrees, until a PETA complaint resulted in her confiscation by the federal government. She was retired to a comfortable compound at the Baltimore Zoo, where she could play with a formerly lonely male polar bear.
Pancake
Pancake lived in one filthy tank after another, and no one knew how to fulfill even the most basic of his turtle needs. A PETA staffer discovered Pancake's appalling living conditions and had him sent to a sanctuary.
Gracie
Gracie's first owner bought her to feed to a snake, but Gracie was too big. A PETA staffer adopted her, and now sweet Gracie loves to go outside to play with her adopted rabbit sisters.
Sheena
© Alan T. Smith
After Sheena's reluctant guardian surrendered the mutt to a Utah animal shelter, Sheena was purchased by the University of Utah for use in experiments. Sheena's guardian alerted PETA, and we were able to get Sheena out of the laboratory and stop all seizures of dogs and cats from Utah pounds.
Puff
Someone burned the beaver lodge in which beaver Puff lived and shot the beavers as they fled. That's how Puff found himself in the yard of a kind couple who located a wildlife rehabilitator for him. PETA's wildlife biologist drove Puff the eight hours to the rehabilitator, who nurtured him until he could be released.
Dovi
Dovi was a sick and malnourished puppy, abandoned along a rural road in North Carolina when PETA's Community Animal Project workers found him. Now, he is a happy, healthy dog who loves harmonica music and bounding about in the dog park.
Muff
© Chip Vinai
Muff spent 15 years in a tiny cage at a roadside zoo with nothing to do but pace endlessly back and forth. But just two days after PETA rescuers took him to the Texas Snow Monkey Sanctuary, he had stopped pacing and made friends with a female baboon.
Herman
© Peter V. Chetirkin
Herman was abandoned on the beach near PETA's Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters. Knowing that the warm-weather animal would never survive the winter, a PETA staffer arranged for him to be transported to a Florida wildlife sanctuary.
Cem and Zoe
Cem, Zoe, and four other geese were found languishing in muddy ponds on a run-down property. PETA took them in, and now the six friends float on two large and beautiful ponds on wooded property at a sanctuary for rescued waterfowl.
Tulip
During an undercover investigation at a University of North Carolina laboratory, PETA found mice and rats suffering from gaping wounds, tumors, and other illnesses and injuries. One of them was sweet Tulip, a mouse whom the investigator took home with her to live safely forever.
To be a part of the next 32 years of animal rescues, become a PETA member today.
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