With support from PETA and local PETA members and hard work by local animal rights group Alliance for Animals, which initiated the proposal, the Dane County, Wisconsin, Board of Supervisors has enacted a ban on elephant performances at all county-owned facilities.

James Preston|cc by 2.0

PETA members and members of local animal rights group Alliance for Animals had written to and called the local board to ask for the ban, attended supervisors' meetings to speak in favor of it, and garnered support from the community. It took only six months for the efforts to pay off.

The supervisor who proposed the ban, Al Matano, stated:

For help getting a similar ban passed in your community, contact PETA's Action Team. 

The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) will no longer torment and kill sheep in excruciatingly painful decompression experiments following actions by PETA and Madison-based Alliance for Animals. For decades, the U.S. Navy had funded experiments at UW in which sheep were placed into high-pressure hyperbaric chambers. As a result, the animals suffered the excruciating pain of decompression sickness, called "the bends," which occurs when bubbles of nitrogen gas form in the blood, muscles, and organs, including the brain.
 

Nancee_art/cc by 2.0

 
The experiments and the Navy's funding of all decompression studies on animals came to an end as a direct result of a criminal investigation that was launched in response to a petition filed by PETA and Alliance for Animals. The petition was filed with Dane County Circuit Court after a local district attorney refused to take action despite acknowledging that experimenters had repeatedly violated a Wisconsin anti-cruelty law that outlaws killing animals by decompression. The judge agreed that the experiments appeared to be illegal and appointed a special prosecutor to investigate and bring charges where appropriate.

Ultimately, the special prosecutor assigned to the case decided not to press charges, saying that the law is ambiguous. But he said the sheep undoubtedly suffered and warned that if any such studies were performed in the future, UW could be held criminally liable. The long-running torturous experiments are now gone for good.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

PETA Files readers, it's your call. Who's the cruelest monster of them all? The contenders for May's Vivisector of the Month are vying hard for the title, and animals are suffering for it.

John VandeBerg is the director of the Southwest National Primate Research Center in San Antonio, Texas—one of the last laboratories in the world that still torments chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, in cruel and invasive experiments. VandeBerg is even urging the federal government to rip hundreds more chimpanzees out of a peaceful retirement and send them to his laboratory, where these highly intelligent and social beings will spend the rest of their lives confined to what amounts to a prison cell for infectious-disease experiments. And his callousness doesn't stop with chimpanzees: VandeBerg also torments and kills baboons and opossums to show that a diet high in fat and cholesterol is bad for you. Your tax dollars at work!  

Up against VandeBerg is Aleksey Sobakin, who definitely cannot count sheep to help him sleep at night. He and his cohorts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have spent decades placing hundreds of sheep in a decompression chamber that rapidly reduces air pressure, causing bubbles of nitrogen to form in the brain, the blood, and other organs. This extremely painful condition—commonly known as "the bends"—killed many of the sheep in clear violation of a Wisconsin cruelty-to-animals law. The sheep who didn't die during decompression were killed afterward. These hideous experiments were only stopped after PETA and Madison-based Alliance for Animals filed a formal complaint in court and a judge appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the apparent violations of state law.

After you make your decision, make your voice heard. Ask your congressperson to support the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, which would keep retired chimpanzees away from VandeBerg and other experimenters. And urge the special prosecutor investigating Sobakin to file charges against him and other culpable experimenters before the statute of limitations runs out.

 
Written by Michelle Sherrow

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanvernon/
CC BY 2.0

PETA always tries to explain to people that what is done to animals inside laboratories would be illegal if it happened anywhere else. Burning, shocking, or poisoning a dog would typically land someone in jail. But paradoxically, as long as the abuse happens in a laboratory and is called "science," the people responsible for it are exempt from prosecution under cruelty laws in almost every state. Fortunately, there are some instances in which animal experimenters can be held legally accountable for tormenting animals, but we're learning that even in those cases, experimenters seem to be above the law. As you probably could've guessed, we're fighting to make sure that justice for animals is served!

Last year, Madison, Wisconsin's Alliance for Animals filed a complaint with the district attorney of Dane County alleging that experimenters at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (remember them?) had violated the state's Crimes Against Animals statute by killing sheep in U.S. Navy–funded decompression experiments (killing animals by decompression is specifically prohibited by Wisconsin law). The animals were placed in high-pressure hyperbaric chambers, and some died from the excruciating pain of decompression sickness ("the bends"), which occurs when bubbles of nitrogen gas form in the blood, muscles, and organs, including the brain. Did we mention that the French Navy and the U.K. Ministry of Defence no longer conduct decompression experiments on animals?

Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard investigated and concluded that UW-Madison did in fact violate state law by killing sheep by decompression. Incredibly, he decided that it wasn't worth his time and effort to pursue charges.

Fortunately, there is a Wisconsin law that allows private parties to request that a circuit judge order the filing of a criminal complaint in cases in which a crime has been committed and the D.A. refuses to take action. So PETA and Alliance for Animals have stepped in to petition for prosecution.

We'll keep you up to date on this case as it unfolds. In the meantime, please help us put an end to laboratory atrocities that are still taking place in campuses across the U.S.

Written by Karin Bennett

Many vegan Wisconsinites cringe at the sight of "Green Bay Cheeseheads"—not to mention their state's standard license plate, which reads, "America's Dairyland," and features an image of a quaint farm.

Caring drivers in Wisconsin deserve a compassionate alternative to "pro-provolone" plates, so PETA wrote a letter to Governor Jim Doyle pointing out that people who are concerned about cruelty on dairy farms should be offered a license plate that reads, "Wisconsin: America's Cow Hell," and comes complete with a realistic image of distressed, sick cows crammed together on a filthy factory farm.

While we wait to hear back from the governor, the Madison-based animal rights organization Alliance for Animals has already produced an "America's Cow Hell" sticker for Wisconsin drivers to place over the existing "America's Dairyland" on their license plates. Visit Alliance for Animals' Web site to order yours today.

Written by Karin Bennett