Written by PETA
The owner of an unaccredited menagerie called Serenity Springs Wildlife Center pleaded guilty to stealing more than $40,000 from a volunteer who was bitten by a tiger at the facility. The victim took the fall for the attack and paid the zoo's owner, Nick Sculac, because he believed that a fine had been leveled by authorities—but no fine had been imposed. Sculac was sentenced to six years in a halfway house.Over the years, PETA has filed many complaints about this operation, and federal authorities have cited the pseudo-sanctuary for numerous serious violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including failing to provide veterinary care, providing insufficient shelter for animals, and failing to maintain safe and structurally sound enclosures. Serenity Springs uses baby tigers who have been torn away from their mothers and drags them out on the road to venues such as Walmart parking lots, where members of the public handle the traumatized animals and have their photos taken with them.
This case serves as a timely reminder never to patronize shady "take a photo with a fill-in-the-blank" operations. People who want to help legitimate animal rescue operations should support only those accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries.
Written by Jennifer O'Connor
This just in: In response to PETA's undercover investigation of animal experiments at the University of Utah (the U) and the complaint that we filed with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U has been cited for nine violations of federal animal protection laws, including the following:
We weren't surprised when we heard that SeaWorld hired animal pimp "entertainer" Jack Hanna to defend its abuse of marine mammals as well as SeaWorld's abysmal record of injuries and deaths of both trainers and animals. This is the same man who called Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey "the finest circus in the world," after all.
Hanna—who actually compared whale trainers to astronauts (?!)—has his own long and sordid history of exploiting animals at the expense of the safety of the animals and the humans around them. The baby animals Hanna regularly turns into unwilling performers are unweaned infants who were torn from their mothers shortly after birth. His traveling wildlife are subjected to the crippling stress of large crowds and are trapped in an unnatural, alien environment.
Hanna's antics perpetuate the misguided notion that dangerous and exotic animals are desirable "pets," yet even an "animal expert" such as himself can't take the wild nature out of the animals he carts around. His "pet" lion bit off the arm of a 3-year-old. A chimpanzee he brought to a church, bit off a 5-year-old girl's finger. A fox he displayed on Good Morning America severely bit the host's finger, and a baby cougar he brought to a conference bit a politician on the chin. By using animal suppliers and assistants with poor records of animal care, Hanna supports individuals and organizations who have been cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
Hanna + SeaWorld = double the suffering for animals. Want to tell these abusers to "Hit the road, Jack!"? Urge SeaWorld to end its use of marine mammals immediately.
Written by Logan Scherer
Tamara Ecclestone, daughter of Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, has the ideal formula for success: compassion, intelligence, and beauty. Tamara—who bared it all to reveal the naked truth behind foie gras for PETA U.K. last year—recently bought one of her father's favorite pubs. Her first order of business as restaurateur? Banning foie gras from the menu.
And the kindness doesn't stop there. Ecclestone has fired off letters to all Formula 1 team sponsors, urging them to ditch foie gras. Virgin Racing, Toro Rosso, Red Bull Racing, Allianz SE, and Michael Schumacher's team, Mercedes GP, all gave her assurance in record time that they wouldn't serve the cruel dish at their events. "I'm absolutely thrilled to be an ambassador for [PETA U.K.'s] campaign to stop the sale of foie gras – something I call 'torture in a tin' because of how ducks and geese are force-fed to produce it," says Tamara.
Back in March, we told you about the USDA's investigation at Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC). The investigation came about as a result of a PETA complaint exposing that a monkey had been operated on by mistake; that a sick, pregnant monkey had been denied veterinary care; and that other abuses had taken place. The USDA backed up our findings, citing ONPRC for violations of the Animal Welfare Act and issuing the facility a warning. And let's not forget what we found during our undercover investigation.
Well, it's been barely seven months, and ONPRC is in hot water again. According to a lawsuit filed by InVivo Therapeutics—one of the companies that hired ONPRC to torture experiment on monkeys—ONPRC so severely neglected seven monkeys whose spinal cords it had surgically severed that four of the monkeys had to be euthanized.
Of course, the lawsuit is a lose-lose for the monkeys. InVivo had paid ONPRC to paralyze the animals so that researchers could implant them with a device developed by InVivo in order to see if they would regain any movement. In the lawsuit, InVivo alleges that early in the research period, more than one third of the monkeys provided by ONPRC suffered illnesses or injuries such as bladder problems because ONPRC failed to provide the proper post-surgery care or a medical device necessary to keep their bodily systems functioning. InVivo also alleges that at least one monkey developed "a debilitating staph infection" as a result of bacteria at ONPRC.
The publicity surrounding the case has shined another spotlight on abuses at ONPRC as well as the inadequacy of the federal law that is supposed to protect animals in laboratories.
If you have a strong stomach, go to StopAnimalTests.com to find out more about the cruel, redundant, and archaic experiments conducted on primates at ONPRC, and then dash off a letter to the National Institutes of Health, urging it to stop funneling your tax dollars to ONPRC.
Written by Alisa Mullins
According to news reports out of Nepal, that country's forest minister, Dipak Bohara, has "imposed a ban on monkey breeding for export to the United States for biomedical research."
This could be an important first step toward ending the grotesque breeding-and-export trade in monkeys once and for all.
The next step is for the Nepali government to listen to the coalition of animal protection groups (including PETA India) that has been urging the government to rehabilitate the hundreds of monkeys at a breeding center in Lele and to pass a law that would halt all commercial wildlife breeding.
We hope Nepal's action also inspires officials in Puerto Rico to block plans by Bioculture to build a monkey-breeding facility there. But in case they're not paying attention to Nepali news—and, let's face it, many folks aren't—please be sure to add your voice to the growing chorus opposing the construction of Bioculture's facility.
Written by Jeff Mackey
Problem: You're head of an engineering firm hired to simulate and analyze a customer's fall in a Dollar General store in order to provide testimony in a lawsuit.
Solution(?): Get some goon to shoot a sensitive, intelligent pig in the head and then drop the pig's body repeatedly onto a concrete floor.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that killing a pig to mimic a human fall is inhumane and unnecessary, but that's exactly what Linda Weseman of Gainesville-based Weseman Engineering Inc. did.
Since shooting a pig execution-style violates USDA regulations, we filed a complaint with that agency in September 2008 after a whistleblower alerted us to the incident.
Exactly a year later, we learned that the USDA has issued Weseman three citations and a "serious warning" for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
The following are the violations Ms. Weseman was cited for:
Weseman also agreed never to do another experiment on a USDA-regulated animal again (so pigs are safe, but rats and mice beware).
In case those citations and a warning aren't enough to drive home the point for Ms. Weseman that sentient beings shouldn't be killed for pointless experiments, I suggest some compassion training with rescued piglets at her nearest animal sanctuary.
Written by Heather Drennan
Since Michael Jackson's passing on Thursday, there have been hundreds of news stories ranging from how he influenced just about every musician performing today to how he's responsible for the Academy's recent decision to allow 10 nominations for “Best Picture” (no, really!). It got us thinking: What if Michael's music could be used to help animals?
We've written to Michael Jackson's estate asking for the rights to the singer's first solo hit, "Ben," which was written for the 1972 film of the same name. This beautiful song is about the friendship between a lonely boy and a rat named Ben, and we're hoping to use it to raise awareness about the plight of rats and other animals tormented in laboratory experiments.
Mice and rats make up the vast majority of animals used in experiments, but because they are excluded from the federal Animal Welfare Act, they are denied even minimal legal protection. Part of the message of "Ben" is that rats are frequently misunderstood. (For example—did you know that rats and mice are fastidiously clean, intelligent, and highly sociable animals—they even giggle!) In the song, Jackson sings:
Ben, most people would turn you away I don't listen to a word they say They don't see you as I do I wish they would try to.
We hope we'll be able to use this song to inspire people to understand rats a little better and to join our campaign to stop cruel and archaic animal experiments on them.
Written by Amanda Schinke
PETA is always determined and serious in our efforts to raise awareness about—and to stop—animal suffering. Sometimes, our methods are loud, boisterous, and even a little silly, but they are never naïve. That said, we admit that we're floored by the discrepancy in media coverage surrounding two recent events.
After President Obama killed a fly with one swat, media all over the world swarmed PETA for a response. But when landmark cruelty convictions against pig abusers were issued as a result of our undercover investigation, there was barely a buzz.
We know that countless people turn away from upsetting details about how pigs are beaten and sexually abused by pig farmers, raccoons and foxes gnaw their paws off to escape steel-jaw traps set by furriers, and immobilized rabbits writhe when wrinkle creams are smeared into their eyes. And so do many media outlets, lest they anger advertisers and lose money.
So, headlines everywhere mock PETA for suggesting that people consider employing kind methods of dealing with tiny unwanted visitors. Meanwhile, the pigs get zilch. Please help us change that by writing letters to editors to draw attention to this historic victory against animal abusers and spreading the word to your friends and family.
Written by Karin Bennett
Yep, rats and mice are finally having their day. Saturday's Wall Street Journal (the second-largest paper in the country and the most respected) features a front-page article about the work of PETA and others to gain protection for rats and mice in laboratories.
Shockingly, even though rats and mice comprise more than 95 percent of the animals used in experiments, they are specifically excluded from the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), the only federal law that protects animals in laboratories. According to the U.S. government, in its infinite wisdom, rats and mice (as well as birds and "cold-blooded" animals) are not "animals." (It's nonsensical, we know.)
That's why PETA has been doing end-runs around the worthless AWA by going straight to the companies that are required to test their products and pointing out the benefits of using effective and humane alternatives. We also monitor the various government agencies' testing programs and object every time we learn about a proposed test on animals that is redundant or for which non-animal alternatives are available. By doing this, we have been able to get dozens of tests on animals stopped (or the number of animals used greatly reduced), which has saved tens of thousands of animals' lives.
We think it's about time that our elected officials thought about rats and mice, don't you? Send a message to your members of Congress demanding that rats and mice be treated like the sensitive animals (not vegetables or minerals) they are.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
Follow PETA on Twitter!