Presidents, hip-hop moguls, and now PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews have taken the stage at New York arts-and-culture venue 92YTribeca. Dan, together with new "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" model Cornelia Guest, New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott, and Newsweek and Daily Beast celebrity columnist Lloyd Grove, discussed how PETA's eye-catching naked campaigns and celebrity collaborations push animal rights issues into mainstream media outlets.

If the audience members came in with doubts or criticism, we're betting that they left with insight into PETA's tactics after hearing Dan explain that PETA has wonderful stories about building houses for "backyard dogs," rescuing animals from cruel circuses and laboratories, and much more—but what news outlets like Inside Edition want to cover is controversy, nudity, and celebrities.

Although he was there to serve as an unbiased voice, Stuart Elliott noted that PETA's ability to create "buzz" through naked ads and the use of celebrities in protests was decades ahead of modern social-media campaigns. He also commented that the success of PETA's "shockvertising" has persuaded other organizations to follow suit. I guess imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery.

Shadow and Chambers, two dolphins who were forced to perform at a Swiss aquarium, died after a rave party was held at the facility. Authorities are trying to determine the cause of death, which possibly includes being blasted with deafeningly loud music or being poisoned by narcotics dropped into their tank.

PETA Germany had sent an urgent appeal to aquarium management and veterinary officials to cancel the rave and is now poised to file a lawsuit against those responsible if the necropsies (expected to take several weeks) determine that the rave was connected with Shadow's and Chambers' deaths.

Dolphins, whales, rays, and other fish and sea life confined to cramped tanks in aquariums already have it bad enough without being subjected to the stress of loud parties put on by marine parks in an attempt to make a few extra bucks. As PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews recounted after attending a party at the Georgia Aquarium, three guides admitted that music at such parties upsets the animals and causes them to fight.

In the wild, dolphins swim together in family pods or tribes of hundreds. Photo: lowjumpingfrog | cc by 2.0

Never buy a ticket to the Georgia Aquarium, SeaWorld or any other facility that profits from keeping animals in captivity.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

© StarmaxInc

Her Highness of Halloween, Elvira, knows a thing or two about fright. And there are few things that she finds as terrifying as imprisoning marine mammals in an aquarium and forcing them to endure pounding music reverberating through their cramped tanks. But that's just what the ghouls at the Georgia Aquarium plan to do this Halloween.

The aquarium is apparently ignoring the complaint that PETA filed after the facility hosted a recent event with loud music that was visibly distressing to the marine animals, who are very sensitive to excessive noise. Elvira penned a letter to the aquarium's president and COO, saying:

"[T]hree separate aquarium employees said that many of the confined wild animals become aggravated and even fight when the music gets pumping—and they have no safe room to escape to. This disturbs me more than Freddy vs. Jason."

Hopefully, the Mistress of the Dark will help the aquarium see the light.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

After witnessing an ear-splitting dance party at the Georgia Aquarium to kick off Atlanta Pride festivities, PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews sent a letter to the aquarium's president and COO David Kimmel to set the record straight about how this kind of audio torture of animals is not only inappropriate but also likely a violation of Georgia's cruelty-to-animals law:

Despite actual knowledge that music and other noises at this volume are profoundly distressing to, at the very least, the belugas and the animals they attack when this stress and frustration manifests itself as aggression … the aquarium continues to willfully subject the animals in its care to excessive noise during planned events.

Dan described his experience at the prison aquarium in detail in a Huffington Post blog post, noting that belugas have a sophisticated sonar system that helps them navigate the arctic waters in which they swim thousands of miles every year in large, social groups. In captivity, the sonar bounces off tank walls, frustrating the animals. Dan spoke (or rather, shouted) with a tour guide who acknowledged that during high-volume events, the male belugas start to attack the harbor seals with whom they share a tank.

© Dave Riganelli/ iStockphoto.com

When PETA friend and gay rights supporter Martina Navratilova heard that Atlanta Pride held an event at the aquarium, she told Dan, "I cringe at any zoo or a theme park/aquarium with captive animals. But the big ones, whales, dolphins, giraffes, elephants, etc., the big cats—they make me cry."

You can help the animals affected by this event by contacting the Georgia Aquarium to ask that it implement a policy immediately that would allow only soft ambient or classical music at events. After all, it's not as though the animals don't have enough stress already by being held captive in a tank that—to them—is the size of a bathtub. 

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan

© Starmax Inc

Since discovering how much being vegan improved his health, former president Bill Clinton has been belting out praise for plants like he belts out jazz on the saxophone. A new CNN article traces his progression from hamburger-and-fry guy to commander-in-leaf.

Not long after he left office, Clinton's penchant for hamburgers, steaks, and other high-fat foods, coupled with a family history of heart problems, left the ex-president in need of quadruple-bypass surgery, followed by two stents three years later. "I was lucky I did not die of a heart attack," he told CNN.

After Clinton's second surgery, PETA sent him a vegan care package. Then, in spring 2007, PETA Vice President Dan Mathews was seated next to the former President at a dinner party in Las Vegas, and the two spoke at length about the health benefits and ethics of a vegan diet, which Clinton told Mathews had always intrigued him since his daughter Chelsea had been such an articulate vegetarian since she was 10. Mathews followed up by sending Clinton Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's book Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. After consulting with Dr. Esselstyn as well as Dr. Dean Ornish and Chelsea, Clinton decided to make the switch to a plant-based diet: "I essentially concluded that I had played Russian roulette .… So that’s when I made a decision to really change."

So began the era of Bill Clinton, vegan advocate and heart disease survivor. "All my blood tests are good, and my vital signs are good, and I feel good, and I also have, believe it or not, more energy," he says. We wondered who you think should be the next big political figure to get a smaller figure by going vegan? Will it be Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Al Gore, or Sarah Palin?

Ding-dong, the wicked bill is dead—almost. A New York Senate bill—which, like similar bills in other states, aims to criminalize filming on farms—is dying on the vine because no one across the aisle on the Assembly side will cosponsor it.

The good news comes after PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews spoke at a news conference about the bill in Albany on Tuesday—just days after the bill was moved forward by the state's Ag committee. Joining him was New York Sen. Tony Avella, one of the lone members of the Ag committee to give the bill a thumbs-down. "Lawmakers and the public need to know how PETA works hand in hand with law enforcement on these cases," Avella said.

Making the case for the necessity of such investigations, Dan pointed out that a PETA investigation at a New York foie gras farm revealed horrors such as ill ducks who were unable to move  being eaten alive by rats, female hatchlings being drowned in feed sacks, and one duck with a neck injury so severe that water poured out of the wound when he drank.

While an "Ag Gag" bill in Florida is already history, similar bills are unfortunately still alive in Iowa and Minnesota. You can help by e-mailing the governors of both states and expressing your disgust at any law that protects animal abusers.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Thanks to the exhaustive researchers at The Awl, we now know that the New Yorker magazine, whose editors have historically shied away from profanity, never used the word "a******" until a reporter wrote about observing PETA VP Dan Mathews as he placed an "I'm an A******. I Wear Fur" sticker on a mink-clad shopper at a swank department store.  

Back in 1994, a New Yorker writer followed Dan to the fur department at Bergdorf Goodman, learning en route that animals killed for fur are electrocuted, bludgeoned, and skinned alive. A salesperson promptly called security when Dan mentioned to her that chinchillas are killed by genital electrocution. Unabashed, Dan slapped the aforementioned sticker on the back of an unsuspecting shopper's fur coat on his way out. Dan says he got requests from all over the country for the stickers for months after the article ran.
 

 
Who would have ever dreamed that Dan's playful prank would win animals a lasting legacy in the annals of New Yorker history? But wait—there's more! For a limited time (OK, it's not really all that limited), you can pick up some fun anti-fur stickers for yourself by visiting PETACatalog.com. You're #&*@% welcome.
 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Lights, camera, justice for animals! A controversial Florida bill that would have made filming and photographing factory farms without the owner's permission illegal—and which PETA Vice President Dan Mathews personally visited Florida to speak out against—has died in the House. This is a huge victory for animals, since the bill would have essentially banned the undercover investigations necessary to expose cruelty to animals on factory farms, prosecute the offenders, and lobby for improved animal welfare standards.
 

 
Unfortunately, animals are still under attack in Iowa and Minnesota, where legislators are still considering bills that would subject whistleblowers to criminal prosecution. Cloris Leachman has written on PETA's behalf to legislators in both states explaining that filming is necessary for exposing criminal cruelty to animals.

You can speak out against these thinly veiled attempts by the meat industry to hide the truth, even if you don't live in Minnesota or Iowa, by e-mailing the governors of both states and urging them to veto the hush bills if they are passed.
 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews was in Tampa this week to speak at the University of South Florida about a proposed bill that would make filming and photographing farms without the express consent of the owner a felony. Dan invited Senator Jim Norman from Tampa, who proposed the bill, to join him onstage to present his arguments, but the senator didn't show. Maybe he was afraid someone would take his picture.

Dan quipped, "That's right, a Kodak moment of a cow or a chicken is on par with rape and murder in Senator Norman's world."

After widespread ridicule, the language of SB 1246 was changed to make photographing farms a misdemeanor, but why should it be a crime at all?

"What is the Ag Committee afraid will be filmed?" asked Dan. "Are farmed animals engaged in illegal gambling late at night when nobody's looking?"

Or is the answer much more sinister: Do factory farmers (and their influential lobbyists) simply want to prevent the public from seeing the abuse going on behind their walls?
 

 
PETA's "Glass Walls" video, narrated by Sir Paul McCartney, shows exactly what farmers are afraid you'll see: animals jammed into filthy, windowless sheds, where they stand in their own waste and have their bodies mutilated without any painkillers. Not to mention the beatings by workers—and that's all before they're slaughtered. Unfortunately, factory farms and slaughterhouses don't have glass walls, which is precisely why it is so important for undercover investigators to be able to expose the abuse and alert people to what they're paying for every time they buy a chicken breast or a pork chop.
 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

A meat processing plant in British Columbia found itself in deep doo-doo after a whistleblower let it slip that the company had covered up test results that found dangerous E. coli in a product sample. E. coli resides in animals' intestinal tracts and ends up in meat when—and there's no nice way to put this—their guts are ripped open during slaughter and their feces spill out onto their flesh, contaminating it.

The company's response was, well, crappy. Instead of wiping up its mess, it decided instead to a) call the whistleblower a stoolie, b) make its consumers responsible for cooking the poop-tainted meat enough to kill the pathogens, and c) drop its federal license, since provincial regulations don't require it to test for E. coli.

I can't decide which new slogan the company should adopt, "Quality is job number two" or "Manure—it's what's for dinner!"

In the U.S., there's a movement afoot to bring food safety procedures flush with current needs, but anyone who tells you that meat is safe to eat is full of … well, you know. Or as PETA's Dan Mathews put it, "Chances are good that unless you choose vegetarian, you're eating the 'poo poo platter.'"

revolution cycle/cc by 2.0

Written by Jeff Mackey