Written by PETA
The baby born to lowland gorilla Kumbuka at Zoo Miami on Father's Day has died of unknown causes. The grieving mother refused to turn her infant's body over to zookeepers, who had to immobilize her in order to retrieve the body.
When looking at a photo like the one above of Kumbuka and her baby, how could anyone believe that human beings are in a class by themselves or that there is any meaningful difference between this mother and child and a human mother and child? "Only conceit and hair separate us from the other animals," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk.
The deep mother-child bond is one that crosses the species barrier. How is it justifiable, then, for industries to tear families apart in order to use animals for entertainment, clothing, food, or experimentation?
Don't break a mother's heart—help keep families together by not supporting companies that tear baby apes away from their mothers and force them to perform in commercials or circuses that steal baby elephants from their families and beat them into submission.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
Our feline friends might think they’re as tough as Catwoman, but Gotham is full of perils for 15-pound balls of fur. Cats face countless dangers outdoors including cars, other animals, deadly contagious diseases, and cruel people who make The Joker look like Bozo the clown.
PETA routinely gets calls from people whose “outdoor” cats have been poisoned, shot, or tortured to death. In Florida, authorities found lost dogs and cats housed in a warehouse used by dogfighters. In South Dakota, a fur trader was caught selling the skins of cats he had trapped. In Washington, D.C., a cat who went out for her daily stroll returned home covered in hot grease burns.
So what do you do when your cat sits at the door and meows at you as if to say, “I think I’d like to go for a stroll”? Why not tag along?
PETA staffer Chris "Vegan Fury" Holbein takes his morning constitutional with cat Brow Brow and dog Maggie.
There’s no time like Be Kind to Animals Week to give cat-walking a try. Many cats will walk on a harness with an extendable leash after a few days of getting used to it. If that makes Mr. Bigglesworth feel too much like Benji, perhaps he would prefer being chauffeured in a Kittywalk stroller.
You can also make the great indoors more alluring by providing lots of interactive toys and scratching posts and playing games with your cat. For more ideas, peruse 250 Things You Can Do to Make Your Cat Adore You by PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk.
PETA's party for New York Fashion Week was a smashing success, even by Fashion Week standards. Hosted by Project Runway's Tim Gunn and Olivia Munn, the celebrity guests included Taraji P. Henson, Joan Jett, reality stars Lo Bosworth and Stephanie Pratt, and fashion designers Todd Oldham, John Bartlett, and Marc Bouwer, plus many others. They all partied at Stella McCartney's chic New York City boutique while listening to tunes spun by DJ Lady Bunny and munching on delicious vegan hors d'oeuvres.
Tim, looking dashing as always, screened the riveting anti-fur video that he narrated for PETA and spoke about how killing animals for their fur is never in fashion. "I'm on a campaign to get as many fashion designers as possible to stop using it," said Gunn. "I'd just like to sit with them and have a talk and ask, 'Is it really necessary?'" And when Tim Gunn talks about fashion, people listen.
Henson, the latest beauty to bare it all for animals, unveiled her sexy new ad and told the party attendees that she stopped wearing fur after channel-surfing and coming across the "I Am an Animal" documentary about PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. What she saw changed her entire perspective on fur, and she resolved to help others see the light."You don't have to kill an animal because you want to be hot and fly," she said. And she promised the crowd to keep on pushing to get fur off the streets.
The website TheDailyMeal has just released its list of the 50 Most Powerful People in Food, and appearing on that list is (drumroll, please) PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. TheDailyMeal is positioning itself to be the end-all be-all of food resources, and for this list, it chose people who "directly or have the ability to directly affect what and how we eat." Ingrid made the list at number 48 because of PETA's work to get people to be so revolted by meat and dairy products—i.e., to understand what their production does to animals and the environment, not to mention what eating them does to their insides—that they download a vegetarian/vegan starter kit and give a vegan diet a try. (Pause for applause.)
Rubbing shoulders with Ingrid at number 47 is guru of gourmet and PETA pal Martha Stewart, who narrated a PETA video that exposed cruelty to animals on fur farms. Congratulations to these two influential women, who are changing the planet for the betterment of us and animals. Let's eat!
And congrats to you if you are going vegan or trying to persuade someone else to go vegan.
If declawing were more accurately referred to as "amputation," would people still declaw their cats? The Paw Project doesn't think so. In this provocative new public service announcement, the group shows exactly what the procedure would look like on a human. Its website explains that "[t]o declaw a cat, the veterinarian cuts off the last knuckles of a cat's paw—cutting through bone, tendons, skin and nerves. In a person, it is equivalent to amputating each finger or toe at the last joint."
Cats often experience extreme pain when they awaken from declawing, and they frequently have difficulty relearning how to walk, much as a person would after losing his or her toes. In PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk's book 250 Things You Can Do to Make Your Cat Adore You, experienced veterinarian Dr. Louis J. Camuti is quoted as saying, "I wouldn't declaw a cat if you paid me $1,000 a nail!"
Nearly two dozen countries, including the U.K., Australia, and Japan, have prohibited or severely restricted veterinarians from declawing. Until the U.S. follows suit, it's up to us to protect our felines' feet by buying scratching posts and sisal "scratching boxes," teaching cats where—and where not—to claw, and giving them regular "pedicures" (i.e., trimming their nails). Getting mani-pedis with our cats—now if only they could talk Twilight with us too …
That's right: Robert St. John is giving up meat, eggs, and dairy products. He stopped eating meat for a month last year in September—but, he admits, he still consumed lots of cheese, milk, and cholesterol bombs (eggs to you). But this year he's one-upped himself by vowing to be vegan—at least through this month. Perhaps his decision was in response to a little playful nudging from PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. Maybe he ruminated over the many reasons why a vegan diet is best for every living being and the Earth. Or maybe he just wanted to drop some weight. (As Newkirk said, "You might as well staple all that cheese to your stomach and thighs and use a brush to coat your arteries with it.")
He's a brave man, given his really bad, bad, bad dietary addictions, but I bet that St. John will find that vegan living is a piece of mouthwatering salmonella-free cake.
Written by Karin Bennett
BP has more than the loss of human life, livelihoods and tourism to answer for. And so do the government inspectors who allowed this corporation—as seemingly greedy as the bankers, mining companies and marine park owners whose careless conduct has resulted in similar destruction—to put profit over safety.
If the criminal investigation of BP and those who signed off on the drill-site inspection sheets and safety assurances shows willful fraud and deception, dereliction of duty, bribes or who knows what else, there is one additional set of criminal charges that should be added to the list: cruelty to animals. For this is the largest case of cruelty to animals in U.S. history.
We are being spared, for political reasons, some think, but mercifully perhaps, most of the photographs of the animals who have died and are still dying, slowly, painfully, not just coated but drenched in oil. It is hard for anyone with a heart to see the gulls and pelicans, blinking up through a thick coat of muck that prevents them from flying, eating, taking a drink of water and escaping the burning heat of June. It is even too much to come across a snippet of video that shows a huge rubber-gloved hand gently plucking a tiny crab out of a puddle of black glop. Only the outline of his body tells you what he is, although his struggles tell you that he is still alive. For the moment.
For most of the animals, any help is too late. Studies show that even if wildlife rescuers capture an oiled bird in time, before much damage has been done, the terror of being handled by a predator, of being force-fed, doused and scrubbed, is too much for their pounding hearts to endure. Even if they survive the trauma of being cleaned and re-cleaned, it is suspected that most die after their release.
And in this case, one must ask, "Where can they be released?" Many birds mate for life; others are lost without their flocks. Their nesting grounds now lie under the oil slick; their friends and family are dead or dying. What is there for them to return to?
And what of the turtles, dolphins and—dare I write it—the whales? Cetacean experts do not expect whales to escape this slick completely. Once killed for their own oil, will they now be killed by ours?
And don't laugh, but what of the fish? As inconvenient as it may be to think about it, given the seafood buffets of summer, studies show that fish feel pain and fear just as acutely as mammals do.
Whether or not BP is charged with cruelty, there are many things that we can and should do other than just pointing a finger. Some suggestions are to provide less support to oil companies by consuming less oil, by buying fewer oil-based plastic goods (the beaches of Hawaiian atolls are inches deep in discarded plastic) and by following the recommendations issued by the United Nations this month and going vegan in order to save the waterways, forests and ozone layer. Paul McCartney's "Meat-Free Monday" project is getting institutions and individuals to look at the environmental devastation caused by energy-intensive factory farming and to do something about it by reducing meat consumption. In taking responsibility, President Obama would do well to announce that he, too, is embracing at least that one baby step.
Those responsible in the corporate world and in government can never truly make amends. How do you "make it up" to those who are suffering and dying in agony out there at this very moment or to those who have already lost their lives or loved ones? However, before looking away from the umpteenth heart-wrenching photo of an oil-coated pelican, the rest of us can do something positive and make some personal choices ourselves so that none of the oil companies will be able to claim consumer demand as a reason for misbehaving. It's just a thought.
Written by Ingrid E. Newkirk
The following post originally appeared on PETA Prime.
Recently, I ran across some really sad cases of guardians who lost their feline companions and did not know what steps to take to recover them. Here are some basic guidelines that were originally published in my book 250 Things You Can Do to Make Your Cat Adore You. These steps should also work for most other types of animal companions.
The following are the basic rules:
I've always said that numero ocho is a lucky number—think natural wonders, that timeless tune by The Beatles, and Schoolhouse Rock.
And with the premiere of our new tell-all, eight just beat out seven as my number one numeral:
If you've ever wondered, "What's PETA thinking?" then you'll want to watch this. Narrated by our own Ingrid E. Newkirk, the video takes an in-depth look at how and why PETA employees and supporters stay so motivated to defend all animals, including the maligned and misunderstood.
So if your friends or family members have ever asked you, "Why does PETA rely so heavily on the Lettuce Ladies to turn people on to a vegan diet" or "How do you remain so relentless in your efforts to make a difference," now's the time to answer them. Use this video to spread PETA's secrets to everyone you know via Facebook and Twitter.
A judge has temporarily ruled that video footage and photographs of the violent killing of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau by Tilly the killer whale will not be made public. The fight over that will rage on, I'm sure. But the autopsy report has been released today, and it makes it very clear that Dawn Brancheau's last moments were filled with tremendous suffering. Despite massive public relations efforts on SeaWorld's part to smooth over the "incident"—i.e., death by killer whale—by characterizing it as "play" that went a bit wrong, the autopsy shows that Tilly was not in the mood for affection.
The six-page report reveals that Brancheau's left arm and part of her scalp were ripped off. She suffered spinal cord injuries, and her ribs as well as bones in her legs, arms, and face were broken. She had bruises and cuts all over her body. And she drowned.
As PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk states, "These were not love bites, but the vented fury of an angry and frustrated being who has been deprived of everything in life: family, friends, freedom—all for the sake of human profit and a few giggles."
The gory details of Dawn Brancheau's death are further evidence that animals who are deprived of everything that is natural and important to them throughout their entire miserable lives in sea parks, circuses, and zoos around the world will continue to attack and kill people whom they see as having a role in the denial of their freedom and family connections.
Whether by writing, tweeting, picketing, getting creative, or (ideally) doing all of the above and more, please help Tilly and the many other animals who are being held in captivity and deprived of everything that is natural to them. And the most important thing that anyone can do to help imprisoned animals is to refuse to patronize marine or other abusement parks.
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.
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