Written by PETA
Well, it's not the law of our dreams, but we're happy to report that one part of a bill that has just been passed in New York City (and maybe just the one part) should improve living conditions for horses who are used to pull carriages. Under the new legislation, carriage operators are required to provide horses with larger stalls in which they can finally turn around and lie down (the current stalls couldn't be smaller unless you built them through the horses' flanks) as well as to allow the horses to come off the roads and spend five weeks out of every year at a stable with a paddock or a pasture.
A hike in fares has also been enacted. It probably won't make a difference, but it might decrease the number of misguided tourists who want to take horses for a ride. After all, it's the animals who pay the ultimate price in this money-hungry industry: Horses are forced to pull heavy loads in all weather extremes while walking on hard pavement, dodging loud traffic, and inhaling exhaust fumes that cause damage to their lungs comparable to that which heavy smokers experience. Does that sound even remotely romantic to you?
Anyone who has seen or thought about this wretched excuse for amusement knows that it's past time for the horse-drawn carriage industry to be put out to pasture permanently. Tel Aviv has done it, and now it's time for New York to do it. Please join us in asking New York City officials to ban horse-drawn carriages as a blight on the city. Thanks!
Written by Amy Skylark Elizabeth
Showing cruelty of gastronomical proportions, restaurants in Queens (Sik Gaek and East Seafood Restaurant) are chopping up and serving live octopuses to customers. Octopuses have their tentacles cut off while they are still conscious and are then served, writhing, while their hearts are still beating. Others are slowly steamed alive in front of customers before their tentacles and upper bodies are cut into small pieces with scissors.
Since we can't "release the Kraken" on these animal abusers, we're unleashing our legal team on the district attorney—calling on the DAs to file cruelty charges against the restaurants. Because octopuses have sophisticated nervous systems and feel pain just as acutely as mammals do, we feel that the restaurants' practices clearly violate the state's anti-cruelty statute.
Recently, octopuses were observed carrying around coconut shells to use as shelter—making these complex cephalopods the first known invertebrate animals to use tools. These "deep" thinkers are also fond of decorating. They decorate their dens with bottle caps, stones, and other objects that they find on the ocean floor. They are so smart that they can also learn how to do things such as unscrew jars by watching someone else do it—once!
Let's hope that the district attorney in this case is just as smart and sentient. You can call or fax the Queens County District Attorney's Office and politely ask that they take action against these restaurateurs. We'll keep you posted. Until then, take this octopus-inspired poll.
A tree grows in Brooklyn … actually, many of them do. And from one of those trees, a pigeon dangled upside down from a piece of string that was caught around her leg and tangled on a tree branch two stories above a busy sidewalk, beside a busy street.
When a caring Brooklynite contacted PETA, the bird had already hung from that tree for days without food or water, surely full of panic and fear.
But luckily there are people—such as the Brooklynite who contacted us—who care enough to take action.
Local animal control agents lacked the equipment necessary to rescue the pigeon, but they referred our cruelty caseworker to the local fire department, which dispatched a truck minutes after PETA's call came in. Firefighters drove by to survey the situation and returned in a truck with a tall ladder, which they climbed to reach the bird.
The caller was on-site, and when firefighters handed her the pigeon—whose wounds were infested with maggots—she rushed the bird to a local veterinarian. Immediately realizing that the pigeon's back was broken, the vet was able to quickly release her from her suffering.
The anguish that pigeon endured during those days is almost incomprehensible. Hanging upside down with a broken back and suffering from extreme starvation and dehydration as maggots infested her open wounds, she must have been in severe pain. Had those caring persons—the caller, the cruelty caseworker, firefighters, and the vet—not stepped in to take action, who knows how long her suffering would have continued?
We've said it before, but it bears repeating: Please always be a person who helps an animal in need. You might be the first to take action, but if you reach out to others, you'll likely find people who care as much as you do.
Written by Karin Bennett
Earlier today on the streets of New York City, a taxi lost control and crashed into a horse-drawn carriage. The carriage driver was tossed out of the carriage, landed in the street, and was eventually taken to the hospital with the taxi driver. The horse bolted from the scene.
Donny Moss, the director of Blinders, was able to get footage of the accident's aftermath.
This is not the first time that a car and a carriage have collided on the streets of New York City, and unless officials in New York ban horse-drawn carriages for good, you can bet that it won’t be the last.
Please, take a moment and send a polite message to New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg letting him know that he should follow the lead of cities such as London, Paris, and Beijing and ban carriages from his city’s streets. Please do it before someone else gets hurt.
Written by Shawna Flavell
I'm predicting that Fox's new musical comedy, Glee, will be this fall's breakout hit (sorry, Ashlee).
Certainly the show's beautiful and brainy star Lea Michele, who has drawn rave reviews for her various Broadway performances, has hit a high note with us.
Lea joined Chrissie Hynde, Pink, Pamela Anderson, Alec Baldwin, Rue McClanahan, and other notables who "don't stop believin'" that the cruel and dangerous buggy biz needs to be done away with.
I'll be parked on my La-Z-Boy on Wednesday nights to catch Glee. Do you plan to tune in?
In cities all over the world, humans share sidewalks, windowsills, awnings, and patches of grass with pigeons. And while some people, businesses, and government officials aren't always nice to these amiable urbanites, pigeons have many defenders.
The New York Bird Club and pigeon fans are gearing up for the National Pigeon Day celebration on Saturday, June 13—and they want New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. to make an official proclamation.
A few quick facts: Pigeons are courageous and intelligent birds who mate for life, and both parents tend to their young. They are hardy birds—adept at dodging pedestrians, taxis, and the occasional hawk. No wonder so many humans are content to sit back and watch them during their lunch hours.
Please ask Mayor Bloomberg to officially declare this upcoming June 13 "National Pigeon Day." And if you'll be celebrating at Pilgrim Hill in NYC's Central Park,look for me. I'll be wearing my Pige Patrol T-shirt.
In the way that slavery, once a broad social norm, later became an unthinkable crime, we can expect to see a similar shift once meat-eating disappears from our planet. Perhaps, some day, the very idea of eating animal flesh will seem as remote as the idea of owning humans does now. —Jim Motavalli, ForeignPolicy.com
Seems like the folks at ForeignPolicy.com—as well as many others—are starting to realize that the meat industry isn't just bad for the environment and our health, it's an industry based on exploitation and cruelty.
Maybe … just maybe … they got the idea for their article from our Animal Liberation Project display in Washington, D.C., or our recent setup in New York City's Battery Park.
Yesterday, we broke the news that France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, had written to PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews to assure him that although she wore fur back in her modeling days, she now refuses to wear even the smallest bits of fur.
Now, America's first lady, the fabulously fashionable Michelle Obama, has also declared via her press secretary that she, too, is fur-free. Here's the official statement: "Mrs. Obama does not wear fur."
Talk about some high-class first ladies!
How many crocodiles does it take to make a leather bag?
It sounds like the start of a really bad joke, but in a recent article, the chief executive for the French "luxury" goods group Hermes said, "It can take three to four crocodiles to make one of our bags so we are now breeding our own crocodiles on our own farms, mainly in Australia." (emphasis added)
He then quipped, "The world is not full of crocodiles, except the stock exchange!"
Oh, ho ho, funny guy. If you weren't ripping their skins off—sometimes while they are still alive and able to call out in distress—and turning them into overpriced purses, there would probably be plenty of crocodiles running around.
They did outlive the dinosaurs, after all, so my guess is that their survival instincts are pretty acute.
Here's what PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews had to say:
The thought of purposely breeding and killing crocodiles for an outdated, overpriced handbag should make any fashionista's skin crawl. If Hermes really wants to be a leader in the fashion industry, it should stop killing animals for cold-blooded vanity and use cruelty-free mock croc and fake snake instead. As Pink—who recently provided the voice of a computer-generated crocodile in PETA's "Stolen for Fashion" commercial—says, "Killing animals for their skins is so disgusting that it doesn't make me want to befriend designers who use them.
So how about this: Instead of breeding reptiles for fashion faux pas, watch "Stolen for Fashion," then pull a switcharoo and start using stylish synthetics instead.
When PETA pal Chrissie Hynde learned that the organizers of her band's summer tour included a date at the Weesner Amphitheater—which is located at the Minnesota Zoo—the staunch zoo opponent wasn't pleased.
Then she learned that animals from the Minnesota Zoo's petting zoo are routinely sent to livestock auctions.
Chrissie has never shied away from an opportunity to speak up for animals who are being exploited, so she fired off an e-mail to the zoo director, Lee Ehmke, in which she wrote:
I am disappointed to learn that the zoo sells its petting zoo animals to slaughter at the end of the season. How can a zoo invite children to touch and play with and express joy over animals for their uniqueness, only to turn around and sell those very animals to slaughter?
Well, the zoo didn't agree to stop shipping off once-petted goats and sheep to slaughter. Instead, it canceled Chrissie's show!
You better bet she'll have some choice words about it to share with Pretenders fans.
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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