tifft / CC

What might have been just another story of shoddy circus animal handling came to a karmic conclusion last week when a tiger trainer, Josip Marcan, agreed to pay nearly 1 million bucks to settle a lawsuit resulting from a huge traffic accident. The accident was apparently caused when one of Marcan's tigers escaped into the wilds of NYC—in this case, the Jackie Robinson Parkway—while traveling with the Cole Bros. Circus.

Demonstrating the spirit that has made the business of using and abusing animals in circuses the very definition of heartlessness, Marcan blamed everyone but his own whiny self. He called the injured drivers "reckless" and slammed the NYPD officers on the scene, saying "they just wanted to shoot the tiger."

Unfortunately, there was no happy ending for the tiger, Apollo, who was captured and returned to circus life.

Written by Jeff Mackey

Remember when we told you about the 140-year-old, 20-pound lobster confined to a tank inside New York restaurant City Crab and Seafood? Well, after initially denying PETA's request to release the ancient crustacean, the good folks at City Crab have had a change of heart and have agreed to send the lucky lobster back home—i.e., into the sea. (Yay!)

City Crab and PETA are hosting a bon voyage event to see off the lobster, who will be sent back to a watery habitat in style. Pretty exciting if you ask me! Next step: ban catching lobsters completely. Lobsters don't deserve to be pulled from their ocean home and kept in tiny tanks in their own waste and then boiled alive.

A huge "thank you" goes out to City Crab for this compassionate decision. To celebrate this victory for lobsters everywhere, I encourage you to try our recipe for mock lobster.

PS If you want to become a "lobster libber" and help liberate lobsters in your hometown, check out our suggestions for how you can get active here.

PPS You know how life sometimes imitates art? Click here to see just how true that really is.

Written by Liz Graffeo

msn / CC

Last night we learned that City Crab and Seafood in New York City was attempting to sell a 140-year-old, 20-pound lobster to customers for dinner. We immediately contacted the restaurant and spoke with Manager Mitchell Rosen. Rosen let us know that they are unsure what their plans are for the lobster (they may keep him in his tank and "spare him" death), but have refused to hand him over to PETA to be released back into the ocean. Whatever happened to respecting your elders? And—you know—not eating them?

Because of the lobster's sophisticated nervous system and high sensitivity to pain, boiling lobsters alive is completely illegal in some cities, such as Reggio, Italy (where offenders face a $600 fine!). But, unfortunately, more than 20 million lobsters are killed and eaten every year in the U.S. alone.

Even if City Crab takes the lobster off the menu, by keeping him in captivity they are likely sentencing him to death. Because lobsters are sensitive to water quality, they easily die if too much waste is created in their environment. In order to prevent the lobsters' excrement from contaminating the tank water with ammonia, merchants normally do not feed lobsters, so the animals often starve or are reduced to attacking each other.

This lobster lived in the ocean for over a century, and we think he deserves to spend the remainder of his life in peace in his natural habitat—not in a pot of boiling water or a cramped, dirty tank. Since City Crab needs some persuading to release the supercentenarian lobster, we've contacted its parent company, Branded Restaurants USA. Hopefully the executives will show some compassion for this 140-year-old survivor! You can check out our full letter here.

Written by Liz Graffeo

Yes, the Kristen Johnston, and yes, she is starkers on that plastic horse.

Two-time Emmy Award–winning actor Kristen Johnston, whom you will remember as the hysterical Sally on Third Rock From the Sun, stripped down for PETA's new ad targeting the cruelty of the horse-drawn carriage trade. In this gorgeous tribute to Lady Godiva—another fearless activist—Kristen urges us not to "get taken for a ride," because horse-drawn carriages are cruel, not romantic. Check it out:

Yours truly was lucky enough to attend the launch of Kristen's ad—because it was in New York, natch, where a bill is being proposed that would ban horse-drawn carriages! Kristen's beautiful ad is displayed on more than 100 taxi tops all over the city, so we decided to show them off in the most natural place—in Central Park, just across the street from where the carriage drivers wait to pick up passengers.

Kristen was very gracious about posing for the press, even hopping up on the hood of one of the taxis. She's a very classy lady, and was kind enough to take pictures with a few fans as well. One older lady was so excited when she saw Kristen that she went right up to shake her hand, and just beamed from ear to ear when she had her picture taken with the actress.

Kristen is just as funny in person as she is on screen, and it was a treat to work with her. She's also passionate about helping get the carriage horses out of their traces and off the streets—as are many people when they learn about the way the horses are abused. So once you're done staring at the ad, read more facts about carriage horses. And if you're a New York City resident, please contact your city council representative and urge him or her to support Councilmember Dan Garodnick's bill to replace the city's horse-drawn carriages with eco-friendly electric models of classic 1920s cars! How glam, right?

Written by Amanda Schinke

Colonel Sanders has finally met his heavily accessorized, bouffant-wearing, monster-sized match: Lady Bunny. The queen of all queens has teamed up with PETA to create an awesome anti-KFC billboard, which just went up in New York City. The larger-than-life female impersonator's ad advises tourists and commuters that the Colonel's "secret recipe" is cruelty to animals.

Lady Bunny joins other gorgeous pin-ups, including Pam Anderson and Imogen Bailey, who have protested the well-documented abuse of chickens who end up in KFC's deceptively pretty buckets of breast meat. However, only Lady Bunny can talk about there being "more than meets the eye" (regarding animal welfare, of course).

I've cocktailed at enough gay bars to know firsthand what happens "when queens attack"—and it ain't pretty. After all, who wants to upset a burly guy who has spent an hour squeezing into a size 3 dress and a pair of high heels?

Posted by Sean Conner

nab / CC

The deer have been using an ancestral woods path (which now goes through a small development) to reach what remains of the woods, where they sleep at night. Until, that is, one neighbor got all up in arms over some flowers that the deer allegedly had a nibble on (flowers, really?) and got a "nuisance kill" permit from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) to abate the "nuisance."

The neighbor has hired a bow hunter in full regalia, who has set up a tree stand and even deployed a decoy, a lure, to attract the deer to where he can shoot them. There are easy and simple things you can do to live in harmony with wildlife, of course, but it takes a heart.

Props to the other neighbors who are fighting back hard to have the permit revoked and were able to contact Bob Barker—not by some spectacular third degree of separation miracle, by the way: One of the neighbors operated on Mr. Barker when he fell ill in Washington. Mr. Barker shot off a letter to the DGIF, which you can read here

Like many neighborhoods, this community is experiencing wildlife up close because, sadly, these wonderful, capable, now almost homeless animals are being forced to search for food, shelter, and some plain old stimulation—in part because trees are being chopped down faster than you can yell timber just to make room for more strip malls, grocery stores, and, yes, even more Wal-Marts. Jump on over to HelpingAnimals.com for handy tips on how to humanely handle wildlife.

Posted by Jennifer Cierlitsky

entertainmentwise / CC

It must be hard to reach that point in your life where whenever your name hits the media, it's preceded by the words "former supermodel." You might become upset enough to freak out on a plane or throw a phone at your maid. Why, it's enough to make you want to pull your hair out.

Fortunately for former supermodel (see, I told you) Naomi Campbell, her hair seems to be falling out all on its own. We recognized an opportunity for some good old-fashioned consciousness-raising. Here's PETA Europe's note to Ms. Campbell:

Posted by Jeff Mackey

From the incomparable Dan Piraro.

More on horse-drawn carriages in NYC.