Written by PETA
It seems like everyone and their grandma (literally) is getting into social networking. Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are all the rage nowadays, so you know that PETA is all over it. As long as you're scanning your tweets on Twitter and poking friends on Facebook, why don't you check out what PETA is up to as well?
At the moment, we're fighting to end the Canadian seal slaughter. Here are a few easy tips for spreading the word about the seal slaughter through your social network:
Facebook
MySpace
Twitter
Now that you're equipped to fight the social-networking war against the seal slaughter, I'll see you on the field!
Written by Lianne Turner
After years of pressure from animal rights activists nationwide—including PETA—JCPenney has finally decided to stop peddling pelts.
PETA first wrote to JCPenney about its support of the cruel fur industry in 2001, and we have kept the pressure on the company ever since, including sending complaints to the company over its mislabeling of fur items.
In making this decision to become fur-free, JCPenney joins dozens of other major companies—including Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Polo Ralph Lauren, Wet Seal, and Forever 21—that also refuse to sell the fur of abused animals. Like most modern retailers, these companies know that the fur trade is violent and bloody, and they refuse to support it. They know that animals who are trapped and farmed for their fur are often beaten to death, drowned, anally electrocuted, and skinned alive. They know that today's shoppers don't want to support this abuse, and they have responded by refusing to sell any fur, including fur trim.
Three cheers for JCPenney and everyone who helped persuade the company to become fur-free!
If you want to help PETA win more victories like this one, please take part in our current campaign to convince Giorgio Armani to become fur-free by using this automated form to write a letter to his company.
Written by Matt Prescott
Have a fantastic, delicious, and compassionate St. Patrick's Day. Enjoy our e-card, straight from the PETA Files to you!
Top o' the mornin' and happy St. Patrick's Day to you! Since you'd never find a real leprechaun at a KFC (leprechauns are far too smart for that), PETA sent out our own sexy Leprechaun Ladies to encourage passersby to opt for pots of gold, not buckets of chicken. Check out these photos for a leprechaun sighting that doesn't require a rainbow:
"Even on St. Patty's Day, chickens raised and killed for KFC are the unluckiest animals in the world," says PETA Leprechaun Lady Kristina Addington. "Once people find out about the cruelty behind every bucket of chicken, they won't eat at KFC for all the pots of gold in the world."
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the seal slaughter:
Yeah. We thought that it was awful too.
How can you help end this atrocity? Glad you asked. Click here.
Written by Christine Doré
Last week, a former employee of a Pilgrim's Pride slaughterhouse in Alabama took his work home with him and went on a killing spree (you know, the kind involving humans—the kind that there are actually laws against). Is it so shocking that someone who kills for a living would be violent off-duty, as well? Statistics show that counties with slaughterhouses have higher violent-crime rates than other counties, which is why we sent a letter to Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama asking him to require that slaughterhouse workers receive empathy training and that cameras be installed in slaughterhouses.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems obvious that slaughterhouses would be linked to violent behavior. Pilgrim's Pride is infamous for employing cruel workers, some of whom were videotaped stomping on chickens' heads, ripping off their beaks, and slamming them against walls in an undercover PETA investigation. We hope that Gov. Riley will take our advice to help prevent future killings—of both humans and nonhumans.
When animals receive the attention they deserve from TV networks, it's a grand occasion. HBO has once again stepped up to the plate—remember when the network aired I Am an Animal, which followed PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk in her daily work to save animals? Well, tonight, the network will be airing Death on a Factory Farm, so set your reminder now. It will also be available through On Demand.
This hard-hitting documentary follows a hog-farm investigation and gives viewers a rare glimpse at the process of trying to bring cruelty-to-animals charges against the meat industry.
As often happens, a tip was received from one of the farm's employees who claimed that workers were killing pigs by hanging them with chains. The bizarre part is that the investigator recorded the owner's son stating that the "euthanasia" guidelines followed by the farm are approved by and posted on PETA's Web site! Needless to say, it took about five minutes for our lawyers to put out a letter demanding an apology. If this investigation rings a bell, here's why: We featured it on the PETA Files in fall of 2007 when Iowa veterinarian Dr. Paul Armbrecht defended these hangings as acceptable and stated that kicking, dragging, and dropping sows off a 4-foot ledge—routine practice at this farm—are appropriate methods of transporting animals. And wife-beating is great discipline.
Tune in tonight and then come back tomorrow and leave us a comment letting us know what you thought.
Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky
As a lifelong Red Sox fan, I'll be the first to admit that baseball "curses" are a bit overblown. All that the infamous "Curse of the Bambino" ever did was sell a trillion copies of a certain curly-haired sportswriter's books. The Red Sox didn't lose all those years because Babe Ruth was putting a voodoo hex on them from beyond the grave—they lost because they didn't get big hits in big at-bats, field worth a damn, or pull Pedro after the seventh inning when he was serving up more meatballs than an IKEA food court. Not that I'm still hung up on that or anything.
But I digress. Perhaps you heard that a long-lost statue of our arch-nemesis Colonel Sanders was dredged out of the Dotonbori River in Japan earlier this week, supposedly ending a 24-year curse on the Hanshin Tigers, whose fans tossed the statue in the river in the first place. Can't say I blame them. Well, the folks over at KFC are now offering the statue to the Chicago Cubs as a way to break the team's own "Curse of the Billy Goat," stemming from an incident in 1945 when a fan and his companion goat (yep) were tossed out of Wrigley Field's bleachers because of the goat's unpleasant odor.
Today, PETA wrote to the Cubs recommending that they turn down KFC's offer. If Cubs fans believe that they haven't won a World Series in 60 years because the ghost of one goat has it in for them, think about the consequences of offending the nearly 1 billion chickens who are tortured and killed for KFC every year. Here's my prediction—if the Cubs accept this Colonel Sanders statue, there won't be a World Series game at the friendly confines until KFC's slaughterhouse suppliers stop scalding live chickens to death and the company adopts PETA's recommended animal welfare program.
You heard it here first.
Written by Dan Shannon
Longtime PETA supporter Judith Yeargin fought hard not only in her 30-year battle against breast cancer but also against the use of animals in experiments. That's why Judith, who died on March 2, left her body to the New York University Langone Medical Center (NYUMC) She hoped to spare some of the countless animals who are sickened and maimed during painful, deadly, and wasteful experiments.
Judith was a tireless crusader for animals. She attended countless protests and helped raise money to build a low-cost spay-and-neuter clinic. Everywhere she went, she always kept an eye out for animals in distress. She rescued several strays during her travels, including a cat in France who had been hit by a car. Judith rushed the cat to the vet for immediate care while Judith searched for her guardian. While on vacation in Italy, Judith rescued a dog and wouldn't rest until she found the animal a good home. In France, she rescued another dog named Lucky, who accompanied her back home to Manhattan and lived to a ripe old age. When her elderly dog, Daffodil, was ill, Judith even managed to drag herself out of her sick bed just two weeks before her death to take Daffy to the vet. Daffodil was another of Judith's many rescues, adopted as a puppy from a local shelter after Judith heard on the news that Daffodil had been thrown into a trash compactor.
By donating her body to NYUMC, Judith not only promoted awareness about the suffering endured by animals in laboratories but also contributed to legitimate scientific research into breast cancer. Experiments on animals are not an accurate reflection of the effects of cancer in humans. It's bad science, and cancer patients deserve the best that medicine can offer.
"Judith never turned her back on any animal in need," says her dear friend, Lia. "[S]he just felt it was unethical to use animals and better if the science community could learn something from her body rather than cause pain and suffering to animals."
A great way to honor Judith Yeargin and other cancer victims is by refusing to support cancer charities that fund animal experiments and by purchasing only from companies that refuse to test their products on animals.
Written by Liz Graffeo
Although technically spring has not yet sprung, we seem to be doing a kind of early spring cleaning here at the Files, with updates on some issues that we haven't discussed in a while. First, it was ONPRC and now, horse slaughter.
"Horse slaughter." Ugh. Just the phrase alone turns your stomach, doesn't it? Well, it's time to turn that nausea into action by supporting H.R. 503, The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009, which is currently making its way through Congress.
Some background: In recent years, animal advocates have succeeded in ending horse slaughter in the U.S., but now, greedy folks determined to profit from their horses even in death have begun sending horses to Mexico and Canada, where slaughter is still legal. Horses suffer tremendously on the long trip to shoddy foreign slaughterhouses, often arriving with all kinds of injuries and illnesses, only to be shot or stabbed repeatedly in the neck and spine. Paralyzed but still conscious, they're shackled and hoisted up by one leg so that their throats can be cut. Then they hang there, bleeding to death.
That's where H.R. 503 comes in. If it becomes law, this legislation would prohibit the slaughter and/or export of horses for human consumption. It's a huge step in the right direction and could greatly reduce the number—and therefore the suffering—of the estimated 100,000 horses who are exported for slaughter every year.
Please contact your U.S. representative and politely ask him or her to cosponsor and vote for H.R. 503.
If you want to do even more to protect horses, additional measures are needed, including specifically making horse abandonment a crime (as Oregon is currently considering) with stiff penalties on a state-by-state level; requiring people who can no longer provide for their horses to find new homes for them or have them euthanized by injection; and funding enforcement to prevent the smuggling of horses across our nation's borders under false pretenses. To learn how to become a citizen lobbyist for horses and other animals, check this out.
Written by Jeff Mackey
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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