Written by PETA
Long before Michael Phelps swam his way into our cultural consciousness—104 years before, to be exact—vegetarian swimmers were already wowing people with their superhuman stamina. Check out this 1904 headline from Montréal's The Gazette:
Vegetarians aren't weighed down by all that cholesterol-laden animal fat or their own guilty conscience. The advantages are clear: Vegetarians make better lovers, better fighters, and better swimmers!
Written by Logan Scherer
Sometimes it breaks our hearts to say, "We told you so." It's less than a week into the 1,150-mile-long doggie death march known as the Iditarod, and abuser musher Justin Savidis has already reported one of his dogs, 3-year-old Whitey, missing.
Whitey has been loose since Wednesday, and although he's been spotted on a number of occasions, temperatures along the Iditarod course remain below zero, and there is no guarantee that Whitey will find shelter or food.
Even if Whitey survives his escape, when you consider the dark history of the bloody race, his future still looks pretty grim. On average, dogs in the Iditarod run at least 100 miles each day with very brief rests, and only half the dogs who begin the race ever make it to the finish line. Many are injured or killed as a result of the physical torment of the Iditarod—some of them fall through the ice or suffer from bloody diarrhea, dehydration, and viruses, while others are strangled by tow lines, trampled by moose, or hit by snowmobiles and sleds. Whitey's disappearance marks the beginning of this year's sub-zero suffering, but it's not too late to end it: Urge the Iditarod's sponsors to back out of the barbaric competition immediately.
Yesterday, Ringling announced that it had euthanized Lima, the 12-year-old zebra who ran amok for 40 minutes in Atlanta after he escaped from the circus last month. According to a statement released by the circus, numerous medical treatments failed to repair the damage to the zebra's hooves.
Shortly after Lima escaped, PETA called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ensure that Lima be provided adequate veterinary care for his injuries and to remove all zebras from Ringling's traveling shows. Now we're hoping that the tragedy of Lima's death moves officials to end the exploitation of all zebras in circuses.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that time after time animals in circuses try to make a break for freedom. While we mourn Lima's traumatic and painful ordeal, we are thankful that he will no longer be forced to endure a life of constant confinement, in fear of being beaten to perform unnatural tricks. Help stop the suffering of animals abused by Ringling by urging everyone you know to forgo circuses that use animals.
Plato said, "The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies ... they are the trees and the plants and the seeds." Now, PETA Germany has the perfect ad for Athens' Acropolis—an ad that, if erected, would honor the city's compassionate legacy while helping Greece end its financial woes:
Greek philosophers Plato, Pythagoras, and Plutarch all opposed the cruelty associated with meat consumption. This is one proven Pythagorean theorem that we can all follow: Going vegan = health2 + happy animals2 + green planet2.
What is fur-hating Phoenix Suns forward Amar'e Stoudemire's recipe for end-of-season-success? A four-day vegan fast, which he says will "purify my body, and get my body in top shape …."
I'm sure that the former NBA Rookie of the Year's foray into animal-free cuisine will improve his physical and mental wellness by leaps and bounds. And who knows, maybe he'll make a permanent switch to a vegan diet.
After all, once you learn how factory-farmed animals endure painful mutilations, extreme crowding, and hellish journeys to slaughterhouses to become artery-clogging, doob promoting hot dogs and cheeseburgers, your mind and body do feel lighter and brighter when you go vegan. Don't just take our word for it—see for yourself.
Written by Karin Bennett
PETA recently received a call about more than 20 rabbits who were crowded into a junk-filled outdoor enclosure at the back entrance of a barbecue joint in Oregon. The restaurant's excuse for the cruel captivity? For the kids to play with, they said. But there was nothing kid- or rabbit-friendly about the squalid setup or the rabbits' garbage-scrap diet.
A concerned passerby reported the rabbits' precarious condition to PETA, and we acted quickly. After several visits from local officials, the restaurant agreed to surrender all the rabbits to a reputable local humane society that will find them loving indoor homes.
Animal abuse isn't always hidden, so keep your eyes peeled for animals in need and always speak up when you see cruelty.
Eden II, a Staten Island school for autistic children, recently lost some electronics and rubber duckies to burglars, but it's the theft of Star, the school's hamster, that has students crying and losing sleep.
In an effort to nix any notion about getting a "replacement" for Star, our TeachKind reps have reached out to Eden II officials, offering to replace the classroom hamster with Webkinz, a humane alternative to live classroom animals that combines toys and technology to allow kids to care for adopted friends online. With Webkinz, kids learn responsibility and kindness without subjecting an animal to possible neglect or abuse.
We are also providing the school with information about pet shop cruelty, because most of the exotic animals in pet shops come from filthy warehouses such as U.S. Global Exotics (USGE), where an undercover PETA investigation revealed shocking neglect and cruelty. Hamsters, prairie dogs, lizards, turtles, frogs, and hedgehogs were kept for weeks packed into cattle-watering troughs, cardboard boxes, and plastic bottles, and countless animals were deprived of food, water, light, and ventilation. There was no veterinary care for countless sick and injured animals, who instead were simply left in freezers to die or carelessly tossed into a waste bin. Fortunately, PETA's investigation resulted in the permanent removal of more than 26,000 mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and arachnids from USGE—but our fight against this kind of common cruelty continues.
Will Eden II officials accept our offer and decide to ban live animals from their classrooms? I sure hope so. After all, I believe that Star would never wish his frightening fate on another helpless animal.
David Luciano—winner of the Toronto Film School's Best Director Award—turns the tables on humans in "Dirty Pig," a new short film that's sure to result in lots of forsaken bacon:
The scariest part of "Dirty Pig"? Considering that a pig is smarter than a 3-year-old child, Luciano's bloody role reversal isn't so far from the truth.
Today, we're breaking out the bubbly to celebrate a victory. The Oscar-winning filmmakers behind The Cove recently went undercover inside The Hump—a Los Angeles sushi joint—to gather evidence that the restaurant was selling whale sushi. Yesterday, Typhoon Restaurant Inc.—the company that owns The Hump—was charged with illegally selling whale meat. According to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, those charged with possession or sale of marine mammals may face up to a year in prison or a $20,000 fine.
Whales are intelligent, social, and sensitive animals, but so are fish sea kittens, who have been deemed smarter than 5-year-old humans. Fish have central nervous systems that closely resemble those of humans, and fish who are caught in the commercial fishing industry suffer immeasurable pain as they are pulled up from the depths of their ocean homes. They thrash on the decks of fishing boats, and many of them vomit up their own guts as a result of the quick pressure change. So while we're stoked that the whale sushi has been removed from The Hump's menu, here's a question for anyone who continues to eat flesh: If you wouldn't eat a whale, then why would you eat a sea kitten?
One whistleblower's powerful testimony about the abuse of pigs and calves in slaughterhouses throughout the country may bring about a serious overhaul in the U.S. government's monitoring of slaughterhouses.
Dean Wyatt is a veterinarian and supervisor of the Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS), which is a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Last week, Wyatt told the members of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee that time after time, his warnings about unsafe slaughterhouse practices went ignored. Two of the slaughterhouses he worked with—one in Oklahoma that allegedly mishandled pigs and one in Vermont that he ordered to shut down three times for mistreating calves—ignored his directives to stop abusing animals. And a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday supports Wyatt's claims, admitting that the FSIS has a history of unsuccessfully regulating slaughterhouses and that it is lax in its enforcement of humane slaughtering standards:
Now governmental officials are saying that they will take steps to improve the agency's enforcement standards. So does this mean that we'll see more stringent enforcement anytime soon? We hope so. But in the meantime, there's no reason to support the massacre of animals or to jeopardize your health: Go vegan!
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.
Follow PETA on Twitter!