We're betting that when that shameless front for the cruel animal experimentation industry, the Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR), started putting up a series of misleading and offensive billboards, it wasn't expecting them to get a makeover:
 

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While daredevils have been giving FBR a piece of their minds, PETA has our own new – and more honest – ads which are going up in cities around the country.  
  

Written by Michelle Sherrow

In response to our January 2010 lawsuit (and with a court date rapidly approaching), Davis County, Utah, has finally agreed to abide by the law and provide PETA with the intake forms and transfer records for the approximately 100 dogs and cats that it's animal shelter callously sold to the University of Utah in 2009 to be tormented in experiments. While Davis County ended this shameful practice earlier this year, these records will show that the homeless dogs and cats who are unfortunate enough to end up cut up and killed in the university's laboratories have names and personalities and are no different than the animals whom many of us consider family and with whom we share our homes. Indeed, some were peoples' lost and surrendered animal companions.

Under the agreement, Davis County will be reimbursing PETA for 50 percent of PETA's legal fees—nearly $18,000.

Since our subsequent undercover investigation at the University of Utah, the state legislature amended the law so that government-operated animal shelters are no longer required to sell dogs and cats to laboratories for use in cruel and deadly experiments upon request. Only one shelter in the state—Lindon's North Utah Valley Animal Shelter (NUVAS)—continues to profit by betraying homeless animals and selling them to the university.

Please take a moment to urge NUVAS to stop stocking the university's laboratories with helpless victims.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Victory Update: Following a year of vigorous campaigning, PETA has learned that government officials have grounded plans for a cruel and ineffective radiation experiment on monkeys. Learn more about this victory for monkeys.

The price is wrong. That's the message that PETA pal Bob Barker sent to NASA chief Charles Bolden in a letter today urging him to call off the ridiculous plan to blast dozens of squirrel monkeys with a massive dose of radiation before locking in steel cages for life.

Writes the lovely Mr. Barker, "These scientifically invalid experiments squander $1.75 million of taxpayers' money and cost animals their health and freedom, so the price isn't right on any count."

Barker joins Sir Paul McCartney, Alicia Silverstone, the European Space Agency, former NASA astronauts, and former NASA employees, in speaking out against NASA's cruel, pointless animal experiment. Let's join them!

Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post

Last week, Discover Magazine published a blog reminding us about the 1982 animated movie The Secret of NIMH, which tells the story of a group of rats who acquired superpowers as a result of being tormented in experiments in a government laboratory. Thanks to their powers, the rats in the movie were able to escape the laboratory, but as Discover Magazine pointed out, animals in the real-life NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) aren't as lucky. Day after day, animals at NIMH are forced to endure taxpayer-funded experiments like the following: 

• Experimenters cut rats' skulls open, injected them with drugs, inserted threads into their arteries to block blood flow to their brains, and finally killed them.
• Mice had their heads cut open, and workers injected toxins in order to damage the animals' brains. The mice were injected with cocaine, amphetamines, and other drugs and then asphyxiated to death before their brains were cut out and dissected.
• Experimenters shocked the feet of male mice in order to measure whether the animals sniffed cotton swabs that were soaked with female mouse urine more or less than mice who hadn't been shocked.
• Vivisectors drilled holes into monkeys' heads, screwed recording chambers and restraint devices into their skulls, and implanted electrodes in their brains.

Rats and mice can feel pain and suffer just as acutely as monkeys, dogs, and cats can, but they are excluded from the minimal protections of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA)—the only federal law governing the treatment of animals in laboratories. You can help the real rats of NIMH by urging your Congressional representatives to amend the AWA to include rats and mice.

asplosh/CC by 2.0

Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post

belgianchocolate / CC by 2.0

We know that chimpanzees have keen intelligence and advanced cognitive skills, so it's no surprise that scientists observing wild chimpanzees in Guinea watched them deliberately set off snare traps designed to catch and kill them (and any other passing animal)—while avoiding harming themselves. The researchers believe that this lifesaving skill has been passed down from one generation to the next.

Just like us, non-human animals of all species want to live in freedom, avoid pain, and seek out comfort. Like us, more than anything, they want to live.

But life skills and ingenuity can't save animals who are deliberately bred for laboratory experiments. Please help us stop a plan to breed monkeys for vivisection in Puerto Rico.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

You think "coon on a log" is bad? Allow me to introduce you to the delightful sport of "fox penning," in which dogs are set loose on a fox or coyote confined to a pen and allowed to tear the animal to shreds.

The good news is that this despicable pastime is now banned in Florida, thanks to the efforts of PETA members and other concerned citizens, including several youngsters who were among 80 people who testified on the issue at a Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting.

"I am an athlete, a swimmer, and a basketball player," stated one 10-year-old girl. "If fox penning is a sport, I would be ashamed to call myself an athlete."

Meeting attendee Susan Hargreaves reports that the "[c]ommissioners were captivated by the children's eloquence and courage as they advocated on behalf of the foxes and coyotes who are chased by packs of dogs with no hope of escape and a certain, bloody death."

The commissioners voted to permanently prohibit fox penning earlier this week.

I hope this inspires everyone to speak up for animals. If a 10-year-old can do it, so can those of us who are all growed up! You can get started by contacting the wildlife departments in states where fox penning is still legal.

Written by Alisa Mullins

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanvernon/
CC BY 2.0

It's not often that we use the word "great" to describe anything involving vivisectors, but a recent development involving a petition filed by PETA and Madison-based Alliance for Animals against sheep experimenters at University of Wisconsin (UW)–Madison is just that: Circuit Court Judge Amy Smith has determined that nine individuals may face criminal penalties for conducting excruciating and deadly decompression experiments on sheep.

You might remember that PETA and Alliance for Animals joined forces to petition for prosecution after a district attorney shrugged off his own findings that UW-Madison had indeed violated state law using decompression to kill sheep. The D.A. apparently decided that it wasn't worth his time and effort to pursue charges.

After reviewing our petition, Judge Smith decided that animal experimenters are not above the law, determining "that probable cause exists to conclude that certain named individuals … violated [a state law prohibiting the use of decompression to kill animals], either directly or as party to a crime." That means that both the vivisectors and those who assisted them with their experiments may face criminal or civil prosecution. In her 24-page decision, Judge Smith also wrote, "[T]he University has apparently engaged in behavior resulting in the above-described animal deaths for years," and noted that "it may well continue to decompress animals to death contrary to law, unless I take action." She has appointed a special prosecutor to determine whether to bring charges against the nine UW-Madison employees.

Considering that this is possibly the second time that a judge has found probable cause for criminal charges—the first was PETA's landmark Silver Spring Monkeys case—it's no wonder that news outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and others are buzzing about this important development.

We'll keep you in the loop on future developments as they happen, but we—and animals—are depending your efforts to help stop animal experimentation.

Written by Karin Bennett

blogs.venturacountystar / CC

Alcor Life Extension Foundation, which claims that dearly departed Aunt Suzie may be brought to life one day if she's freeze-dried via cryonics, is under media fire, thanks to a former chief operating officer's published tell-all. But it's the account of Alcor's horrific cryonics experiments sent to PETA by the author that got our blood boiling. He wrote:

Although Alcor admits that the results of mutilating, killing, and freezing animals "will not be exactly applicable to human cases," the company has conducted and funded animal torture for decades. Alcor's own Web site details the nightmarish suffering endured by a dog named Dixie who was drained of all her blood and then infused with new blood, causing her to suffer severe seizures and brain damage:

It's no wonder municipalities across the country have prohibited cryonics experiments on animals. In 1993, Alcor's animal experiments were halted in California. Unfortunately, the company still conducts and funds cruel experiments on animals in other places—but not for long. PETA's fight to stop these atrocities begins with our letter to the company's president and executive director, Jennifer Chapman. We'll keep you posted.

Written by Karin Bennett

The year was 1989. Grandpa Bush moved into the White House. Actor/dolphin protector Hayden Panettiere was born. And most Americans had never even heard of the Internet.

That same year, experiments were initiated at the University of Wisconsin in which rhesus monkeys were crammed into tiny, barren metal cages, slated to spend their entire lives as experiments in order to study the effects of diet on aging.

Fast-forward to 2009: These highly social animals are still isolated in cages—they've been there for two decades. One half of the population of 76 monkeys has been deliberately underfed for the past 20 years. All of them have been unable to take more than a step or two in any direction since arriving at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and—if researchers have their way—all these monkeys will continue to suffer until they die, which could take another 15 years.

supercentenarian / CC

The results of this experiment: After years of starvation, the "calorie-restricted" animals looked "less wrinkled and flabby."

The senior author of this grossly inhumane study, University of Wisconsin-Madison's Richard Weindruch, is blatantly ignoring the positive effects of exercise on the human heart, bone health, and body weight. And dozens of highly social, active animals have been condemned to a lifetime of isolation, without even the simplest yet meaningful benefit of cagemates, because of it. So, we've filed a complaint with the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture stating that the positive health effects of caloric restriction have already been confirmed in short-term human trials and that the suffering endured by these monkeys is not justified by the perceived benefit of the experiment.

Written by Karin Bennett

Photo © Rommel Manuel

Since 1981, Sisi had been incarcerated at the Manila Zoo. Although orangutans are tree-dwelling animals, Sisi was forced to live much of her life in a tiny, litter-filled concrete-and-steel enclosure. She was on display continually in a cage that was surrounded by noisy souvenir stands and food vendors, and she was provided with nothing to hold her interest, help her pass the time, or stimulate her keen senses.

Sisi's death, reportedly from cancer, is just one indication of how animals have been left in deteriorating health without veterinary care at this atrocious zoo. Because PETA Asia-Pacific remains concerned about the well-being of the surviving animals at the Manila Zoo, who all lack the space, exercise, privacy, and mental stimulation that they require, the organization has decided to send a funeral wreath to the zoo in Sisi's honor. The wreath includes a ribbon emblazoned with the message "Sisi: Suffered in Life, Peace in Death" and will be accompanied by a card calling on zoo officials to close the facility's doors.

Written by Shawna Flavell