Written by PETA
After ABC Australia's news program Four Corners aired "A Bloody Business" showing the unbelievably cruel killing of Australian cows following their export to Indonesia, the Australian government suspended live exports of cows to that country. The graphic video shows conscious cows having their eyes gouged out and their limbs cut open; they were also kicked and beaten during slaughter.
"A sustainable live cattle export industry must be built on the ability to safeguard the welfare of the animals," said Australian agricultural minister Joe Ludwig. "The trade to Indonesia will only recommence when we are certain industry is able to comply with that."
The suspension of live exports to Indonesia will spare hundreds of thousands of cows from a nightmarish death, but PETA, PETA Australia, and Animals Australia, which shot the video footage, are calling for a permanent ban on all live animal exports, citing multiple investigations by the organizations revealing appalling cruelty at every step of the live export process—and not just in Indonesia but all over the Middle East.
Australia also exports sheep who are "grown" for meat or discarded by the wool industry. These frightened animals spend weeks crammed together on multideck ships, often suffering through storms or blazing heat. Many die of illness, dehydration, or heat exhaustion or are trampled to death. Survivors are dragged from the ships, thrown into the backs of cars and trucks, and driven to slaughter facilities where they will have their throats cut while still conscious.
PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk appeared on CNN International Asian Morning News on Thursday to make the case for a total ban on all live exports and to ask consumers to stop eating animals. You can watch the video online here and (part two) here.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
In case you forgot how smart, social, and absolutely adorable pigs are, meet Sherlock. Found wandering down a rural road in Suffolk, Virginia, this little guy was captured and taken to the local animal shelter:
When he was found, Sherlock was still a baby, but he was already castrated and his tail had obviously been docked. That means that this plucky little piglet likely fell off a truck headed to a growing/finishing barn—which is what the piggy flesh industry calls the factories that are used to fatten up little pigs like Sherlock for slaughter. On factory farms, piglets are taken away from their moms when they are less than 1 month old. Workers cut off their tails, clip their teeth with pliers, and castrate the males—all without painkillers. The animals spend their entire lives in extremely crowded pens on tiny slabs of filthy concrete. It gets even more heartbreaking when you factor in the abuse that these animals face: A recent undercover investigation of an Iowa pig factory farm, which supplies piglets to Hormel, documented that workers beat pigs with metal rods and sexually abused them with canes.
When one of our fieldworkers saw the headline about Sherlock in the Suffolk paper, she immediately went to work to find this guy a wonderful home. Click here to see how Sherlock's story ends!
Written by Amy Elizabeth
When my friend Marta sent me an email last week asking me if she could have some of my hair, I didn’t even blink. Marta is one weird chick, and I’ve come to expect stuff like that from her.* But it turns out she actually had a logical (albeit somewhat disturbing) reason for the request: Those convention-flaunting pranksters over at peta2 have arranged for a very, very special birthday gift for our old arch nemeses the Olsen Twins.
And this isn’t one of those token gifts that just adds to the clutter—it’s something they can really use! Thanks to my colleagues at peta2, and the hundreds of peta2 Street Teamers who are chipping in to donate their hair, the Olsens will have enough genuine, certified “people fur” on their birthday to make their own fur coats for the rest of the year! And they won’t have to harm a single animal in the process.
If you want to get involved, you can check out our Trollsen Twins site for more information. And while you’re at it, take some time to watch Full House of Horrors again. Just because.
PopCrunch has the story.
*That’s what you get for refusing to take a tea break with me this morning, Marta.
In the '80s, when PETA began pushing cosmetics companies to stop testing their products on animals, those companies insisted that there were no alternatives to dripping mascara into rabbits' eyes and pumping copious quantities of lip gloss into the stomachs of guinea pigs. Miraculously, when consumers began sending cruelly tested products back to the companies and demanding their money back, the giants of the cosmetics industry—like Revlon—found alternatives. Ah, what a difference a little incentive makes!
For years, PETA has been saying that non-animal alternatives are faster, cheaper, and more effective than animal tests, and just last summer, a report published by the not-so-shabby National Academy of Sciences said much the same thing. But as long as the federal government continues to pour money into cruel and pointless animal tests—and as long as vivisectors can map out a tenured career for themselves feeding at the government trough—animal experiments will continue. And even as we work to hold up a mirror to the evil that is vivisection, we need more incentives for non-animal research.
World-famous primate expert Dr. Jane Goodall hit the nail on the head last week when she appealed to the European Union to end the use of animals in experimentation, suggesting that a Nobel Prize be conferred for scientific breakthroughs that use "new ways of testing and experimenting that will not involve the use of live, sentient beings." She added, "We need to recognize at the outset that what we do to animals from their perspective certainly, and probably from ours, is morally wrong and unacceptable."
It's not the first time that Dr. Goodall has ignited a firestorm of controversy, throwing monkey wrenches into conventionally held prejudices and preconceptions. In 1960, Dr. Goodall shook the world by documenting tool use in chimpanzees, an ability that was believed to be uniquely human. Her mentor famously commented, "Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans."
Forty-eight years later, Dr. Goodall continues to turn conventional thinking on its head, and our guess is that she's right once again!
—GracePosted by Grace Friedan
That's right! Just when you were wondering if she could be any more fabulous, actor and devoted PETA supporter Pamela Anderson continues to set the bar high when it comes to helping animals. She recently announced that she'll be selling her 2000 Dodge Viper (customized with white racing stripes and the whole shebang) along with other personal items at Julien's Auctions' Summer Entertainment Sale of Hollywood Memorabilia and handing profits over to PETA. "I've been working with PETA for 15 years," Pam said to the Associated Press. "They're kind of my ethical advisers. With them, I see actual results."
Pam told the media that she attends charity auctions on a regular basis but doesn't do much collecting herself. "I get sports stuff for my kids," she said. "But me? I, just on a whim, give everything away. This is another one of those opportunities, but it's specific. It goes to the cause."
Whether it comes to talking politics in D.C., hosting news conferences in Paris, doing charity work, speaking out against KFC, and narrating videos, Ms. Anderson has always been a true hero for animals.
You can check out Pam's upcoming new series on E!, Pam: Girl on the Loose, to see scenes from the auction.
“Poultrygeist concerns a fast-food chicken establishment built on an ancient Indian graveyard. And since the Indians were also exterminated, and billions and billions of chickens were exterminated, the Indian spirits and the chicken spirits merge underground and come up into the fast-food establishment ... and Poultrygeist ensues.”
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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