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

Last week, PETA hosted a "human barbeque" on a Phoenix, Arizona, street to remind passersby that all animals have the same basic body parts. Check out these pictures of the demonstration:

Our bloody butcher set up his mock grill right in the middle of town. Although you may never have to see what happens on a factory farm, please remind everyone you know that those clean-looking meat packages in the grocery store were once part of living, breathing beings who felt pain and fear when they were slaughtered.

The barbequed babe was spray-painted red and orange to resemble the charred flesh of an animal.

Across the street, activists held a sign that read "Meat Is Murder." We can all agree that cannibalism is repulsive, so what's the big difference? Flesh is flesh.

It's easy to have a great barbeque without meat (animal or human)—check your local grocery store's freezer aisle for delicious faux-meat burgers!

Written by Liz Graffeo

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.

I’ve written about these Colonel Sanders effigy-burnings before, but this video really shows just how striking these demonstrations can be. This one’s from a protest in Pittsburgh earlier this month.

If you want to organize your own demonstration against KFC, (no need to get quite so fancy as this—a few friends and some simple signs is all it takes), we can walk you through the process.

The folks in our Vegan department have asked me to remind everyone that the deadline for our Sizzling Summer BBQ Recipe Contest is midnight on July 4. So, if you want to be in the running to win a new grill, among other cool prizes, get your recipes in soon. The winning recipes will also be featured on VegCooking.com.

The sky's the limit as long as the dish is vegan and suitable for a barbecue. Appetizers, salads, entrees, desserts—show us what you've got! Our panel of PETA chefs will select three winners based on taste, creativity and theme.

All this food talk is making me kind of hungry. I wonder if I can somehow scam my way onto the recipe judging committee . . .

I am very, very excited about the fact that it's finally summertime and, by extension, barbeque season. My roommate and I kicked off the season a couple of weeks ago with a Memorial Day barbeque to end all Memorial Day barbeques—Boca burgers, chick'n patties, grilled portabella mushrooms, vegan potato salad, veggie bratwurst, veggie dogs, and pretty much every other fake meat you can think of. Doubtless inspired by our legendary cookout, the folks in PETA's Vegan Campaigns Department have cooked up a little BBQ recipe contest of their own, with a sweet-ass portable grill as first prize and some other cool stuff, including a cookbook and some barbeque sauces, for the runners-up.

Anyway, if, like me, you have an unbeatable vegetarian recipe for a summertime barbeque, you should enter that bad boy here—the winners will be featured on VegCooking.com and PETA.org, so even if the portable grill isn't enough of an incentive for you, you may enjoy that opportunity for instant Internet celebrity. Also, if you have any cool vegan BBQ recipes that you'd like to share, feel free to post them. Barbeque king though I may be, I'm not above learning something new every now and then.

In our tireless quest to remind the world that all animals have the same parts, and that getting killed and cooked is just as unpleasant for cows, pigs, and chickens as it sounds (actually, more so—for more info on that, click here), PETA held a colorful "human barbeque" demonstration in downtown Nashville yesterday, which seems to have gone over fairly well with Tennesseans.

The part of the barbequed babe—naked, spray-painted red and orange, and displayed on a mock grill in front of countless astonished Nashville citizens and members of the press—was played by PETA's lovely intern Joanne. Applications for our Internship program can be filled out here.