I wonder who in today's day and age thought that bullock carts were still a good idea.

After teaming up with Bollywood celebrities to protest this inhumane use of bullocks, PETA India has now turned to a creative street-demo approach! In Mumbai—a traffic-congested, bustling rich city—the local kerosene companies (which are not poor by any stretch of the imagination) use bullocks to pull rickety carts heavily laden with kerosene barrels. Between shipments, the bullocks are also forced to stand for hours without any shade in the sweltering sun and are not given sufficient food or anywhere near the amount of water they need. PETA India has discovered that sick and injured bullocks are being forced to pull the extremely heavy oil carts through the city and that they do not receive any veterinary care.

Join PETA India—and the Bollywood humane set—and sign the petition asking Mumbai's controller of rationing to end this cruelty to bullocks. Also, check out these great photos from the PETA India demo

olimpiadasbeijing2008 / CC
Carl Lewis, the Olympiad of the Century, is vegetarian (and therefore never consumed deer penis) and he did quite well, so we think this new generation will be OK too. However …

If you are not an Olympic athlete, you can still head on over to Beijing to take in the full glory of human athleticism. And while there, you can stop by Guolizhuang and get yourself some ox, donkey, and sheep penises (as well as deer penises, of course—I didn't mean to leave those out).

And if you feel like dropping a cool $500, you can also get some Canadian seal penises. You mean we can bash their heads in, skin them for their fur, AND pay $500 to eat their penises?!?! Penis: It's what's for dinner.

This was one of the dogs PETA Asia-Pacific found in horrible conditions.

Although PETA Asia-Pacific has documented poor protection from the elements and a gross lack of veterinary care—including for dogs immobilized because of illness and left to die amid their own waste—the situation has gone from bad to worse. As a typhoon swept through the area, workers released 30 dogs (perhaps to avoid having to dispose of their bodies afterward) rather than simply moving them to higher ground for protection. The "shelter" sits in a flood plain where there is nothing for the dogs to eat and no way for them to escape their pens and avoid drowning.

Please help us make a difference in Taiwan by sending an e-mail urging ShanChong city officials to shape up and take their responsibility to care for these animals seriously.

Posted by Sean Conner

worldproutassembly / CC

Traveling to Europe? Fantastic! Everybody needs a vacation, and what better way to spend your time than viewing the history, attractions, and culture of another country? Achtung, though! In your travels, you might stumble (especially if you've been pub crawling) across marine parks, roadside zoos, donkey rides, and even captive dolphins.

These animals never get a vacation. Day in and day out, they are confined to tiny cages, forced to dance around in tutus at the St. Petersburg circus, or left to live an unfulfilled life in an inadequate enclosure that is light years removed from their natural habitats. Europe offers so many great opportunities for tourists that your stay can be crammed full of cruelty-free memories. To make it easier on you, PETA Europe has put together a list of places to avoid like the Great Plague on your European vacation.

1. Running of the Bulls—Pamplona, Spain Every year, more than 40,000 bulls are taunted, stabbed repeatedly, and finally killed by the matador in front of a stadium full of onlookers. Before the bulls enter the ring, petroleum jelly is often rubbed in their eyes or they might be beaten with sandbags. And the Running of the Bulls isn't any more humane to these animals, who often crash into the walls when racing down the narrow street. Instead of paying to see these animals slaughtered, join the Running of the Nudes campaign!
2. Schwaben Park Chimpanzee Show—Baden-Württemberg, GermanyThe chimpanzee show at Schwaben Park is truly a house of horrors. The chimpanzees are forced to perform demeaning tricks on leashes and are often trained to perform with regular beatings or the use of shock collars. Instead of paying to see these animals perform confusing tricks that they don't understand, visit a non-animal theme park.
3. Donkey Rides—Beaches All Over the U.K.Sunning on the beach is great for us humans: We can take a quick dip or catch a bite to eat when we're too hot or hungry. But it's pure hell for donkeys who are confined to the beach and forced to cart children around in the hot sand. Some donkey-ride operators at beach resorts like Bridlington and Blackpool even keep the donkeys chained together at all times. Instead of taking a donkey ride, swim in the sea or build a sandcastle.
4. Berlin Zoo—Berlin, GermanyThis zoo might be known best as the home of Knut, the polar bear that the Berlin Zoo mercilessly paraded around in front of media cameras and throngs of visitors. More recently, however, zoo director Bernhard Blaszkiewitz has been accused of slaughtering the zoo's animals and selling their body parts to be used in Chinese medicines. Berlin is loaded with history; visit a museum or the great Berlin Wall instead!
5. Edinburgh Zoo—Edinburgh, Scotland In 2000, a number of endangered Arabian antelopes were bred and then destroyed by Edinburgh Zoo officials. Clearly, zoo officials don't have animals' best interests in mind. Instead of the zoo, we recommend visiting a loch, a castle, or the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And if you're a wildlife lover, go deer-spotting!
6. Mediterraneo Marine Park—White Rocks, Malta The Mediterraneo Marine Park uses bottlenose dolphins in performances and offers visitors the opportunity to swim with dolphins. Unfortunately, visitors are often unaware that these dolphins are captured in the wild or imported from conflict-ridden countries. A great alternative is to take a dolphin- and whale-spotting holiday that doesn't involve capturing or handling these animals.

Posted by Jennifer Cierlitsky

We at PETA have just heard that the organizers of a fashion show sponsored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame are planning to include real fur in the show. Now—ignoring the question of what football has to do with a fashion show in the first place—why would the Hall of Fame want to be associated with the cruelty of fur farms?

We're sure that the director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame will change his mind about fur once he reads our letter, which is printed below. I mean, the Hall of Fame isn't knowingly supporting the fur industry, right? We hope not!

Posted by Amanda Schinke

After more than 7,000 e-mails of complaint from our wonderful members and supporters, Verizon has pulled an ad depicting two chained pit bulls who were straining at their chains in a junkyard. They may now realize that the sight of miserable, lonely, aggressive dogs just doesn't help them hawk cell phones.

Pit bulls are by far the most abused of breeds, and this ad certainly didn't help boost their image. Since they're seen as the "tough guy's" breed, they all too often end up neglected and chained outside, left to lie amid their own waste through all weather extremes and without adequate shelter, food, or water. If that wasn't enough, even less fortunate ones end up in the hands of dogfighters.

Many thanks to all who participated in our action alert—your pressure helped get this ridiculous ad pulled. Further proof that it's worth it to ruffle a few feathers!

Posted by Sean Conner

oldstersview / CC

Well, that's what I thought when I first saw this news story: "Hogs Gone Wild, 50 team [sic] compete in Eldorado Picnic hog wrestling contest." Surely, I thought, the wrestlers wore pig costumes or something. They didn't actually wrestle with pigs …

But no—there were, in fact, 50 teams of people, all clamoring to wrestle a pig. The goal? To grab a frightened pig and force him onto a padded barrel in less than a minute.

Eldorado's fire chief, who is either PR-savvy or oblivious, says—in the words of the article—that the hogs "are kept cool and treated with utmost respect." But the astute writer of the article observed, "Not buying that for a minute, the hogs huddled together drawing deep furrows in the muck with their snouts. They glared, squinted-eyed, each time a squealing comrade was herded away." I certainly fail to see how terrorizing pigs qualifies as "respect"—just look at the first picture in the photo gallery. Look at the expression on the pig's face—does he look respected or terrified?

This isn't the first time that misguided people have used animal wrestling as a fundraiser. In fact, the Brooks Hill Community Fair in West Virginia—which was just this past weekend—had planned to hold a greased pig race until PETA told them how cruel it would be. The race was subsequently canceled—a victory for PETA and pigs and a show of decency from Brooks Hill! The Delta Fair and Music Fest in Tennessee is another event that decided not to hold their pig-wrestling competition. Good for them.

Of course, if anyone's wondering what the Eldorado Lions and Fireman's Community Picnic might do next year to raise money in a cruelty-free way … might I suggest tofu wrestling instead? We'll even provide the tofu.

Posted by Amanda Schinke

I’ve written a fair amount about Sheriff J.B. Smith over the past couple of weeks, related to a back and forth he’s been having with us over a letter we wrote to him asking that he put an accused cannibal in his charge on a vegetarian diet. Well, the sheriff (who’s obviously doing a bang-up job over in Smith County, Texas) was in the news again this morning following a major drug bust in which he reportedly uncovered 242 pounds of marijuana hidden in a bin of lettuce inside a truck during a traffic stop. Anyway, the news report about the bust made me laugh out loud—the sheriff obviously has PETA on the brain:

Keep up the great work, sheriff, and thanks for keeping us in mind.

We’re just doing our part to help get a bit of money back for the government. And by “we,” I mean my colleague Justin Goodman, who, as a graduate student at the University of Connecticut, worked tirelessly to expose the hideous experiments carried out by David “The Butcher” Waitzman (I just made that nickname up, but who knows—maybe it’ll catch on with his students) who used a sizeable grant from the NIH to, among other things, drill holes into monkeys' skulls and implant steel coils into their eyes. Well, according to this morning’s Hartford Courant, the university has been ordered to return $65,005 of the grant as a result of animal welfare violations in Waitzman’s lab that were exposed during a USDA investigation prompted by Justin’s complaints.

Not only is this wonderful news for people who care about animals, but it will also serve as a powerful warning to other animal experimenters like Waitzman: Even if massive public outcry leaves them cold, you can bet that they’ll sit up and take notice once they know that someone like Justin is on the case—and that it may not be very long before their grant money’s on the line as well.

A little while back, we wrote to the county jail holding alleged cannibal Christopher Lee McCuin, asking that they put him on a flesh-free diet ASAP—since, apart from anything else, there really is something horribly perverse about feeding the guy body parts given the circumstances surrounding his arrest. We received a prompt response to our letter from one Sheriff J.B. Smith, who pointed out (very reasonably) that intentionally altering McCuin’s meals without changing all the other inmate’s meals might be viewed as prejudicial treatment, and asked if we could provide some documentation to support our statement that vegetarian meals promote nonviolence in correction facilities.

Our follow-up letter, which was faxed to the sheriff’s office today, does exactly that. Complete with references to Pythagoras, Albert Einstein, and Tolstoy, along with some information about trial programs at correctional facilities that have given all the inmates vegetarian food, it makes for a pretty good read. Here it is in full.