Olympic official Carol Gross really wants our Vancouver Olympics 2010 T-shirts off CafePress.com. As in, she literally wants them and all merchandise bearing PETA's anti-fur parody of the Olympic logo removed from the CafePress Web site. Gross e-mailed CafePress asking that it "take necessary steps to prevent Sellers to advertise [sic] Olympic merchandise via use of Olympic trademarks …."

Say what?

Because this is obviously a parody of that, PETA's legal team sent a letter to Carol Gross explaining why we will continue our efforts to protect seals from the bloody slaughter by selling merchandise bearing our protected spoof logo.

We might be open to striking a deal, though. If the Olympic Committee were to help us convince the Canadian government to stop allowing hundreds of thousands of baby seals to be slaughtered annually, maybe we'd agree to quit parodying the Olympic logo.

Written by Karin Bennett

When it comes to what we drizzle on our pancakes, grits, and oatmeal, we've all got our preferences. If, like me, you prefer pure maple syrup over Aunt Jemima or Log Cabin (corn) syrup, taking a minute to see where your favorite restaurants' syrup comes from—and encouraging them not to buy the stuff imported from Canada—can help put an end to the seal slaughter.

Why maple syrup?

Canada produces about 85 percent of the world's maple syrup, an industry that rakes in around $C213 million each year. Our newest campaign encourages restaurants and grocery chains to boycott Canada's multimillion-dollar syrup industry. By persuading businesses to sign our pledge, you'll be letting the Canadian government know that the country is going to get a serious hit in the wallet unless it declares an end to the seal massacre.

If your local eatery is already using American maple syrup, pour it on thick (it's safe to use Aunt Jemima and Log Cabin too) and thank the owner that no seal blood was spilled for your breakfast or brinner.

Posted by Shawna Flavell

There was no love lost between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings as they battled on the ice last night in game three of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but there was love in the stands during intermission when Jason Levy asked his girlfriend, Nicole Hughes, to marry him.

But wait—there's more! While the couple's special moment was rolling live on the stadium's huge screen, Jason surprised the audience when he held up a sign reading, "McDonald's Breaks Birds' Wings and Legs."

 

 

Jason jumped at the perfect opportunity to tell thousands of people that the fast-food giant refuses to alleviate the suffering of the chickens killed for its restaurants by adopting an improved slaughter method called "controlled-atmosphere killing." Currently, birds killed for McDonald's are grabbed by their legs and slammed upside-down into shackles, and many are still conscious when their throats are cut and they are immersed in scalding water.

 

 

So, to sum up: First, PETA Foundation staffer Alex Bury and her then-fiancé Jack Norris got hitched at a KFC restaurant in Toronto to celebrate the introduction of a faux chicken sandwich at most Canadian KFC outlets. Then, Jason Levy spotlights McDonald's cruelties to birds in his marriage proposal.

Anybody else have any ideas for the "fast-food cruelty nope-tials" (ouch) tour?

Written by Karin Bennett

 

made-in-china / CC

From the category of "Well, duh" comes this story out of Copenhagen: A Danish journalist was found guilty this week of deliberately killing 12 guppies and, logically, of violating animal protection laws.

In an effort to demonstrate the toxicity level of a shampoo, TV host Lisbeth Koelster poured shampoo into an aquarium and, lo and behold, almost all the guppies were poisoned to death.

I'd say that's about as far from protection as you can get.

Of course, the journalist's lawyer argued that the charges were erroneous—I guess sea kittens don't warrant protection? "Fish are killed by suffocation in industrial fisheries and we throw live lobsters into boiling water," he said, "but we don't press charges against fishermen or restaurant owners."

Well! If that doesn't just give us ideas ….

Written by Amanda Schinke

The swine flu epidemic has hit Asia—and so has PETA Asia-Pacific's intrepid team of biohazard-suited protesters. They gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Manila to point out the fact that factory farms are breeding grounds for deadly diseases such as swine flu and avian flu.

 

Thanks for the guard detail, boys! We'll take it from here.

[Heavy breathing] "Luke, I am your father. Stop eating meat, Luke."

 

Want to help prevent another swine flu outbreak? Click here to send a message to your Congressional representatives. Oh, and don't forget to go vegetarian.

Written by Lianne Turner

Heads up, Pittsburgh: A menagerie of costumed wolves, rabbits, foxes, and other fake fauna are about to converge on your city.

And no, it has nothing to do with PETA.

Actually, it's all about Anthrocon—the world's largest "Furry" convention. OK, so if you don't know what a Furry is, I know you're dying to ask. In a nutshell, a Furry is a person who is totally into animal anthropomorphism (assigning animals human traits). I mean totally into it. We're talking loving fictional animal characters so much that they often wear mascot-like costumes of their fave animals (think Crayola-colored cheetahs in cargo pants).

Which is where PETA came into the picture. Don't get me wrong, we weren't trying to harsh their mellow. We just wanted to make sure that convention-going "Fursuiters"—as they like to be called—weren't parading around in the pelts of real animals. Here's the letter we sent to them:

 

 

Their response?

Written by Amy Elizabeth

 

dhakamirror / CC

This past weekend, Pamela Anderson was in Austria with Bill Clinton, Eva Longoria, and Katy Perry for Vienna's annual Life Ball AIDS benefit. But before she wowed the Life Ball crowd in her gold bikini, Pam bared her heart of gold, behind closed doors, to Austria's justice minister, Claudia Bandion-Ortner.

Bandion-Ortner invited Pamela to meet with her after the bombshell's letter urging the minister to stop stifling free speech made front-page news. See, the Austrian police are trying to classify all animal rights groups as "criminals," despite the fact that very few engage in illegal activities. In her letter, Pamela made compelling points against such blanket persecution, noting that the Austrian government seemed to be behaving more like a dictatorship than a democracy. The minister assured Pam that she'd monitor the situation—and that there would be no witch hunt on her watch. Then she stood beside the blonde babe and smiled as staffers snapped away with their cameras.

Pamela and PETA's Dan Mathews then high-tailed it to the Life Ball, where Pam wriggled into her bikini and opened the festivities.

Written by Karin Bennett

 

igougo / CC

In an attempt to shrink its carbon footprint, the charming town of Ghent, Belgium, just took one gigantic, progressive step by deciding to go vegetarian for one day each week.

Instead of just feeling bad that meat production leads to more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the vehicles with engines in the world combined, these good folks decided to act. They'll get things rollin' with their city employees and then spread the good behavior on to school children come September.

Delighted at this news, PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk penned some letters of encouragement to a few cities stateside in an effort to nudge them forward in the fight against climate change. This simple step—not eating meat for a day—literally saves hundreds of lives.

Care about the planet? Check out the many reasons why "meat's not green" on our YouTube channel, thengo on and give a vegetarian diet the old college try!

Written by Missy Lane

 

destination360 / CC

Somewhere between the golden cartoon age of Bugs Bunny and the pop-centric youth culture of Hannah Montana, a few television networks thought it would be a grand idea to start airing fishing and hunting shows on Saturday mornings—during that crucial time slot when impressionable children in pajamas slurp soymilk from bowls of cereal and stare wide-eyed at the tube.

Teaching kids that cruelty to animals is acceptable can have a long-lasting and deadly effect. Remember "Son of Sam," Jeffrey Dahmer, and the "Boston Strangler"? These individuals, like most serial killers, each had a history of abusing and killing animals. So, we've sent several network TV stations a letter requesting that they remove hunting and fishing programs from their Saturday morning line-ups, on the basis that those programs glorify violence toward animals and should certainly not be airing at a time when children could stumble upon them.

To paraphrase good ol' Bugs, "What's up with that, Doc?"

Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky