It's official in Switzerland at least, where, under a new federal law, failure to provide any "social" animals contact with others of their own kind will be legally defined as abuse. Better yet, the law requires training for prospective dog guardians and sets some common-sense guidelines regarding living conditions for many other animals, including animals on farms.

Of course, there's still room for improvement. No word yet on how the Swiss are going to square this law with the country's appalling cat-skinning trade, which has largely been ignored by authorities. The new regulations also require anglers to learn how to kill fish humanely. While it's encouraging that they're recognizing that fish are social animals, as a former fishing-contest winner, I know that the chances of finding a "humane" way to violently rip these animals from their environment to suffocate to death isn't bloody likely (though it is likely bloody).

Still, this new law is definitely a step in the right direction. It should be recognized and applauded, even while we keep up our efforts to bring about further reforms. Swiss chard for everyone!

—JeffPosted by Jeff Mackey

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.

--JackPosted by Jack Shepherd

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 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.

—ChristinePosted by Christine Dore, Marketing Special Projects Coordinator

The legendary gore director Lloyd Kaufman on Troma Studios’ latest psychotronic flick, which opens in Los Angeles on June 12:The man is quite clearly a genius. Is all I can say. But here’s Lloyd himself with more:

Shortly after Eight Belles’ death, I wrote something of a dissertation in response to some folks who had taken the opportunity to claim that horses love racing because they’re, like, “born to run” or whatever. But here’s a little visual aid for anyone who remains unconvinced. This clip is from the Brooklyn Handicap stakes race that took place on June 6 at Belmont. The jockey is John Velazquez, and the horse is Nite Light—who, as far as I can tell, likes horse racing about as much as I do.

If you were watching the news last week, you probably caught the story about vivisectors at the University of Pittsburgh who—to hear the media report it—have performed "groundbreaking" work that will help people with paralyzing conditions gain more control over their lives.So what did these miracle workers do? They sawed into the skulls of monkeys, implanted tiny electrodes in the monkeys' brains, and trained the monkeys to perform certain tasks. In similar studies, experimenters "train" monkeys by depriving them of water for extended periods of time so that out of thirsty desperation, the monkeys will comply. The electrodes in the monkeys' brains were attached to a computer, and the computer was attached to a robotic arm. The vivisectors restrained the monkeys' arms and had the animals use their thoughts to move the robotic arm to their mouths so that they could get the food. Now, this may sound pretty extraordinary. The thing is that the experiments had already been performed on humans by researchers at Brown University nearly two years ago! Of course, in the case of the human studies, the people weren't taken from their families and imprisoned alone in tiny metal and concrete cages, where they could only take a single step in any direction; they weren't kept thirsty and hungry so that they could be "trained"; and they weren't deprived of the feeling of the ground beneath their feet, the warmth of the sun on their backs, the wind in their faces, and everything else that is natural and important to them.It would seem that the lives of the monkeys used in the University of Pittsburgh's experiments are worth so little to the vivisectors that they continue to abuse and torment them, just to duplicate concepts already proved using humans. PETA primate specialist Dr. Debra Durham, who has worked in primate labs and knows firsthand how ugly these places are, minces no words when describing what happens to monkeys in these hellholes: —GracePosted by Grace Freidan, Researcher

You’d be surprised, actually. I know that my friend Melissa Karpel and her family (who were the activists in this case) certainly weren’t expecting things to turn out the way they did. The reason this all came about was for Morgan Spurlock’s series, 30 Days, in which people from opposite sides of an issue spend a month together to see what will happen (in one of the episodes, for instance, a woman who believes homosexuality is a sin moves in with a gay couple raising a family). But what I like best about this show is that it’s not one of these cheap reality TV stunts that are designed to have people at each other’s throats—it’s a very thoughtful look at how reasonable people with strong convictions on opposite sides of an ideal adjust to spending time with each other. And the upcoming show, starring George Snedeker and the Karpels, is a wonderful example of the philosophy behind 30 Days in action. You don’t see them, because I don’t publish them, but I get a number of fairly abusive comments on this blog from people who have decided that they think animal rights is a waste of time, and feel the need to try and insult and belittle people who have devoted their lives to helping animals—but for every ignorant person like that, there’s a George Snedeker, who, while he may not share our convictions, is willing to listen with an open mind and engage in a genuine discussion about the issues. I won’t spoil the show for you by telling you how it turns out, but you should definitely check it out if you get the opportunity. It’s on FX on June 17 at 10:00pm. I’ll post again when it’s airing as a reminder. In the meantime, here are some pics:


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After much hype around Big Brown's quarter hoof split, with the spotlight on the trainer and the owner and everyone else surrounding this “pushed” horse, it seems that he was finally allowed to run what may well have been the first natural race of his life. And the result is he showed how he really feels: tired and lame. Big Brown’s jockey did the right thing and pulled him up, sensing that the horse just didn’t have it in him. History has been made.Ten states already ban steroids, and the rest need to follow suit. PETA will be pushing for illegal and legal drug use to end and for horses to be allowed to be themselves. If money can’t be made honestly and comes at the expense of breaking animals' bodies and souls, then it shouldn’t be made at all. Please join us in urging Congress to properly investigate horse-racing cruelty by using this web form.PETA demonstrators flooded the Belmont yesterday in huge numbers. Here are some pictures:








Photo Credit: Jason Allen Photography

It’s kinda like when someone asks you to do a project for them at the office, and you forward it on to a colleague in the hopes that you can get out of doing the work yourself. Except when most people do that, it means that, like, a report doesn’t get written or something. When a State’s Attorney tries to do it with a high-profile case, that can be a little bit more of a big deal. A few days ago, PETA called on Kentucky's Commonwealth Attorney Dave Stengel to investigate criminal charges in the Eight Belles case under the state's cruelty-to-animals statute, but we’ve just learned that Mr. Stengel has denied jurisdiction (i.e., he’s trying to wiggle out of it). So we urgently need to put pressure on the governor to tell Dave Stengel to do his job. You can help us out by writing to Governor Steve Beshear through our online form.The horseracing industry would like nothing better than to see this story go away, and it’s absolutely imperative that we find out the full details surrounding Eight Belles’ death while we still can.--JackPosted by Jack Shepherd, Marketing Coordinator