Written by Michelle Sherrow
Here's something that you might not know about PETA: We hold stock in companies whose policies we're trying to change so that we can attend annual meetings and propose shareholder resolutions to try to push companies to stop cruel practices. McDonald's had one such meeting today, so, of course, we were there with bells on.
PETA campaigner Tracy Patton stood up and asked McDonald's executives why they continue to allow their suppliers to use an archaic slaughter method that includes slicing chickens' throats while they're still conscious and scalding them to death in defeathering tanks. She explained to the group of shareholders that an improved slaughter method called "controlled-atmosphere killing" (CAK) would eliminate the worst abuses of chickens and is already used by McDonald's suppliers in Europe and by other companies in the U.S.
The McDonald's execs hemmed and hawed and made excuses, but they and the shareholders got the message that PETA isn't going to let McDonald's cruel slaughter of hundreds of millions of chickens each year be swept under the rug.
Make sure that McDonald's gets the message from you, too. E-mail President Don Thompson, and demand that the chain switch to CAK.
Written by Jeff Mackey
PETA made sure that attendees at this week's annual meeting of KFC's parent company, Yum! Brands, in Louisville, Kentucky, would have something to chew on besides their cruelly obtained drumsticks and wings.
As shareholders of Yum! Brands stock, PETA can attend the company's annual meeting and ask a question during the Q&A. So Yum! bigwigs and stockholders got an earful from PETA when it detailed how chickens used to supply KFC restaurants spend their entire short lives mired in their own waste in cramped filthy sheds on factory farms, only to be hung upside down, sustain broken wings and legs, and often end up scalded to death in slaughterhouse defeathering tanks. PETA's representative then asked when the company will make the simple, badly needed changes that were recommended by KFC's own animal welfare advisers (who understandably resigned in frustration).
Join Pink, Sir Paul McCartney, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Black Eyed Peas, and many others in telling KFC to do right by chickens.
Last year, PETA and other animal advocates successfully defeated "ag gag" bills in Florida, New York, Minnesota, and Iowa. Now, another "ag gag" bill that would make it illegal to shoot video on a factory farm has just passed in the House of Representatives in Utah. And once again, we're fighting back against this unconstitutional measure.
Flush from her success in her home state of Iowa, Raising Hope star and longtime animal advocate Cloris Leachman penned a letter to Utah lawmakers on PETA's behalf urging them not to block people from gathering the evidence needed to prosecute animal abusers
I hope that Utah legislators recognize that with consumer demand for better treatment of animals, they must work to enforce and strengthen laws, not penalize those trying to expose cruel and illegal practices. Citizens' right to document cruelty to animals—wherever it occurs—is crucial in helping local, state, and federal officials enforce anti-cruelty laws.
Every PETA undercover investigation of factory farms has yielded evidence that workers were abusing animals. We recorded workers who sexually assaulted a pig with a cane, stomped on a turkey's head until her skull exploded, and spit tobacco into chickens' eyes and mouth. This indisputable proof of abuse is key to securing historic charges against and convictions of such abusers on cruelty-to-animals charges.
Utah residents, please ask your senators to vote against this bill and to continue to allow people to expose blatant cruelty to animals.
A lot has been happening this week at PETA: victories, anniversaries, and celebrations! We're after CareerBuilder, we stopped shipments of monkeys to laboratories, and we've done much more! Check out the latest news and victories:
What a busy week it's been in the PETAsphere! Just in case you missed any of the big news, we've got you covered. Follow us on Tumblr for future news about animal rights, vegan living, and where in the world the PETA campaigners are now.
Hey, Soul Sister! PETA has sent an urgent letter to the rock band Train urging the group to cancel their performance at KFC's franchisee convention in San Antonio—or else face the music from PETA supporters—because of KFC's refusal to stop its suppliers' cruelty to chickens.
Many of the top names in music have taken a strong public stand against KFC, including Sir Paul McCartney, Pink, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Chrissie Hynde. Let's hope that Train gets on board, too, but if they take KFC's dirty money, they must carry the company's baggage—and PETA will protest their show.
Even those of us who are not quite famous can tell KFC to take cruelty to chickens off the menu. Sign Pink's petition demanding that KFC require its suppliers to stop abusing birds (and don't eat at its restaurants until it agrees).
The TV networks have been notably, um, unenthusiastic about running PETA's Super Bowl ads, so this year PETA is planning to take its message directly to the players and fans by placing billboards in the teams' hometowns of New York and Boston as well as Indianapolis, which is hosting the game, making an irreverent plea for people to put down the chicken wings on Super Bowl Sunday.
Chickens © iStockphoto.com/Sunnybeach
It's estimated that some 600 million chickens are killed for the wings consumed just during the Super Bowl. Yikes! And that's after the abuse they all suffered through on factory farms.
Not only is this wing-eating obsession cruel, it also shows a lack of imagination. After all, there are so many mouth-watering alternatives to the old same-old same-old. For vegan game-day treats that will satisfy the most ravenous sports fan, check out these recipes for fab finger foods that won't cost birds their limbs.
If your party guests insist on being served wings, try the meatless variety, like Gardein's buffalo "wings"—the choice of the NFL's Ricky Williams—or just roll your own!
Gizmodo
What you're looking at is not a newly discovered pink Burmese python or the material used to make lawn flamingos. It's actually something edible (and I use the term "edible" loosely).
This is actually mechanically separated meat, the main ingredient in many commercial chicken nuggets (and the companies use the term "chicken" loosely). The picture has been circulating around the Internet for a while, but it's still creating buzz because it shows something we rarely see.
It's made by sending animals' bones through a machine that scrapes off the last bits of flesh and blood and smashes them together to form a paste more nausea-inducing than the kind you ate in kindergarten. The paste has to be soaked in ammonia to kill the bacteria, the "chicken" flavor has to be added to it, and the whole mess has to be dyed so that it no longer resembles, well, a big bloody log of unidentifiable animal bits.
Meet Feel Ideal. Practically every day that weather permits, he can be found outside his local McDonald's in Honolulu handing out leaflets explaining how chickens killed for the fast-food giant suffer and how the company—as one of the biggest sellers of chicken meat—could reduce this abuse by requiring its suppliers to switch to a more humane slaughter method.
It wouldn't be a proper protest without a poster, and Feel Ideal gave his a uniquely Hawaiian twist. Yes, it's the world's first McCruelty body board!
There's an important lesson to be learned from Mr. Ideal: You don't have to wait for a large organized demonstration to speak out against McCruelty (or any other kind of cruelty). You can make a huge statement all by yourself. And when you do, you're not really alone—PETA's got your back. Join the PETA Action Team to work together toward a kinder world for everyone.
Finally, a bit of justice for the most abused animal on the planet. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) charged Canada's largest chicken producer, Maple Lodge Farms, with 60 violations of federal animal health laws after it let thousands of chickens freeze to death during transport.
The CFIA cites multiple occasions on which Maple Lodge crammed crates full of chickens into unheated trucks and drove them to slaughter in temperatures well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. CFIA inspectors even found snow and ice inside the crates of some chickens who were stacked near the truck's freezing-cold metal floor and walls.
Our neighbors to the north seem to assert that chickens at least shouldn't be frozen to death, unlike in the U.S., where birds have no federal legal protection from cruelty whatsoever while being transported to slaughter. The best protection that chickens currently receive in both the States and Canada is from people who say "No" to supporting torture and "Yes" to cruelty-free mock meats.
It sounds like the plot of a Disney movie, but this video of a pig and dog who are best buds would warm even Walt's cryogenically frozen heart.
"Don't mind me." After committing the most adorable case of breaking and entering ever, a baby seal curled up on a New Zealand woman's couch for a nap.
Can you do a good "fish face"? These people are spot-on. … Or are the fish doing a spot-on "human face"?
Would you like an awkward conversation about the facts of life with that? A 7-year-old girl and her mother allegedly discovered a condom in the child's McDonald's Happy Meal.
Talk about a return on your investment: Eight years after she went missing, a dog is going home to her family, thanks to a tiny, inexpensive microchip.
And a chicken named Liberty, dubbed Britain's "last battery hen" is headed home too. She will enjoy retirement on a farm with other hens who were formerly confined to battery cages as the U.K.'s ban on the cruel confinement system goes into effect for the new year.
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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