Litter isn't just ugly and dirty—it kills. Artist Chris Jordan took a series of photographs of albatross chicks, and the photos are so surreal that I thought they were part of some strange pop-art installation meant to shock and disturb the viewer. The genuine shock, though, came when I found out that these are unaltered images of real birds.

Photo © Chris Jordan

Taken at Midway Atoll, a remote stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific, the photographs depict corpses of albatross chicks whose parents mistakenly picked up plastic in the ocean thinking it was food. With bellies full of plastic, the chicks died from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

Photo © Chris Jordan

This isn't the first time that this tragedy has been documented. Wildlife filmmaker Rebecca Hosking used her film documentary about the Midway Atoll to get the very first ban on plastic bags enacted in Modbury, England, and her essay about it was published in Ingrid E. Newkirk's book, One Can Make a Difference.

Every year, this lethal diet of trash kills tens of thousands of albatross chicks on Midway, which is 2,000 miles from the nearest continent—proof that the empty lighters and fishing line that people carelessly discard on roadsides and beachfronts suffocates and poisons animals who inadvertently consume it. It takes only seconds for us to throw away our trash instead of littering and putting the lives of countless animals in danger. If you spot litter, pick it up, and if you catch someone littering, say something—you may literally be saving a life. It really is that easy to be kind.

Written by Logan Scherer

As a PETA blogger, I know that male chicks in the egg industry are simply discarded and killed—but knowing about it didn't make watching it any easier.

This new footage from an undercover investigation by Mercy for Animals shows workers at an Iowa hatchery killing 150,000 newborn male chicks every single day.

Chicks born at hatcheries are sent off to slaughter the very day they take their first breath. The only lives these babies know is one in which they are sorted and handled like pieces of garbage. Workers grab them by their wings, toss them onto conveyor belts, and throw them down a chute to spend their final moments in a grinding machine—in which they are ground up while they are still alive.

All this is standard procedure, widely accepted at commercial hatcheries and within the bounds of animal welfare laws. The egg industry considers male chicks to be useless because they don't lay eggs and can't be raised profitably for meat. Their sisters are not exactly lucky to remain alive.

For anyone who thinks that eating eggs doesn't kill animals, millions of male chicks each year are born in hatcheries and promptly thrown into the blades of giant garbage disposals.

Egg-free recipes, anyone?

Written by Heather Drennan

With Easter just a few days away, I have two things on my mind. Vegan Peeps candy … can it be done? And wittle baby aminals.

Lucky for me, the peeps (Ha! Get it?) over at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary have my baby-animal fix covered with their live, streaming video of baby chicks.

Let me know if you figure out the vegan Peeps candy thing.

Written by Shawna Flavell

The thing about the truth is that it just never gets old, especially when there's nudity involved. The truth about the chicks raised for KFC is that they're horrifically abused and often scalded alive. The infinitely more palatable truth about these two chicks, who happen to be colleagues of mine, is that they don't have any clothes on. The hope is that the one truth will make the other truth easier to process, and, based on the reactions of some folks in KFC's hometown of Lousiville where this protest took place, it's working like a charm. Be careful not to get the two truths mixed up though—there's absolutely no good reason for boycotting naked chicks.

There are 19 more photos where that came from in The Louisville Courier Journal. The photographer just couldn't stop for some reason ...

I'm kicking myself today because I ended up deciding not to watch the Daytona 500 this weekend after everyone I invited told me they'd rather watch paint dry. The only other person I know of here at work who's into car racing is Ingrid Newkirk, but you don't exactly call the big boss up on a Sunday morning and invite her round for a couple of sixers, some vegan bratwurst, and four hours of restrictor plate racing. Besides, Ingrid's big thing is Formula 1 (click here for more on that)—I don't know how she feels about stock cars. Anyway, it turns out that not only did I miss one of the most exciting races in NASCAR history, but a few of my colleagues actually got to go! Admittedly, they had to attend the event wearing nothing but skimpy yellow bikinis and spend the entire time holding signs and passing out faux chicken and anti-KFC leaflets to surprised NASCAR fans, but I totally would have done all that for a free ticket. OK, maybe not. Check it out though—the girls were a huge hit with everyone except the police.

KFC employees who are used to seeing PETA's crippled chicken hobbling across the street or watching Colonel Sanders burned in effigy in front of their restaurants are in for a pleasant surprise: The KFC Campaign is finally going naked, with our brand-new "Naked Truth" demonstrations. The bad news for the company is, unfortunately, that the "naked truth" about KFC is that it's gross and unethical and abusive and, seriously, don't even think about eating there. Even if there are attractive naked girls outside. Our first Naked Truth protest was immediately picked up by the Associated Press, proving, once again, that taking your clothes off really is a great way to help chickens on factory farms—though that line never works for me for some reason.