Written by PETA
Here at PETA, we track trends and statistics on the use of every species used for fur, and sometimes the findings of our research can be a total bummer, like when we uncovered the horrible abuse of dogs and cats for fur in China.
But more and more we are finding that designers and society in general are turning away from the cruelty of fur, and consequently, entire species of animals are being spared. Take, for instance, the great news released yesterday in Dallas, TX, where the findings of a very scientific years-long study revealed the following:
“The fur trade has strangely had no effect on the liger population.”
This is a great day indeed. It always warms our hearts here at PETA when even just one species receives a little bit of justice in the world. ... Yes, even when it happens to be a fictional species popularized by a movie.
And just in case you’ve never seen a liger (or Napoleon Dynamite), here is a very realistic artistic rendering of the rare and elusive species. Meeeeeeeeowwww!
UPDATE: OK, so I’ve received a lot of e-mails. ... Apparently, ligers aren’t fictional at all. Readers have just informed me that, among other things:
Who knew?
Lost season premiere tonight folks! I was a casual fan of the show until a weekend-long season 1 & 2 marathon turned me into a full-on addict. Now, let’s just say that 10pm tonight can’t get here fast enough.
What triggered the aforementioned binge weekend was when Dominic Monaghan shot a pro-wildlife ad for PETA. It's pretty damn wonderful anytime a celebrity takes time out of their schedule to speak up for animals, but Dominic really takes it a step further. Check out this interview about why he did the ad:
And if you need me between 10 and 11 tonight, don’t bother calling. I’ve got a TV date with my girl. The beer and catnip are already on ice.
In some ways, there's just so much to say about Rocket Boy, and yet now that I'm sitting down to write about it, it kind of leaves me a little speechless. Rocket Boy was an ad that we created about 10 years ago (when I was but a Rocket Boy myself) to highlight the connection between eating meat and impotence, and it recently resurfaced in all its glory when some genius in our Campaigns Department dug it up and circulated it around the office today. The Rocket Boy ad comes from the same brilliant minds that brought you "The Three Stages of a Weiner," and "I Threw a Party but the Meat-Eaters Couldn't Come."
Please direct all complaints to WTFRocketBoy@peta.org, with the subject line "Please, please, please stop with the impotence jokes already. Think of the children!" And without further ado ... Rocket Boy, ladies and gentlemen:
A friend of mine who worked on the Marc Bouwer/PETA show on Friday is still in New York for the rest of Fashion Week. Last night, she went to some trés chic afterparty at the Roseland Ballroom where she reported that what stood out even more than the coked-out models were "the frumpy fur-wearers who looked out of place amidst New York’s trendiest fashionistas, who were by and large fur-free."
Apparently these "asshole" stickers have become the must-have accessory of the season for anyone stupid enough to still wear fur. She says they've been showing up on every fur coat she sees ...
Europe's biggest turkey killer, Bernard Matthews, is back in the news. And oddly enough, this time it's not because their workers were filmed kicking birds and using pipes as baseball bats to hit them, but because government veterinarians have confirmed bird flu at a poultry farm in the UK.
So my friends Anita and Lucy at PETA Europe jumped into action and have been doing these “biohazard” demonstrations outside grocery stores in London to let the public know that there is a simple solution to this whole bird flu mess. Here are a couple of pics from yesterday’s demo.
Not to get all doomsday on you, but even our very own US Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt called the likelihood of an influenza pandemic "very high, some say even certain." Yes, bird flu is serious problem and all that, but it just seems like such a simple choice to me: we can either run around in these absurd looking masks all the time like these people
Or we can go vegetarian. Tofu anyone?
Every now and then I’m struck by just how much work we get done at PETA. Especially when we have weeks like we had last week: We won the Pom campaign, Smithfield Foods announced that it's phasing out gestation crates for pigs, and CareerBuilder finally stopped its abusive chimpanzee ads.
Much as I'd like to take credit for all this stuff myself, the fact is that none of it would even get off the ground without the vision and the amazing work ethic of PETA's president, Ingrid Newkirk. She’s the first one here every morning and the last to leave, and she's always first in line for “extra” activities like bagging straw for cold local dogs or protesting at the local KFC. Right now she’s on a nationwide book tour promoting her latest book, and there was a pretty great news story about that the other night, which you can check out here.
Anyway, my point here is that Ingrid is amazing and inspiring and all things like that. On a completely unrelated note, Ingrid, it feels like a really long time since I last had a raise ...
Obviously, the overpopulation of cats and dogs is a serious issue, but for those of you who haven't seen this PSA yet, which was sent to us by a member, it's a blast. Enjoy! And, like, don't forget to spay and neuter your pets.
His name is N'kisi, and he's been getting a whole lot of press lately in scientific circles because of his huge vocabulary and his unique sense of humor. Instead of mimicking things he's heard already, N'kisi goes right ahead and invents his own phrases to describe new ideas that he's introduced to, and he even rocks the past and future tenses when he's feeling fancy.
According to the BBC, N'kisi described perfume as "pretty smell medicine," and commented on pictures of Jane Goodall with the very reasonable question, "Got a chimp?" The BBC article also reports on N'kisi's sense of humor:
He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera."
Kind of amazing.
On a slightly sadder (and perhaps inevitable) note, the story immediately made me think of the countless African Gray parrots like N'kisi who are sold in stores like PetSmart and destined to spend their incredibly long lives in captivity, without much stimulation beyond the occasional "Pretty Polly" comment through the cage bars. Which, well, is just really depressing. … Soooo, instead of ending this entry on such a depressing note, here's a completely unrelated video of a trapped deer being blown to safety by a helicopter. Hooray!
CareerBuilder (the employment company behind the ad campaign with all those monkeys dressed in suits and ties in an office) is tentatively in our good books at the moment—though we're keeping a wary eye on them. The reason is that they've decided to, as they put it, "evolve," and move beyond using primates—as we've been asking them to for quite a while now, on account of the truly disturbing way these unwilling "animal actors" are abused behind the scenes. I thought that CareerBuilder's Super Bowl spots yesterday, which featured a bunch of office workers battling to the death in the jungle for a promotion, were the best of the bunch—and a sign that using actual creativity is a fantastic alternative to just trawling out the live animals when you're stuck for ad ideas.
Of course, in all the hype about the ads and the halftime hoopla, it's sometimes easy to forget that there's actually a football game going on. If you can call three interceptions, five fumbles, and a missed extra point a football game. Stay tuned next week, when we launch our campaign against Rex Grossman for his shameless cruelty to The Bears this weekend. Oh, zing! And yes, in answer to your question, Chicago, I do think I'm pretty hilarious.
If you haven't seen the PETA “Year In Review” video that was made for our annual New Year staff party yet, you should check it out. It’s a great snapshot of just a few of our accomplishments from 2006, and when I saw it at the party, I knew we had to get it on the Web ASAP. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong ... As it turns out, our legal department has all these issues with us using music without permission—yadda yadda yadda. So we had to replace the song that was originally in it. Luckily my buddy Coulter is all musical and stuff, and he gave us a great song that I think works better than the original anyway.
Anyway, here it is: PETA’s 2006 staff party video*:
*Warning: this video does not contain gratuitous nudity. Sorry.
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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