Written by PETA
If you visited PETA's Web site during the month of November, you probably saw turkey slaughter footage. And no, I don't mean Sarah Palin's infamous turkey pardon fail.
But have you ever seen slaughter footage from Turkey? Turns out animals are killed as cruelly there as anywhere else.
This video was taken in a slaughterhouse in Turkey, but pointlessly cruel abuse like this can happen to any animal anywhere—from the 8-day-old calf who was beaten and kicked while on her way to slaughter in the U.K., to the conscious chicken plunged into scalding-hot water in an Indian slaughterhouse, to any of the animals enduring the many horrific abuses we've documented in the U.S. at Pilgrim's Pride, Smithfield Foods, Butterball, and AgriProcessors facilities, among others.
If this video upsets you, please run, don't walk, over to GoVeg.com and order a copy of our free "Vegetarian Starter Kit." For those of you who are already vegetarians, keep this video handy and show it to the next person who asks you why you refuse to eat anybody who had a mother.
Written by Jeff Mackey
Since we posted our action alert about Brookstone's boneheaded decision to sell live frogs and snails who are confined to minuscule "Frog-O-Spheres," we've heard from lots of people who've confirmed our worst fears about the likely fate of these animals.
Brookstone has admitted that they aren't screening potential "Frog-O-Sphere" customers, and their woefully inadequate recommendations for care—changing the water twice a year and feeding the frogs twice a week—are leading to snap decisions by unprepared people, as is likely the case with the person who posted this comment on Brookstone's Web site:
"[T]he snail died in about a week (but really, who cares?). And the recommended 2 pellets a week is not enough (the frogs are so hungry they don't move to conserve energy). When I started tripling their recommended meals, they became very active and cool. … Hopefully, they'll last until I can buy a pet snake and feed them to it."
People who are a bit more kindhearted have been flooding PETA with calls and e-mails about frogs and snails getting sick or dying, while callers to Brookstone's customer service department who complain that their frogs appear to need medical attention are merely told to put the frogs in a separate bowl. Those who call about dead frogs and snails have been told that they should throw the corpses in the garbage and that new animals can be shipped or picked up at their nearest location. As a testament to Brookstone's level of care, "replacement" animals are sent through the mail and handed to customers at the stores in plastic sandwich bags.
Other well-meaning folks are asking whether they should release the frogs into the wild, but putting non-native species into area waterways and habitats can wreak havoc on local ecosystems.
The continued sale of Frog-O-Spheres poses a clear threat to these vulnerable animals. Please add your voice to those of people who are demanding that Brookstone stop selling live animals once and for all.
Unlike the animated stars of G-Force, real guinea pigs aren't superheroes at all. If they were, they would immediately vaporize the human monsters who subject them to crude and painful experiments.
Every year, more than 200,000 guinea pigs are abused and killed in cruel experiments—they are forced to breathe tobacco smoke, they are locked in chambers for hours at a time and forced to listen to noises as loud as a jet engine, and pregnant guinea pigs are given alcohol to cause birth defects in their babies. Of course, common sense and human-based research tells us that drinking alcohol while pregnant is a no-no, standing next to an airplane when it's taking off is not so good on the ears, and smoking cigarettes can cause disease in nearly every organ of the body.
Wait until Agent Darwin hears about this!
Written by Justin Goodman, Research Associate Supervisor
The folks who scoffed at our proposal to buy SeaWorld and convert its facilities into non-animal theme parks might reconsider their stance after reading about the real cost of having these parks continue with business as usual.
Last week, we received word from a whistleblower that a dolphin named Dixie, who is exploited in SeaWorld's Discovery Cove "swim with dolphins" attraction in Orlando, gave birth to a stillborn infant. What's more, even though SeaWorld knew that Dixie was due to give birth, the park apparently did not have a veterinarian available for Dixie at any point during or after her labor. She was forced to endure this traumatic experience—and its aftermath—without proper care.
This information came to us just a few short weeks after another dolphin, Scarlet, and her unborn fetus died at Discovery Cove. In that case, we were told that the necropsy revealed that Scarlet's uterus had ruptured while she was pregnant, causing the calf to be released into her body cavity.
These disgraceful incidents clearly show that SeaWorld and other aquariums don't really care about the well-being of the animals they incarcerate, so we have filed a complaint with the USDA calling for investigations into Scarlet's death and the lack of care provided to Dixie.
We'll keep you posted. In the meantime, if you're going to Florida this summer (or any other time), there are lots of great places to visit where your money won't go toward hurting smart, sensitive animals.
For the first time in nearly 15 years, a human has died after being gored by a bull at the Running of the Bulls.
How many bulls have died this time around as a direct result of being gored by humans?
All of them.
Every year, all bulls who are sent charging down the narrow, winding streets of Pamplona end up in the bullring. We're not talking about one bull here. We're talking hundreds and hundreds over the course of 15 years.
Nobody has died at the Running of the Nudes.
You do the math.
Watch video footage of the Running of the Bulls and goring here.
Written by Shawna Flavell
When we discussed the first dog to die during the 2009 Iditarod, I mentioned that more were likely to follow. Now, at the end of the race, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that this year's death toll stands at six.
Six dogs. Dead.
And for what? A belt buckle. A long shot at some money, a pickup truck, and a few endorsement deals. I suppose they think that they're covering themselves in glory, too, but it looks more like blood to me.
Consider this: Two of the dogs may have frozen to death in the punishing weather. Two others died with fluid in their lungs. The most recently reported death apparently happened during a turbulent plane flight after the "musher" gave up. Even the generally Iditarod-supportive Anchorage Daily News called the number of deaths—only five, at the time—"troubling," but that misses the point: Even one dog dead is too many, and it is unacceptable that the dogs who survive are run to exhaustion or injury, only to be stuck back on a chain until the next race.
To paraphrase a classic cartoon, we say it's cruelty, and we say the hell with it. PETA has asked the Alaska State Troopers to open a criminal investigation into the deaths of these dogs in the Iditarod. We'll keep you posted on any major developments. In the meantime, even though this year's event has mercifully ended, it's not too late to tell the 2009 Iditarod sponsors to make this the last year that they contribute to dogs' deaths.
With the shock of Barbaro's death after the 2006 Preakness still fresh in their minds, the Kentucky Derby crowd saw for themselves the sordid truth about what racing means for the horses involved last night, as the filly Eight Belles was killed after collapsing on the track.
This young filly's death may have been humane, but the race sure wasn't. PETA is calling for the immediate suspension of jockey Gabriel Saez—who whipped Eight Belles mercilessly as she came down the final stretch, no doubt in agony from two front legs that were about to snap.
While the trainers, jockeys, and owners may weep their crocodile tears today over Eight Belles' euthanasia, they will be back on the track tomorrow, putting other horses at risk. Thoroughbreds are raced on hard dirt surfaces—like the one at Churchill Downs. Their bones simply can't take it, as Eight Belles' two broken front legs showed last night. Despite the wealth associated with thoroughbred racing, for the horses—most of whom end up broken, cast off, or sent to Europe to be killed for the dinner table—it's a dirty business and no better than dogfighting.
Robert Dziekanski was killed by a Taser stun gun in a Canadian airport last month. Dziekanski’s death, which has been widely reported after a video of the incident was posted on YouTube last night, is one in a long list of fatalities that have been caused by Taser stun guns. And yet Taser International continues to claim that these weapons are safe, practical tools for law-enforcement. How are they able to do this and get away with it?
The strategy’s pretty simple, actually. For years, Taser International has been funding and performing crude experiments on pigs, horses, and other animals that serve no other purpose than to provide them with “evidence” that their weapons are safe for humans. And yet as Robert Dziekanski’s death shows, the information that Taser International has been able to gather from shocking pigs is utterly useless—except insofar as it serves to protect Taser CEO Rick Smith from mounting public opposition to the use of his dangerous weapons.
The Taser situation is a perfect example of a problem that is endemic to all such animal experimentation. As is the case with so many drugs that go to market after animal testing only to be pulled from the shelves when they’re shown to be dangerous to humans, the results of these experiments have no relevance whatever to how humans will be affected, because (as should be obvious to a first-grader) pigs and horses have fundamentally different physiologies to humans. We just don’t work the same way. And the inevitable result—as we’ve seen time and again—is that companies like Taser International manipulate the data from their meaningless experiments to justify whatever argument they care to make. And people like Robert Dziekanski pay the price.
This video shows one of the hideously cruel experiments that Taser International has been performing on bulls, pigs, and other animals since they first tried to rush their weapon to market. Do we really want to stake our safety on the word of a man who does this?
Well, the first dog has died in this year’s Iditarod. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long, and I’m sad to say it's extremely likely there’ll be more. Turns out that forcing dogs to run 125 miles a day through subzero temperatures may not be all that good for them. Shocker. Obviously, this is common sense to those of us who act like we’re living in the year 2007, but apparently the Iditarod folks like to pretend they’re paying homage to the original race, which was along a mail route to deliver an emergency supply of diphtheria serum (whatever that is) to Nome.
Anyway, Iditaroders, next time you guys need some diphtheria serum delivered, I’m sure FedEx will be glad to help you out with that. And let’s be real here, this race is about money, plain and simple—you’re not preserving heritage or paying homage to anyone by running a few hundred dogs into the frozen ground every year.
The upshot here is that there are countless alternatives to this cruel tradition. How about a ski race along the same route—the Iskidarod maybe? Or an eBay sponsored marathon auction—the Ibidarod? The world’s largest game of hide and seek—Ihidarod. A marathon film festival—Ividarod? There actually is an event in California called the Ikidarod, where kids pull sleds on a beach, and the reality is that there really are 1001 ways for the Iditarod folks to line their pockets without hurting dogs.
Anyway, here’s to hoping that no more dogs die this year . . . Oh, and if you’re so inclined you can let the Iditarod sponsors know you feel about this absurd race here.
I got home from work the other day and turned on the TV. 1 vs 100 was on, and some of you may not know this about me, but I just love me some Bob Saget. I mean really, who doesn’t love watching Full House reruns at 3 a.m. It reminds me of a more civilized time in our society, you know, before the Olsen twins became the rubberband wrist snapping fur hags that they are now.
Anyway, 1 vs 100. So, there was a question that was something like “What food served with a pita would PETA be upset about?" The multiple choice answers were falafel, hummus, or moussaka.
Talk about PETA weaving itself into the fabric of society. Very cool. Word on the street is that PETA also made it into Jay Leno's patter on Tuesday as well (to do with our letter to Al Gore), but I was probably too busy watching my box set of America's Funniest Home Videos to catch the show. Like I said, Bob Saget, you know? Can't get enough of that guy.
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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