Written by PETA
PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews was in Tampa this week to speak at the University of South Florida about a proposed bill that would make filming and photographing farms without the express consent of the owner a felony. Dan invited Senator Jim Norman from Tampa, who proposed the bill, to join him onstage to present his arguments, but the senator didn't show. Maybe he was afraid someone would take his picture.
Dan quipped, "That's right, a Kodak moment of a cow or a chicken is on par with rape and murder in Senator Norman's world."
After widespread ridicule, the language of SB 1246 was changed to make photographing farms a misdemeanor, but why should it be a crime at all?
"What is the Ag Committee afraid will be filmed?" asked Dan. "Are farmed animals engaged in illegal gambling late at night when nobody's looking?"
Or is the answer much more sinister: Do factory farmers (and their influential lobbyists) simply want to prevent the public from seeing the abuse going on behind their walls?
PETA's "Glass Walls" video, narrated by Sir Paul McCartney, shows exactly what farmers are afraid you'll see: animals jammed into filthy, windowless sheds, where they stand in their own waste and have their bodies mutilated without any painkillers. Not to mention the beatings by workers—and that's all before they're slaughtered. Unfortunately, factory farms and slaughterhouses don't have glass walls, which is precisely why it is so important for undercover investigators to be able to expose the abuse and alert people to what they're paying for every time they buy a chicken breast or a pork chop.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
Ah, winter. After a day of spinning tires, gray skies, and too many pieces of outerwear, it's nice to sit down to a steaming bowl of—you guessed it—Internet Soup. Enjoy!
Ever since half a billion eggs were recalled because of a salmonella outbreak, people have been talking about food safety regulations. Animal welfare issues have been mentioned, but they need to be considered more seriously. The following are some facts to help you tell the hens' side of the story:
There's cruelty in every carton of eggs:Ninety-nine percent of hens used by the egg industry are confined to filthy, crowded battery cages. In June, the owner of one of the egg farms involved in the recall—and of the company that supplies chickens and chicken feed to both farms implicated in the outbreak—pleaded guilty to cruelty to animals and paid more than $130,000 in fines and restitution following an undercover investigation by Mercy for Animals.
Salmonella spreads like wildfire on factory farms:Under squalid factory farm conditions, it's easy for salmonella bacteria—which live in the intestines and feces of animals—to spread from bird to bird and from birds to people. Vegan foods don't naturally harbor salmonella bacteria.
Avoiding eggs is the best way to prevent salmonella poisoning and reduce animal suffering:A salmonella vaccine that has been used successfully in Britain is available, but American regulators don't believe there's enough evidence to show that vaccinating hens will prevent people from getting sick. It's obvious that our food safety regulations are not all they're cracked up to be and that the safest and kindest way to prevent salmonella poisoning is to stop eating eggs altogether. PETA is urging Iowa schools to stop serving eggs to children in order to help protect them from food poisoning. You can opt for egg replacer, scrambled tofu, and other tasty vegan foods.
Written by Heather Moore
We received a call recently from a whistleblower who alerted us to a situation at Coach House Gifts, a Clovis, California–based business where 37 out of 40 frogs in a shipment died after being left in a shipping box so long that they succumbed to heat prostration.
Wondering what a store that specializes in greeting cards and silly bracelets is doing with frog shipments? Well, Coach House Gifts also sells frogs who are crammed into 4-inch plastic cubes. These "desk decorations" are similar to Brookstone's "Frog-O-Spheres."
The similarities between the two novelty gifts don't stop there, either. Both Coach House Gifts and Brookstone buy their frogs from a hellhole called Wild Creations. Our undercover investigation into Wild Creations documented rampant neglect and mishandling of these delicate animals and a total disregard for their needs, welfare, and lives. Our investigator witnessed frogs being thrown around and even tossed into the garbage while they were still alive.
Please ask Coach House Gifts President Craig J. Walker to pull these cruel novelties off the shelves immediately. And then demand that Brookstone do the same!
Written by Jennifer O'Connor
Animals suffered and died left and right at a shabby Florida roadside zoo, which is aptly called Vanishing Species Wildlife. The outfit routinely took animals on the road to fairs, schools, and summer camps even when they were sick, hungry, dying, and stressed. Good news: Federal authorities have revoked this zoo's license!
Schools and parents, take note: Paying animal exhibitors to hold presentations for your children supports cruelty to animals. Don't patronize any business that exploits animals for profit—please remove field trips to zoos and circuses from your school's curriculum.
Educators who would like free materials designed to teach students to be compassionate toward all living beings can click here.
A: It will adopt the eating habits of Americans—specifically, our pork-eating habits. Already, China (which essayist Charles Lamb credited with being the birthplace of pork barbecue) consumes about half of all pork produced worldwide. According to a 2010 U.S. Department of Agriculture report, Chinese pork consumption jumped from 22 million tons in 1990 to more than 50 million tons in 2009—and it is only expected to grow.
How will this destroy the world? China doesn't have enough land to grow all the corn that's required to feed the increasing number of pigs who will in turn be needed to feed the country's growing mu shu pork habit. This means that China will go from importing no corn in 2008 to 15 million metric tons by 2014, according to one industry estimate. Much of that corn is expected to be grown in South America, where pristine savannahs and grasslands will be converted into cornfields. Not only will the razing of these grasslands release greenhouse gasses, the nitrogen fertilizers that will be used to grow the corn will release even more. And then there's all the energy that's used to raise and harvest the corn and ship it halfway around the world.
Nor does China have enough land to continue to raise pigs on small farms, which means that it will start converting its family farms to hugely polluting factory farms as well as importing more meat from such models of agricultural responsibility as Smithfield and Hormel.
All this adds up to an environmental headache bigger than the Great Wall of, well, you know where.
But all is not lost. PETA Asia and its army of Lettuce Ladies are feverishly trying to turn the tide by persuading Asians to eat green (in more ways than one). Will the leafy lovelies be able to save our planet in time? Stay tuned to this bat channel to find out.
Via Grist
Written by Alisa Mullins
It's so hot in the city, you'd think I'd be making another batch of lemonade—but I've got a hankering for some Internet Soup. It's been a while since the last batch, so dig in!
Oof! I don't know about you, but I'm full after all that soup—and guac. This Special K needs a siesta. Until next time …
Written by Karin Bennett
For those of you who grew up in more recent decades, "acid rain" is not the name of a death-metal band. In the 70s and 80s, sulfur dioxide emitted by power plants was turning rain into sulfuric acid, threatening fish, trees, and, yes, even statues. After the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) got the power plants to clean up their act, we thought we had the problem licked for the great outdoors. But if you lick something outdoors now, your tongue might dissolve. Acid rain has returned in a new form—nitric acid—caused by nitrogen oxide emissions. And the number one source of these emissions? Intensive factory farms.
So now we can add the resurgence of acid rain to the long list of environmental disasters caused in large part by using animals for food. It remains to be seen whether the EPA will step in again to address the problem, but fortunately we don't have to wait for them to get involved—after all, what better way to fight the disastrous effects of factory farming than by going vegan?
Written by Jeff Mackey
With the passing of Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, animals and the people who care about them have lost a longstanding and true friend. The senior senator, who was a meat cutter in his youth, evolved into a tireless advocate for animals.
Sen. Byrd's soft spot for animals, fueled by his love for his little dog, Billy, was as legendary as the passionate speeches he often made on their behalf. No one who saw it can forget the speech he gave in response to the Michael Vick scandal, in which he condemned dogfighting as "Barbaric! Hear me! Barbaric!"
In 2001, Byrd gave a moving speech in defense of a bill addressing cruelty to farmed animals, saying,
"Our inhumane treatment of livestock is becoming widespread and more and more barbaric. Six-hundred-pound hogs—they were pigs at one time—raised in 2-foot-wide metal cages called gestation crates, in which the poor beasts are unable to turn around or lie down in natural positions, and this way they live for months at a time. … These creatures feel; they know pain. They suffer pain just as we humans suffer pain."
A year later, Sen. Byrd led an effort to convince the Senate Appropriations Committee to provide $5 million—a record amount—for improving enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act.
In 2005, Sen. Byrd coauthored the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which would prohibit the transport, purchase, and sale of horses for human consumption. Versions of the bill, now called The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, have been introduced every year since then, but have yet to pass both houses. As a tribute to Sen. Byrd, please urge your U.S. representatives to at last pass this important law.
PETA named Sen. Byrd our 2007 "Person of the Year" to recognize his defense of animals throughout six decades of public service. Sen. Byrd gave a powerful voice to those with none of their own. His passionate and inspiring dedication to helping animals will be sorely missed.
Anyone who's ever wondered whether Christianity and compassion for animals are compatible should check out Oliver Thomas' USA Today column "What's the Godly Way to Treat Animals?" Thomas, a Baptist preacher, speaks out against chaining dogs and factory farming abuses, including "packing animals shoulder to shoulder in their own excrement" and "wiring them into cages where their personal space is smaller than a piece of printer paper." I especially like what Thomas has to say about people who dodge their duty to spay and neuter their animal companions: "With free and discounted spay/neuter opportunities galore, that's inexcusable." Amen to that!
Be sure to read the whole column, share it with your Christian friends and family, and leave a comment thanking Thomas and USA Today for this great piece. Then check out IslamicConcern.com and JewishVeg.com for information about how other religions believe that animals should be treated.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
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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