Written by PETA
Last month, I talked a bit about PETA's contest asking for submissions in our first-ever "blog ad" contest, and even created my own little ad for The PETA Files, which, sadly, we will not be running on any blogs, as it was—according to my friends Joel and Allie who are in charge of these things—"egomaniacal in the extreme." But we will be running one of the submissions that we did get, and this is your chance to vote for the winner. I've posted a couple of my favorites below, and you can see the rest of the finalists here. Enjoy!
Anyone catch Bones last night? If so, you probably saw the nice plug for vegetarian eating at the end, when Temperance “Bones” Brennan (played by Emily Deschanel, a real-life vegetarian) briefly talks about the environmental effects of meat. It was a cool little surprise.
You can watch full episodes of the show here.
We've just learned that the Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) and its commissioner, Tommy Irvin, have been found in contempt of court by Judge Tom Campbell of Fulton County Superior Court. This ruling comes after a more than seven-month legal battle that began when PETA received reports that dogs and cats were being cruelly and illegally gassed to death by various pounds and shelters in Georgia and that the Georgia Department of Agriculture was not upholding a 17-year-old law, the 1990 Humane Euthanasia Act.
The lawsuit was filed by Law firm Schiff Hardin LLP in Atlanta on behalf of two plaintiffs: a former Clayton County Humane Society employee—whose dog was hit by a car and then killed in one of the gas chambers—and former state representative Chesley Morton, who introduced Georgia’s Humane Euthanasia Act in 1990. PETA sent a cease-and-desist letter to Cobb County on April 5 requesting assurance that the shelter would comply with the law, but the letter and subsequent communications were simply ignored on the basis of a "grandfather clause," which the county incorrectly claimed gave them an exemption from using humane methods of euthanasia.
It is simply incredible that private citizens had to go to court to get the department to abide by the very laws it is charged with enforcing, but the recent announcement that the GDA is finally being held accountable for their actions is a major victory, and hopefully it will help to shed some light on the brazen disregard for the law and for animal suffering that places like Cobb County have been getting away with for years in a crude attempt to deal with the cat-and-dog overpopulation crisis. Euthanasia is a tragic necessity while 6-8 million animals are abandoned in shelters in the U.S. alone every year and breeders continue to manufacture more for profit, but unwanted animals discarded by society must be offered a dignified, humane exit if death is the best we can offer them. There is no excuse for employing inhumane methods which simply prolong and intensify the suffering of these unwanted animals.
You can click here to see footage (taken in Yadkin County, North Carolina), which shows the horrific practice of using carbon monoxide gas chambers to kill animals. The GDA has simply ignored an act which prohibits this kind of "euthanasia" method in contempt of the law and in a complete violation of the public trust.
Our International Grassroots Campaigns department recently put together a cool little feature about what it’s like to work in that part of the organization, so if you’re a front lines kind of person, check that out here. But if being out on the street protesting isn’t your thing, don’t fret. Believe it or not, that’s not what most of us here at PETA do every day!
So, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work here or what qualifications we look for in prospective employees, give this page a peek, then send in your résumé.
And after you get hired, stop by my desk to say hi!
“Gloria Steinem expressed her severe discomfort at participating at an event for [a local human services agency] sponsored by Covance after she was alerted to the fact that thousands of animals suffer in the Covance laboratories. She stated, ‘Animal abuse is so connected to domestic abuse -- literally in a household, but societally in a more general way, too.’ Using one's power to harm others is contrary to Ms. Steinem's life's work and Covance was dropped as a sponsor for the event.”
What I love about this story is not just the big black eye to Covance's PR machine in Madison (where the company has a high profile due to its massive animal-experimentation lab outside the city), but the fact that Steinem explicitly puts animal rights in the wider context of social justice. She situates the issue, as it should be, alongside the broader issue of fighting the oppressive mentality that companies like Covance share with domestic abusers or any perpetrators of violence who believe that "might makes right."
Hopefully, this will be food for thought for all the people who comment on this blog wondering why animal rights people don't do more to fight other forms of oppression. The point is that people who care about animal rights, like Gloria Steinem, just have a better view of the big picture. Injustice and violence needs to be stamped out wherever it crops up—and no matter who the victims are.
Remember the TV show Blossom from way back in the day? Well, the little sister on the show, Courtney Chase, reportedly took part in a pretty amazing animal rescue last week.
Last Monday, when Courtney and her older sister Ashley saw their neighbor allegedly trying to drown his eight month old Shih Tzu in a tub for defecating on the carpet, the sisters intervened. Reportedly, they entered the neighbor’s apartment, grabbed the dog, gave him mouth-to- mouth resuscitation, and rushed him to the vet, where he is recuperating.
Felony cruelty to animals charges have been filed against the neighbor and he faces up to three years in prison. I’ll keep you posted if more info becomes available.
Way to go Courtney and Ashley!
"This is very much a first in the UK. We are the first council to take such a stand and we will be sending out the message loud and clear that York is a foie gras-free zone."
Unfortunately, this doesn't amount to an outright ban on foie gras sales in the city, but it's a hell of a good start. Most of the foie gras in England is imported from France, which has declared the product "part of the cultural and gastronomic patrimony" — a very sophisticated French way of saying "we don't give a crap about anything". The good folks in PETA Europe are working hard to push other cities to follow York's example, so I'll keep you posted on how that goes, and we'll see what the French foie gras producers have to say about their ludicrous "gastronomic patrimony" once compassionate people throughout Europe send their sales plummeting.
Congratulations to York and to everyone who helped to work on this campaign!
Brattleboro, Vermont, is well-known for its “unique” public nudity laws, so a couple of brave PETA members went down there last week to test them out with a “Bare Skin, Don’t Wear Skin” demonstration. Check out the great pics below, and, as soon as you (a) turn 18 and (b) get home from work, click here to check out the demonstration from, um, behind.
There aren’t many folks in America who don’t at least know there’s controversy surrounding circuses that use animals. So it always surprises me when a company like Denny’s jumps into bed with the animal abusing freak show that is Ringling Bros. circus. But, it surprised me even more when Denny’s CEO Nelson Marchioli refused to even talk with us about the issue, despite having been provided with an abundance of documentation, including videotapes, government documents, and testimony from former Ringling employees.
We wrote, we called, we called, and we called again, but Mr. Marchioli just wasn’t interested in joining more compassionate companies like General Mills, Burger King, Liz Claiborne, MasterCard, Visa, Ford Motor Company, and Sears, Roebuck and Co., all of whom ended their sponsorships of circuses that use animals. So, we’re proud to launch our new Web site: DeadlyDennys.com. Apparently Marchioli is OK with the beatings, neglect, confinement, and death that go on behind the scenes at Ringling, but I have a feeling his customers and investors won’t take too kindly to Denny’s family-friendly image being associated with such abuse.
So, check out DeadlyDennys.com, and be sure to share it with everyone you know. And oh, here is the link to contact Denny’s directly, to let them know what you think of their support of cruelty.
Update: There was a great investigative report on this issue that was on KHOU-TV this week. Check it out here.
Our Captive Animals department has been working overtime on a case involving two elephants named Tina and Jewel. The elephants belong to Cole Bros., a circus that was assessed a $10,000 penalty by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for abusing elephants with bullhooks. To make a long story short, after confirming a whistleblower report stating that Jewel was emaciated, we filed a complaint with the USDA, leading to the removal of both elephants from the road. But now they are being housed at an unapproved facility in TX, and according to one recent inspection, an elephant expert “determined that both elephants showed an alarming amount of weight loss.”
Cole Bros. is leasing the elephants to the family that formerly operated the King Royal Circus, until its USDA license was permanently revoked when a young African elephant named Heather was found dead in a crowded, overheated trailer. Lovely.
Please help us convince the USDA to confiscate the elephants and relocate them to The Elephant Sanctuary, where they can receive proper nourishment and veterinary care from qualified elephant caretakers. You can take action here.
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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