'Tis the season of peace and goodwill, and students and teachers across the country are extending both to animals who would have been killed and dissected for crude biology lessons.

All too often, PETA receives complaints from compassionate middle school, high school, and college students who are faced with the daunting dilemma of whether to mutilate a dead frog, rat, or cat or receive a failing grade for standing up for animals. When we hear from these students, we quickly spring into action and contact faculty and administrators to urge them to respect the students' wishes by providing them with modern non-animal learning methods and asking them to cut out dissection altogether. 

Photo: Robert Sebree; Makeup: Chantal Moore for The Cloutier Agency

One of the ways in which PETA facilitates schools' transition to humane science teaching tools is through our TeachKind educational grant program. Teachers can apply to receive free computers, software, and models to replace animal dissection in their classrooms. Not only do these modern and effective teaching tools save animals' lives, they also help create a positive learning environment that does not exclude students because of their moral beliefs.

The following are just a few of PETA's recent successes for students and animals:

• After a high school student in Washington complained to PETA that the school was requiring students to dissect cats, we convinced school officials to drop dissection and use humane alternatives instead.
• A middle school teacher in Chattanooga, Tennessee, wanted to replace animals with a virtual dissection laboratory. PETA is making this dream a reality by donating the appropriate software to the school.
• PETA also donated software for a virtual dissection lab at a grade school in Woodlawn, Illinois, and to a middle school in Frankenmuth, Michigan, that wanted to replace frog and earthworm dissections.
• An elementary school student in Indiana contacted PETA when her teacher instructed students to capture insects, freeze them to death, and pin them to boards. Working with school officials, we got the cruel assignment nixed.

To learn how to get modern non-animal science teaching tools for your school or to help fund these lifesaving donations, visit TeachKind.org.

It's a heaping, hearty helping of Internet Soup today, and just like Justin Bieber's tower of trophies at the Teen Choice Awards, it's guaranteed to make u smile.

• You know burgers are bad for you when … a burger restaurant tells people not to eat them.
• Pizza Hut serves up your favorite toppings. That is, if your favorites are flesh and bloody Band-aids.  
• The milk industry adds being sexist to its repertoire of wrongs.
• We'll be on a relay team with this vegan marathon record-holder any day of the week.
• Eating amphibians' legs? Frogeddaboutit.
• Tsunami victims learn that few things help you heal like a seal.
• Old McDonald's had a marketing ploy, E-I-E-I-O. And the new Happy Meals are still bad for kids, E-I-E-I-O. With diabetes here and obesity there …
• "Absolut" animal rights: Ukrainian minister says "last call" for plying bears with booze.

 
Written by Michelle Sherrow

More than 200 people—mostly children—have been sickened by a unique strain of salmonella, a serious infection that can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and fever. The culprit? The African dwarf frog breeder who supplied frogs for EcoAquariums. These cruel tiny plastic cubes—to which frogs are confined for life—are sold by national retailers across the United States and Canada. The California Department of Public Health has issued an urgent notice asking vendors to discontinue selling the frogs immediately, and PETA is seconding that call.

Jamming delicate frogs into plastic cubes with just a few ounces of water is usually a death sentence for the animals. The frogs can barely move and are slowly poisoned by their own waste. A PETA investigation into Wild Creations—one of the suppliers of the frogs used for this gimmick—documented filthy conditions, starvation, and rampant neglect and mishandling of frogs.
 

 
Many national retailers have stopped selling these tiny tanks, which put both amphibians and customers at risk. Please ask Learning Express, Kirlin's Hallmark, Toy Jungle Enterprises Inc., Scholar's Choice, and Coach House Gifts to pull these cruel "novelties" off the shelves for good.
 

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

After 18 months of protests, thousands of calls and e-mails, and appearances outside Brookstone stores by our giant "frog," Brookstone has finally decided to pull a cruel product called the "Frog-O-Sphere" from its shelves!

PETA started campaigning against the tiny plastic frog prisons after receiving complaints from Brookstone customers and after a whistleblower reported that frogs and snails housed in the tiny 4-inch-by-4-inch plastic boxes were neglected, deprived of veterinary care and adequate food, and kept in filthy water. The whistleblower told PETA that when frogs became obviously ill and "unsaleable," they were moved to the stores' storage rooms, where they often wasted away and died.

PETA's undercover investigation of Wild Creations—the company that came up with the idiotic idea of throwing two frogs and some gravel into a container smaller than a shoebox and leaving them there for their entire lives—revealed filthy conditions and deadly neglect. In some cases, frogs were so hungry that that they chewed each other's legs off.

juhansonin/cc by 2.0

Brookstone joins Magic Beans, Target, and other retailers that have stopped selling these cruel products, but Coach House Gifts is still selling frogs in "EcoAquariums" to make an easy buck. In one shipment to Coach House Gifts, 37 out of 40 frogs died after they were left in a container so long that they suffered from heat prostration. Please take a moment to urge the company to stop selling its deadly EcoAquariums.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

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

dcist / CC

I ♥ Target. In addition to the mega-retailer carrying cruelty-free cosmetics and stylish, skin-free kicks, Target recently made the decision to save the lives of hundreds of frogs.

When PETA found out that Target was selling a miniature aquarium called "Planet Frog"—a tiny, plastic prison that's very similar to Brookstone's "Frog-O-Sphere"—we reached out to the corporation's execs. We told them that biologists and wildlife specialists believe the mini-aquariums are cruel and inadequate for frogs and can be hazardous to children's health, exposing them to diseases such as salmonellosis, sparganosis, and psittacosis. We also pointed out an alarming stat: Since May 2009, at least 85 people from 31 states have become ill after exposure to water frogs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Hmm … National retailers start selling frogs in tiny tanks. People all across the country get sick from exposure to water frogs. Coinkidink? Methinks not.)

We asked Target to stop selling "Planet Frog," and they agreed to do just that—easy peasy. No need to send out the troops, call on our celebrity friends, or launch a letter-writing campaign.

Brookstone execs could learn a lot from Target about how make a responsible, compassionate decision without weeks of hand-wringing. Will you ask them to follow Target's lead?

Written by Karin Bennett

Victory Update: Following a national PETA campaign against Brookstone's sale of Frog-O-Spheres —tiny plastic boxes containing two African dwarf frogs—the retailer has discontinued the sale of these little frog prisons in its stores. Learn more about this victory for frogs.

The following is a guest post from peta2's Rachel.

Quick! Think on your toes! What things in life do you hold dear? Is it friendship or family—or even just plain old freedom? All good things ... and pretty essential, right?

Frogs imprisoned in Brookstone's tiny tanks being so brilliantly marketed as "Frog-O-Spheres" are denied all of those things, even though they desire them as much as you or I. Why? To make a quick buck, of course.

Brookstone, what will it take to get you to stop supporting cruelty to animals? It's not just us at PETA who are concerned—it's your own employees, your customers, and millions of others who've seen our recent undercover investigation into the supplier your Frog-O-Sphere prisoners come from—where these frogs were seen being thrown around carelessly and even tossed into the garbage while they were still alive. Brookstone, the complaints don't just come to us—they come to you. Check out some of the more concerning/awful/just-plain-dumb comments from the Frog-O-Sphere review page on Brookstone's Web site:

"Our family cat knocked over the tank and 'played' with the the frogs for over three hours. I was able to find the frogs (scattered through the house), who were still alive??"

"It's hard to keep track of which frog ate however many pebbles and making sure the other one got enough. ... I guess it's not that crucial though ...."

"My grandsons received this as a gift and we thought the 'living gravel' was the packing pouch of black/brown stuff. We almost killed the frogs before we started."

"A lot of people on here have said that their snail has died. It's VERY common for the snail to die, they told me that at the store."

Luckily, in large part because of e-mails and calls from people like you, Brookstone stopped selling snails in its tiny frog prisons, but frogs are still dying. Please call Brookstone and ask it why, after undercover investigations, employee concerns, and comments on its own Web site about frogs suffering and dying, it refuses to stop selling animals. Ask the company to do the right thing now.

Written by Rachel Owen

Victory Update: Following a national PETA campaign against Brookstone's sale of Frog-O-Spheres —tiny plastic boxes containing two African dwarf frogs—the retailer has discontinued the sale of these little frog prisons in its stores. Learn more about this victory for frogs.

Last month, a PETA investigator worked undercover inside Wild Creations—the supplier of frogs for Brookstone's Frog-O-Spheres—and documented unsanitary living conditions, rampant starvation, and gross mishandling of thousands of frogs. Frogs were left to languish in stagnant water that was murky with feces and molted skin. They were so desperate for food (our investigator worked there for weeks before anyone was seen feeding the animals) that they were chewing on each other's legs, causing wounds, infections, and, eventually, loss of limbs. Live frogs were left on the floor to die or—mistaken for dead—tossed aside, including into the trash, by employees who had received no training.

We showed the disturbing footage to world-renowned experts in biology and herpetology, and their message was clear: Distribution of Frog-O-Spheres must stop forever. Clifford Warwick, a fellow at the Institute of Biology and one of the world's leading authorities on herpetology, said, "The advice given by the 'technical' staff [of Wild Creations] about this product is less than amateuristic. It is blatantly false, and dangerous and will lead to the suffering and death of many animals, and possibly also lead to human disease and death. … [S]ales staff and workers … are being guided by superiors whose 'knowledge' is more dubious (and frankly dangerous) than even common sense would dictate."

Tom Langton, who runs the frog conservation organization Froglife, reacted by saying, "The housing indicates gross negligence and effective intent to cause suffering and death of frogs and is in fact a breeding factory for pathogens. Such pathogens could spread beyond the immediate factory and into the external environment creating new criminal offences."

You might not be a biologist or even know what a herpetologist is, but what do you think about PETA's latest investigation?

Written by Logan Scherer

New clothes and a new crush may get many students excited about school, but the surest way to make someone dread biology class is to mention that cruel old standby, dissection.

Since Steve-O knows that only a "jackass" would force a kid to cut up an animal and call it "science," the Wildboyz star was on hand outside Fairfax High School in Los Angeles this afternoon to kick off Cut Out Dissection Month.

His new ad aims to empower kids to fight for their rights not to dissect on animals and to pressure educators to provide alternatives to dissection.

Every year, nearly 6 million animals, including frogs, rats, pigs, and cats, are cut open in cruel, outdated dissection exercises that teach students to dismiss concerns about animal suffering. It's no secret that many violent offenders, including serial killers get their start abusing animals.

Kinder, more effective alternatives to dissection exist and offer students the opportunity to focus on learning instead of cringing through animal cut-ups. In fact, I'm willing to bet that if all schools implemented only humane biology lessons, students would forever remember that this duodenum, not this one, is found in their small intestine.

Written by Karin Bennett

P.S. More pics of Steve-O's unveiling after the jump.

The BBC has just unveiled its "Wildlife Finder," a Web site it bills as "the world's biggest online zoo." To create the "zoo," which so far includes 370 different species of animals (with more to come), the BBC has compiled video footage from hundreds of wildlife documentaries, including the blockbuster hit Planet Earth.

mirror.co.uk / CC

Unlike a "real" zoo, with its bored animals gazing out blankly from concrete cells and cramped cages, BBC's Wildlife Finder captures animals in their own habitats—from the rain forests of Chile to the volcanoes of Papua New Guinea. No more peering through cage bars trying in vain to catch a glimpse of a sleeping lemur or waiting for the hippos to come up for air. BBC's Wildlife Finder includes footage shot with underwater and infrared cameras to capture nocturnal and deep-sea animals doing the things that they do naturally—things they never get to do in a zoo.

So far, the most popular animals are proving to be the meerkats (who doesn't love meerkats?), Darwin's frog (a Chilean frog whose males give birth through their mouths—all of which is caught on tape, of course), and the New Guinea jumping spider, who is shown jumping onto a cameraman.

Gather the kids around the PC and check out the online zoo today. They'll learn a heck of a lot more than they would at the local wildlife penitentiary.

Written by Alisa Mullins