Written by PETA
Elle Macpherson has told the Times online that she uses rhino horn to try to stop the aging process. Quackery aside, this has huge consequences for animals—and it's illegal. Here's the letter that PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk sent Macpherson today:
What was Elle's response to the outcry about her comment? Click here to find out.
July 6, 2010
Dear Ms. Macpherson,
We've read that you have confessed to a reporter for the Times online that you use an illegal substance: rhino horn. Considering that there is nothing beautiful about the slaughter of wildlife, will you please give up your use of rhino horn and tell the world why you did?
Like shark's fin, which is hacked off the shark, who is then thrown back into the water to spin helplessly to the bottom of the sea, rhino horn is hacked off, too, and the rhino is left to die with a machete hole in the face. It is not a quick death, as photographs and video footage attest.
Rhinos are interesting animals, not that it would matter if they were boring as hell. It isn't too long ago that human beings discovered what this species knew all along: that its members communicate by means of complex breathing noises. In my book The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights, I recount how Anna Mertz, the founder of a rhino sanctuary in Kenya, came to realize that these animals live in a completely different sphere from ours. They are the Mr. Magoos of the animal kingdom, barely able to see a thing, which unfortunately makes it convenient to poach them, and their world is dominated by their senses of smell and hearing.
To communicate, rhinos use a highly complicated method of regulating their breathing, a sort of Morse code, to talk to one another. Mertz says that rhinos are absolutely terrified of humans because people chase them, separate them from their calves, and slaughter them for their horns, which are cut off for use as aphrodisiacs and in cosmetics.
Mertz raised and released an orphaned bull she named Makara who had never witnessed an attack by hunters and had never learned to fear people. Over time, he came to regard Mertz as a friend.
On one occasion, Mertz was out with a tracker when the two of them saw a rhino moving very slowly toward them, looking very odd. When he got close, they saw that it was Makara and that he was completely entangled in barbed wire. Barbed wire is terrifying to animals, and most panic when they encounter it, but Makara had recognized the sound of his friend's Jeep engine and come for help. Although trembling all over, he gave the pair the greeting breathing. Mertz managed to get a handkerchief between Makara's eye and the jagged wire that was cutting into it, then took off her jacket and worked it under the wire that was cutting into his thigh. Without wire cutters, the tracker used a cutlass and a flat stone to cut the wire while Mertz, talking gently to the bull, disentangled him. The whole affair took about 40 minutes, and the whole time Makara stood stock-still except for the tremors that shook his body.
When the last of the wire fell away, he breathed goodbye and moved slowly back into the bush. Mertz says she knew that they had witnessed an act of outstanding intelligence, trust, and courage. That this bull had come to them for help and had exercised such control over his state of panic, standing still and allowing himself to be freed of the frightening barbed wire, must have been very difficult and painful to him—even more so, given the fact that although Makara knew Mertz's voice well, she had never before attempted to touch him.
I wrote in the book that perhaps if we could sit rhino hunters down and let them see that a rhino is not an inconsequential gray lump, not a trophy or a heap of body parts, but a living, thinking, feeling being—a son, a mother, a friend to others, a vulnerable individual—perhaps they would not blow these magnificent animals to kingdom come or cut off their horns via machete. Perhaps you might also sit down and look at the photos of the rhinos who are ground up for human vanity and complete quackery.
Jackie Chan, who works hard to combat the devastation to wildlife caused by Chinese medicine, from tiger penises to bear bile and claws, is appalled by this vile trade and has helped many groups, including PETA, work to combat such cruelty. He says, if you know anyone who is buying the stuff, "Ask them to think first. Do they really want to be responsible for the cruel killing of an individual animal and to contribute to the extinction of the species? Don't they know that there are herbal alternatives to endangered animals in traditional Chinese medicine? And do they really need that endangered species product? There is no excuse."
Elle, you are a role model in many ways, and I hope you will agree that wildlife should be left in peace. Will you please condemn the trade in rhino horn and other substances that are stolen from wild animals? I look forward to hearing back from you.
Very truly yours,
Ingrid E. NewkirkPresidentPETA
Showing cruelty of gastronomical proportions, restaurants in Queens (Sik Gaek and East Seafood Restaurant) are chopping up and serving live octopuses to customers. Octopuses have their tentacles cut off while they are still conscious and are then served, writhing, while their hearts are still beating. Others are slowly steamed alive in front of customers before their tentacles and upper bodies are cut into small pieces with scissors.
Since we can't "release the Kraken" on these animal abusers, we're unleashing our legal team on the district attorney—calling on the DAs to file cruelty charges against the restaurants. Because octopuses have sophisticated nervous systems and feel pain just as acutely as mammals do, we feel that the restaurants' practices clearly violate the state's anti-cruelty statute.
Recently, octopuses were observed carrying around coconut shells to use as shelter—making these complex cephalopods the first known invertebrate animals to use tools. These "deep" thinkers are also fond of decorating. They decorate their dens with bottle caps, stones, and other objects that they find on the ocean floor. They are so smart that they can also learn how to do things such as unscrew jars by watching someone else do it—once!
Let's hope that the district attorney in this case is just as smart and sentient. You can call or fax the Queens County District Attorney's Office and politely ask that they take action against these restaurateurs. We'll keep you posted. Until then, take this octopus-inspired poll.
Written by Amy Skylark Elizabeth
Today, we're breaking out the bubbly to celebrate a victory. The Oscar-winning filmmakers behind The Cove recently went undercover inside The Hump—a Los Angeles sushi joint—to gather evidence that the restaurant was selling whale sushi. Yesterday, Typhoon Restaurant Inc.—the company that owns The Hump—was charged with illegally selling whale meat. According to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, those charged with possession or sale of marine mammals may face up to a year in prison or a $20,000 fine.
Whales are intelligent, social, and sensitive animals, but so are fish sea kittens, who have been deemed smarter than 5-year-old humans. Fish have central nervous systems that closely resemble those of humans, and fish who are caught in the commercial fishing industry suffer immeasurable pain as they are pulled up from the depths of their ocean homes. They thrash on the decks of fishing boats, and many of them vomit up their own guts as a result of the quick pressure change. So while we're stoked that the whale sushi has been removed from The Hump's menu, here's a question for anyone who continues to eat flesh: If you wouldn't eat a whale, then why would you eat a sea kitten?
Written by Logan Scherer
PETA's headquarters in Hampton Roads, Virginia, is well known to local residents, many of whom volunteer to help animals in their spare time. Thousands in the area have taken advantage of our low-cost animal clinics and the Bea Arthur Dog Park, which is open to the community.
But every once in a while, someone visits PETA headquarters with ill intentions—like the guy who dumped this sweet, starving, nearly-naked bag of bones in our parking lot late one August night and then tried to drive away.
Not realizing that people were watching, the driver shoved an ailing cat, who has since been named Nadia, out of his car, and ignored the terrified and confused animal as she tried to get back into the car, running after it as the man drove away. Fortunately, he was spotted by two PETA Foundation staffers who immediately approached him and saw right through his lame excuses for dumping Nadia on the street.
It took us more than 10 days, during which time the temperature soared to more than 100 degrees, to catch the poor, petrified cat. When we finally did, we rushed her to a veterinarian, who determined that Nadia was 3 pounds (!) underweight—she weighed just 5 pounds—and that she was missing hair on more than half her body, likely because of a severe allergic reaction to fleas. Nadia has been recuperating in foster care ever since and is waiting for her new forever home.
As for the heinous man who attempted to abandon her, he had his moment in court on Friday. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of abandonment and received a suspended sentence of a $1,000 fine and five days in jail. He was also sentenced to two years of probation, during which time he cannot own or keep any animals, and he had to pay restitution to PETA. Most importantly, he learned that abandoning an animal is never an option, no matter the circumstances.
Written by Karin Bennett
"California cows can keep their tails."
That sentence in the Central Valley Business Times says it all. California state proved it was full of animal-friendly folk when Prop. 2 passed last year, and now lawmakers in the state have just signed a law that will make the docking of cows' tails illegal starting this January!
During our recent undercover investigation on a Pennsylvania factory farm, our investigator witnessed tail-docking on a number of occasions. The tails of cows were removed by "banding"—which means that circulation to the tail was cut off using an elastic band, which caused the cows' tails to slowly lose blood flow and die. Once the tail is necrotic and lifeless, it is snapped off by a farm worker. Tails act as natural flyswatters for cows, who have no other way to chase off insects or stop them from biting. Once the cows on this farm had their tails removed, they still tried in vain to rid their bodies of flies, who were rampant in the manure-slicked barn.
Tail-docking is just one of the many horrendous abuses inflicted on animals on factory farms and is a practice that even the notoriously hypocritical AVMA opposes.
Cheers to the California legislature for taking this important step.
Written by Jeff Mackey
Brookstone's "Frog-O-Sphere"—a tiny plastic box containing two African frogs and a snail—is a guaranteed death sentence for these animals, who are slowly poisoned by their own waste in these mini-prisons.
Brookstone store employees—many of whom are straight out of high school, not vet school—are the sole caretakers of these animals while the Frog-O-Spheres are in the stores. According to Brookstone's head honchos, the only time these frogs receive any "care" is when employees briefly peer into the Frog-O-Sphere to check on the animals' condition. After performing these spot checks, employees are instructed merely to write down whether the frogs are "expired," sick/injured, or healthy. Despite any store's claim that it has a veterinarian on file (per the Frog-O-Sphere SOPs), sick or injured frogs never receive medical attention. Instead, these animals—who are sensitive to sound and even minimal changes in temperature—are merely stashed in the back of the store until they either die or recover on their own.
Turns out this is illegal—in the Garden State, at least.
We did some digging and discovered that pet shops in New Jersey are required to provide veterinary care for sick or injured animals and must be licensed with the township in which they're located—both are details that Brookstone seems to have missed.
After we brought this to the attention of NJ authorities, PETA received word from across the state that inspectors were on the case (PETA quickly confirmed that a Princeton-area Brookstone has no license on file, and alerted local health authorities, who immediately issued a cease and desist order to the store.). The state's Office of Animal Welfare has also taken an interest in this matter because Brookstone was informed about the various permits that were needed before its stores even began selling these tiny torture chambers, but the company failed to obtain them.
Click here to tell Brookstone that it's time to stop selling living beings at all its stores.
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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.