Written by Michelle Kretzer
It wasn't as if experimenters at New York University (NYU) didn't know for days that Hurricane Sandy was approaching. It wasn't as if they didn't know that federal policy requires them to at least try to protect the animals they torment and kill in experiments from also becoming victims of a natural disaster. But the experimenters either made no evacuation plan for the animals in their "care" or they failed to follow through with it. Instead, they abandoned 10,000 mice and rats in a basement laboratory, who remained trapped in their cages as the floodwaters rose. Many animals—panicked, afraid, and desperate to escape—drowned to death, while others suffocated from the toxic diesel fumes of a leaking fuel tank. NYU was unable to give an exact figure for the number of animals who died—remarking instead that the facility lost 7,660 cages of mice and 22 cages of rats, with each cage holding one to seven animals.
PETA has filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health, the government body that oversees federally funded experiments, calling for an investigation into NYU's irresponsible and unconscionable actions and inaction. In our complaint, we pointed out that the university will likely acquire thousands more animals to replace those who died, multiplying the suffering caused by the experimenter's negligence.
It's not the first time that animals were left trapped in laboratory cages during natural disasters. At the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, 35 dogs, 78 monkeys, 300 rabbits, and 4,000 mice and rats drowned during tropical storm Allison in 2001. The storm also killed 30,000 mice and rats who were left in the basement at Baylor College of Medicine. Hurricane Katrina killed 8,000 animals trapped in Louisiana State University's laboratories, and thousands more died at Tulane.
An official with the National Academy of Sciences remarked: "This happens again and again and (research labs) never learn. Anybody with half a brain knows you do a site-specific analysis [to understand the risk of disasters], and it's really stupid to put your animals in the basement if you're in a flood zone."
Stupid, cruel, and inexcusable.
Raise your barbells to Millennium Partners Sports Club Management, LLC, which is banning glue traps from all its locations nationwide.
After talks with PETA, Millennium learned how glue traps cause their victims a slow, agonizing death. Because the animals get stuck but aren't killed, they struggle to free themselves, often ripping off fur, skin, or feathers in the process. They may also chew off their own limbs to try to escape. Animals may languish for days before finally succumbing to starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, or injuries. And glue traps don't discriminate—birds, companion animals, and even small children can be harmed by them.
Presented with that information, Millennium agreed that glue traps had about as much business being in their gyms as a triple cheeseburger—and neither one will be making it through the door.
Make sure that neither gets through your door, either, with a humane "smart" mousetrap (and a veggie burger, of course).
People who recently purchased mice, hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs from a pet store might have gotten more than they bargained for—such as vomiting, chest pain, testicular pain, meningitis, paralysis, fluid on the brain, or even children born with birth defects.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating an outbreak of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infections in mice shipped to pet stores throughout the country earlier this year. Mice with LCMV can infect other rodents and even people who come into contact with them.
And guess which company shipped out some of the infected mice?
None other than Sun Pet, Ltd.—the PETCO and PetSmart supplier whose Georgia warehouse PETA investigated in 2009 and 2010. Our undercover investigator documented filthy, severely crowded conditions; unsalable animals killed in a crude, filthy makeshift gas box; and sick animals deprived of veterinary care. One worker put live hamsters into a bag and then bashed the bag against a table in an attempt to kill them.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture put the facility on probation following PETA's investigation.
Infected rodents shed LCMV in their urine and saliva, and it also becomes airborne in filthy, cramped conditions such as those that PETA documented at Sun Pet's warehouse. For animals, it can cause weeks or even months of lethargy, loss of appetite, weight loss, inflammation, and eventually death.
The CDC is encouraging people who experience symptoms of LCMV to see a doctor. The agency isn't being overly cautious: In 2005, three people died after receiving allegedly infected organs from a donor who had purchased a hamster with LCMV from PetSmart. One of the victims' widows sued PetSmart for negligence. We all knew animals paid the price for the cruelty and filth that are rampant in the pet trade. Now we see again that consumers might be paying it, too.
This is just one more reason to avoid sleazy animal dealers by never buying mice, hamsters, rabbits, fish, birds, or any animal from a pet store or breeder and by steering others who are considering getting an animal toward animal shelters.
Written by Alisa Mullins
Following PETA's and PETA U.K.'s work in the E.U. to hasten the replacement of an animal test that had been used for decades in deadly shellfish toxicity detection, PETA has now helped make it possible for an alternative testing method developed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be used in the U.S. by helping to fund a critical license.
Antagain|iStockphoto.com
For decades, state fisheries throughout the U.S. have used a painful and deadly test on mice to determine whether shellfish caught for human consumption contain a lethal concentration of toxins. In these tests, a sample of shellfish is processed in a blender, and this slurry is injected into the abdomens of mice, causing them to have seizures, become paralyzed, and die painfully from suffocation.
After years of communicating with the FDA, PETA recently learned of a new, much more humane method for detecting these deadly toxins that was developed by an FDA scientist and uses tissue from one animal instead of more than 1,000 live animals. Not only does the new test have the potential to save tens of thousands of animals a year, it is also scientifically superior and far less expensive.
In addition to helping fund the licensing of the new method, PETA has also begun to fund yet another method that will further refine the new test. Our scientists are also contacting all U.S. fisheries to urge them to implement this scientifically superior and more efficient method. PETA's hard work will allow the U.S. to use 21st century testing methods and eliminate the use of live mice for shellfish monitoring—much as PETA and our affiliates accomplished in the E.U.
PETA and its affiliates have donated more than $1 million to the development of non-animal test methods.
Of course, to eliminate animal suffering completely, we recommend that people not consume shellfish but rather partake of a healthy plant-based diet.
Long after Wells Fargo retired the horses that used to pull its trademark stagecoaches, the bank is helping animals again. After Wells Fargo executives heard from PETA about how mice and other animals suffer when they are ensnared in glue traps, the bank banned all such vile traps from its 6,200 national locations, earning itself a a Compassionate Company Award and a big box of vegan chocolate mice, which PETA sent to the company's San Francisco headquarters.
Beige Alert | cc by 2.0
PETA explained that mice, birds, and other small animals struggle to free themselves after being caught in these pans of pain, often ripping out their fur and feathers and breaking their bones before they eventually succumb to their injuries or to blood loss, dehydration, shock, suffocation, or exhaustion. Wells Fargo refused to support such cruelty.
Now three of the Big Four banks (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase) as well as 13 of the top 25 financial institutions have pledged never to use glue traps.
A lot has been happening this week at PETA: victories, anniversaries, and celebrations! We're after CareerBuilder, we stopped shipments of monkeys to laboratories, and we've done much more! Check out the latest news and victories:
What a busy week it's been in the PETAsphere! Just in case you missed any of the big news, we've got you covered. Follow us on Tumblr for future news about animal rights, vegan living, and where in the world the PETA campaigners are now.
Former "pussycat" Kimberly Wyatt instinctively knows that torturing rabbits, mice, and other animals for makeup is wrong. In her new ad for PETA U.K., Kimberly, who has her own line of cruelty-free cosmetics, exposes the painful and often deadly effects that chemical tests have on animals.
Hair: Klare Wilkinson|Make-up: Lan Nguyen|Studio: ShoreditchStudios.com|© karlgrant.com
Testing cosmetics on animals has been banned within the European Union (E.U.) since 2009. The E.U. also approved a ban on the sale of cosmetics containing ingredients that were tested on animals elsewhere, effective in 2013. But under pressure from some cosmetics companies, the E.U. is considering delaying that ban. Kimberly is hopeful that her ad will encourage the E.U. to uphold the original deadline.
She's got a lot of support: After PETA U.K., PETA Germany, and PETA Netherlands sent out action alerts to their members, the European Commission (the E.U.'s executive branch) received more than 20,000 e-mails urging it not to delay the ban. And when PETA U.S. sent out a similar action alert, we quickly collected and delivered more than 50,000 letters from people in the U.S. and other countries imploring the European Commission to keep the deadline and keep animals safe.
On this side of the pond, we aren't fortunate enough to have such a ban yet, but we can implement one in our homes by buying only cruelty-free products.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
The new year is already looking a bit brighter for animals: A PETCO store in Dickson City, Pennsylvania, has announced that it will close permanently on January 1—which is great news for the hamsters, gerbils, mice, fish, and other small animals who suffer and die every day in PETCO's stores and suppliers' facilities.
"Life" for the animals PETCO sells often consists of struggling to survive wild capture or captive breeding in horrific conditions, suffering from untreated injuries and illnesses, and fighting for food in feces-strewn, severely crowded cages. At the massive breeding mills that supply live animals to the pet trade, PETA investigations have revealed sick and dying animals placed in freezers to die, live hamsters placed in a plastic bag and bashed against a table in an attempt to kill them, animals deprived of veterinary care and left to cannibalize their cagemates' corpses, and other horrors.
For the sake of small animals, please say "No" to PETCO and other stores that sell animals.
Written by PETA
Each of us is inherently an "animal rights person" to some degree, whether we realize it or not. Take the recent case of the Charleston, West Virginia, Daily Mail blogger who wrote about having a mouse in her house. In the post, she wrote, "Please don't email me PETA." We did one better—we sent her a humane mousetrap and then she contacted us to learn more about it. A week later, she wrote this in her blog:
"So I thought I'd do a little research on the humane mousetrap and have a chat with PETA, after all they were kind enough to send it to me, to help with my 'uninvited' guest. At first, I was a little wary. I mean this is the group that files lawsuits on behalf of orcas, and well, there's nothing I like better than a … steak. But we may have found common ground on the mousetrap."
jma.work | cc by 2.0
Whether or not people support all of PETA's campaigns, most everyone can agree on the basic principle that cruelty to animals is wrong. Even if our friends and family aren't yet convinced that they should part ways with meat, perhaps they do agree that dogs deserve better than spending their lives on a chain or that baby elephants shouldn't be beaten by circus trainers.
When we work to find that common ground, animals win. And who knows, maybe today's humane-mousetrap user is PETA's next Person of the Year.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
Do you take your tea with a dash of blood? How about a spoonful of dead mouse? PETA's new parody of a Nestea commercial from the '80s shows viewers why they should avoid the brand and "take the CruelTEA plunge":
Nestea insists on testing on mice and rats in an attempt to make health claims—despite the fact that U.S. and European regulators have stated that tests on animals are not sufficient to prove health claims about food and beverage products. One test involved locking highly social mice in dark chambers and painfully shocking their sensitive feet. In another test, experimenters injected mice with chemicals to make them develop diabetes and then force-fed them tea ingredients.
Share the new ad on Facebook and Twitter to urge everyone you know to "take the CruelTEA plunge" by pledging to drink only cruelty-free tea. Please also click here to urge Nestea to stop testing on animals. Unless you want to quench a thirst for cruelty, Nestea is one brand to avoid like the plague.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
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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