PETA protested outside SeaWorld parks in San Antonio and San Diego today, just one week after the marine-animal prison chain was hit with a $38,500 repeat violation fine from the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) for allowing dangerous contact between employees and orcas in defiance of a federal court order—and basic decency.

This SeaWorld San Antonio employee was shocked to learn about the violations that led to the OSHA fine.

The fine resulted from a follow-up investigation and photos and footage on TV of trainers who hugged and kissed orcas without any protective barrier, as required by an earlier OSHA ruling. SeaWorld fought OSHA's decision with two unsuccessful appeals, but the ruling stands.

Aggression between orcas is nearly non-existent in nature, but the constant stress of living in forced social groupings inside tiny tanks at SeaWorld causes them to lash out, posing a danger to animals and employees alike. SeaWorld's own corporate incident logs contain reports of more than 100 incidents at its parks. Orcas have pulled trainers into the water, held them at the bottom of the pool, head-butted them, slammed into them, breached on top of them, and, of course, killed them—and those are just the episodes that have been reported.

What You Can Do

Please tell everyone you know to leave all marine-animal parks and aquariums out of their family travel plans, and ask SeaWorld officials to release their animals to sanctuaries. 

Philippine Airlines is one of only three major airlines that still ship primates to laboratories where they are tormented and killed in cruel experiments, but you wouldn't know it from talking to its representatives. Airline reps have recently been telling concerned PETA members who call their offices that they don't ship monkeys and have not done so for a long time—but that's a lie.

PETA has obtained documents that show that Philippine Airlines has shipped nearly 200 pig-tailed macaque monkeys from Indonesia to the University of Washington's Washington National Primate Research Center in Seattle within the past 12 months alone. The documentation is crystal clear, containing invoices, tracking numbers, flight numbers, and many other details. There may be other such shipments as well.

Because of the growing pressure from PETA and its supporters around the world, Philippine Airlines could no longer ignore the issue and released a statement on its website and Facebook page that read, "Philippine Airlines is not engaged in the transport of wild, endangered or threatened animals, regardless of their purpose." Yet the pig-tailed macaques it sent to the hellish laboratory mentioned above are widely considered a threatened species. When PETA and PETA Asia-Pacific e-mailed and called Philippine Airlines asking that the airline explain the discrepancy between the records and its new statement, it quietly removed the statement from its website and Facebook. 

What You Can Do

Clearly, Philippine Airlines is hearing our international protests loud and clear, and we need to keep it up to make sure that it gets out of the monkey business for good. Please call the ticket and cargo offices at the numbers below and politely tell the representative that you will not be giving any business to Philippine Airlines until it stops shipping monkeys to laboratories:

808-840-1100

310-646-1966

650-588-5020

415-217-3144

If you're told that the airline has already stopped, ask the representative to tell you and PETA in writing.

Check out these pictures from two recent protests held by PETA and PETA Asia-Pacific outside Philippine Airlines' offices in San Francisco and Manila, respectively. At stake: the lives of primates shipped by the airline to the U.S. for delivery to experimenters, who will imprison, abuse, and kill the terrified animals.

Philippine Airlines is one of only three major airlines still transporting primates to laboratories. According to documents obtained by PETA, Philippine Airlines shipped 190 macaque monkeys—crammed into tiny crates—from Indonesia to Los Angeles in 2012. All the monkeys were transported in dark, terrifying cargo holds below the feet of unsuspecting passengers.

From L.A., the monkeys were trucked to a Texas quarantine facility run by infamous Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories before being finally transported to the University of Washington in Seattle. Monkeys at this laboratory are commonly infected with diseases, have holes drilled into their skulls, and are deprived of food or water in order to force them to cooperate in experiments.

For the past few months, PETA and PETA Asia-Pacific have been trying to work with the airline to end this practice. Now that talks have broken down, PETA and its affiliates have launched international protest campaigns by holding demonstrations and asking supporters to call the airline's San Francisco office to press officials to end shipments of primates to laboratories. (At one point, the airline was so overwhelmed with calls that it stopped answering its phones!)

How You Can Help

PETA and its international affiliates will continue to protest outside Philippine Airlines' offices worldwide until the carrier bans the transport of primates for experimentation. Please politely urge Philippine Airlines to stop shipping monkeys to laboratories by calling airline officials at 415-217-3150 and by participating in PETA's online action alert. 

Two-time Tony winner and Oscar nominee Viola Davis has sent a letter to state legislators in Rhode Island urging them to support proposed legislation to prevent elephants traveling with circuses from enduring bullhook abuse and long periods of chaining. Davis was raised in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and attended Rhode Island College.

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Smallest State Tackles a Huge Problem

The star of the hotly anticipated Ender's Game hopes the bill will bring about an endgame for the well-documented elephant abuse by circuses that travel within her home state, including Ringling Bros., Cole Bros., and Piccadilly Circus. 

Davis joins Alec Baldwin, Jada Pinkett Smith, Demi Moore, Olivia Munn, and many others—both famous and not so famous—who have spoken out against the use of bullhooks and other practices that cause elephants and other animals forced to travel with circuses to endure great physical and emotional damage.

What You Can Do

If you live in Rhode Island, join Viola Davis in asking your state legislators to support the ban on bullhooks and the chaining of elephants. But no matter where you reside, please do your part to end circus cruelty. 

Carrie Underwood's pretty pipes have made her one of the most influential artists in country music. But now she's piping up about something truly ugly: "ag-gag" bills. Currently being considered in several states, these unconstitutional bills would make it illegal for anyone to shoot video on factory farms in order to expose cruelty to animals, in essence making whistleblowers out to be criminals. That doesn't sit well with this vegan gal, who tweeted, "'@nytimes: Taping of Farm Cruelty Is Becoming the Crime nyti.ms/10HpjWn' What the what? Terrorism? Really? Dumbest. Idea. Ever." 

Elsewhere on Twitter, Amanda Seyfried joined multitudes of celebrities and supporters in defending PETA's euthanasia policy, Ireland Baldwin declared that she's going to go vegan (with a little help from PETA)—we sent her a vegan starter kit, Paul McCartney's "Glass Walls" video, and cookbooks to help her get started—and Leona Lewis vented about England's Grand National horse race:

We love our "Never Be Silent" campaign, and Waka Flocka Flame does, too: He never passes up an opportunity to speak up against the cruelty of fur. This time, in an interview with AOL's TheBoombox, Waka called fur "nasty as hell." We couldn't agree more.

Two and a Half Men's Jon Cryer didn't pass up the opportunity to brag about his two rescued dogs in his Us magazine "25 Things You Don't Know About Me" article. 

And over on NBC, Jimmy Fallon's Late Night audience simultaneously screamed with delight and "Awww"ed when the host talked about how überhunk Ryan Gosling has teamed up with PETA to ask for more humane treatment of cows on dairy farms. 

Hey, girl. Ryan Gosling wants you to keep up with what he's doing for animals by following @PETA on Twitter. 

Last Friday was especially good for animals. In honor of the Christian holiday Good Friday, PETA pigs were out in front of the HoneyBaked Ham store in Oakland, California, and lots of other stores, too, joined by friends holding signs like the one below and "It's a Good Friday to Go Vegan."

We also handed out copies of our "Glass Walls" video and vegan starter kits to curious customers, showing them what really happens to pigs before they become a honey-baked ham. (Spoiler: It's anything but merciful.) It was plenty of food for thought for Easter patrons.

How does your faith or philosophy about life influence your compassion for animals? Tell us in the comments below!

As crowds rallied outside the Supreme Court while the justices heard arguments on landmark cases regarding California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), members of PETA were there to make the point that as Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Like other victims of oppression, animals shouldn't be mistreated because they are different from those in power. We can all stand up to corporate bullies by refusing to buy anything that comes from cruelty. PETA will be outside the Supreme Court again tomorrow as arguments are heard against DOMA.  

PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk put her money where her mouth is—in a very literal sense—in an eye-catching protest outside British retailer Fortnum & Mason's Piccadilly store this week. 

The protest illustrated what geese endure while they are being raised for the foie gras sold in Fortnum & Mason stores. But in order to replicate fully how foie gras is produced, Ingrid would have had to be force-fed several times a day for weeks until her diseased liver had painfully swelled to up to 10 times its normal size.

The process is so cruel that it's illegal in the U.K., but Fortnum & Mason continues to sell foie gras imported from France, where a recent PETA U.K. investigation documented the confinement of geese to crowded, filthy pens and their slaughter while still conscious.

High-profile British venues, including the House of Lords, the House of Commons, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Wimbledon, Lord's Cricket Ground, and all the residences of His Royal Highness Prince Charles, refuse to serve foie gras, and retailers Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, House of Fraser, and Jenners refuse to sell it. PETA UK won't stop until it has added Fortnum & Mason to that list.

We have some news to share about a case that we've mentioned recently: Disreputable animal exhibitor Hugo Liebel, facing a hearing next week in Florida, has instead settled with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding 33 violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA)—several of which sprang from charges that followed PETA complaints to the agency.

Nosey Deserves More

The USDA's consent decision orders Liebel to stop violating the AWA and to pay a civil penalty of $7,500. While it's encouraging to see Liebel called to account for causing so much suffering, the fine is vastly inadequate in light of the severity of his abuse and negligence. (Liebel faced a maximum penalty of $330,000 as well as possible license revocation.)

More critically, it leaves Nosey the elephant and other animals—as well as the public—in danger from his well-documented recklessness and disregard of even minimal welfare guidelines. 

Animals Need Effective Enforcement

PETA has been filing complaints against Liebel for nearly a decade—more than a dozen of them since 2009 alone—about Nosey and the other animals traveling with Liebel. Yet despite multiple citations, he has habitually abused these animals. So PETA is calling on the USDA's inspector general (IG), Phyllis K. Fong, to investigate the settlement.

Over the past two decades, the IG's office has issued four audit reports finding that USDA penalties were so low that they provided no deterrent effect and that AWA licensees view them as merely one of the costs of doing business. Despite assurances that the agency would address this issue following the last audit, Liebel's settlement makes it clear that the problem persists.

What You Can Do

Please join PETA in urging the IG to investigate the USDA settlement with Liebel and require penalties strong enough to curb animal abuse by exhibitors. Send polite e-mails to phyllis.k.fong@usda.gov.

Because of the throngs of people who had gathered outside to protest, it was hard to spot those who were trickling into Brooklyn's Barclays Center on Ringling Bros. circus's opening night. More than 200 animal advocates came together to make sure that Ringling's reception was chillier than a New York winter.

While half the group circled the block, hoisting signs and chanting, the other half flanked the crosswalks and handed leaflets and educational coloring books to parents and children.

If any of the attendees weren't aware of how Ringling abuses animals, they certainly were after they saw the behind-the-scenes photos of trainers slamming baby elephants to the ground, gouging them with steel-tipped bullhooks, and shocking them with electric prods. And if that didn't do the trick, the screening of PETA's video exposé narrated by Alec Baldwin, which showed trainers beating and tormenting elephants, moments before a performance likely did.

Many of the advocates plan to return to the Barclays Center every night that the circus is in town to make sure that everyone in the Big Apple gets the message about cruelty under the big top.