Written by PETA
Many people just don't realize how horrible glue traps are for mice, rats, and unintended victims such as birds and kittens—or that Lowe's refuses to stop selling these cruel devices. Well, PETA's "mouse" enlightened shoppers outside a Lowe's in Charlotte, North Carolina, yesterday—just in time for the company's annual meeting, which takes place today.
I bet the gal with phone in the photo above is tapping out an e-mail to Lowe's bigwigs. Or she could be reminding her Facebook friends to be nice to mice. Please cover all the bases by doing both. Small, sensitive animals thank you in advance.
Written by Karin Bennett
Our neighbors to the south have been busy bees for animals lately. Last Saturday, more than 9,000 people took part in a massive activist-organized march for animal rights in Mexico City. How inspiring are these pics?!
The event raised tons of awareness, got lots of media coverage, and allowed organizers to gather more than 6,500 signatures on a petition asking the government to introduce tougher penalties—including jail time—for people who are convicted of cruelty to animals. Not bad for a day's work.
If you are the mood for a margarita and a march for animals, swing by Mexico City on June 27 to join this stellar group of people for another march in honor of Mexico City's official Animal Rights Day. Or if you are just feeling inspired by all this activism, be an amigo to animals by trying one or two of PETA's easy summer outreach ideas.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
Congratulations to white-hot menswear designer John Bartlett, who just received the American Image Award for Designer of the Year from the American Apparel & Footwear Association. This trendsetting designer is as notable for his compassion as he is for his clothing—he recently announced that he has gone vegan and that the collection that he showed in February will be his last to include leather!
As Bartlett explained, "After working in the fashion industry for over 15 years, I have had a recent awakening of sorts and am committed going forward to discontinue all use of leather. I am very alarmed by the recent resurgence of fur on the runways and will be reaching out to my colleagues about the realities of this horrific aspect of our industry. I am presently working to develop a vegan shoe and accessory line and have gone vegan after discovering the devastating state of factory farming."
And if that's not enough to make you a fan, consider this: When asked by an interviewer what he would do if he weren't a designer, he said he thought that he would be working with dogs in animal shelters. Awwww. Way to go, John!
Written by Jeff Mackey
The following is a post that originally appeared on PETA Prime.
Because of your support, PETA is able to work in local communities, helping individual animals in need. Thousands of animals are helped by PETA's Community Animal Project (CAP) each year. This is the second in a series of posts chronicling the work of CAP—this post is from Amanda Kyle, fieldworker for CAP. The first post can be found here.
As a CAP fieldworker, I was out one day delivering doghouses and straw bedding to dogs who are forced to live outdoors when a passerby alerted me to two semi-feral dogs suffering from severe skin infections. When I stopped by to check on the situation, I found these two frightened puppies living on what appeared to be an abandoned property. They wouldn't let me get close enough to touch them. Both dogs had bloody sores and were missing a lot of hair. No one was home, so I left a note, gave the dogs food, and put straw bedding inside a wooden box that seemed to serve as their "house."
I tried for several days to track down these suffering puppies' guardian—I talked to neighbors and stopped by at different times but could find no one who seemed to know anything. The puppies had been surviving off scraps that neighbors and passersby left for them.
Days later, when I stopped by, this time at night, the temperature was 18 degrees, and the note I left the first day was still on the door. I couldn't leave these puppies out there any longer. I can't even imagine how painful the below-freezing temperatures must have felt on their cracked, bleeding skin. I spent hours trying to catch these poor, frightened puppies, and I finally succeeded in coaxing them into carriers.
A vet determined that they both had a severe case of mange covering about 80 percent of their bodies. Their skin was also badly infected from the bleeding wounds, and they were suffering from a severe hookworm infestation. The vet who examined them gave medications to give them a little relief while we continued our search for the puppies' guardian, but the vet recommended euthanasia because of the severity of their condition. By this time, the two puppies seemed to have realized that my team and I were all there to help, and they warmed up to us quite well. They even let us pet them, so we were able to give them the love and attention that they craved—likely the only time they'd ever received any at all.
While I spent several more days trying to track down a guardian for these pups, another one of our fieldworkers brought the puppies home to stay with her and her two dogs. For those few days, these two sweet pups got to experience things that all dogs deserve to have every day, all their lives—shelter, regular meals, veterinary care, companionship, and compassion.
Even though the puppies were so much better off than when I found them, they were still suffering terribly. The medication gave them only a little relief from the infections that had grown so severe during the months with no medical treatment and poor nutrition. Had I left them where I found them—abandoned, freezing, and hungry—their condition would only have gotten worse and caused them even more pain over the days or weeks before they succumbed to their ailments. They likely would have died a miserable death. Because of their terrible suffering, we took the veterinarian's recommendation of euthanasia and gave these angels a peaceful release from their pain and suffering.
Even though this was such a sad case, I'm so thankful that we got the chance to give these dogs some care and much-needed relief. Part of what is so important about CAP's work is that I get to help animals for whom no other help is available. PETA's spay-neuter clinics are lowering the number of homeless animals in this region so that in the future, all pups (and kittens) will be born into loving homes, not on the streets. Until that day, we won't turn away from those who are in need, even though our hearts break while carrying out this work.
Amanda Kyle goes out into the community every day to rescue and improve the lives of animals in PETA’s own neighborhood.
I think that even Team Coco will agree that it's a sad day for The Tonight Show: Kevin Eubanks, longtime leader of The Tonight Show Band, PETA pal, and vegetarian—and the finest-looking strawberry you'll ever see—is ending his 18-year stint on the show. It's rumored that he's going to take this time to tour and record, but after taking a minute to reminisce with me and watching his hilarious veggie testimonial, you'll be left wondering if he doesn't have sketch comedy plans:
What an appealing guy—I bet he'd make a good banana too (har, har).
We're sure his future endeavors will be hugely successful. Best of luck, Kevin, and keep using your musical talent and your wonderful sense of humor to help animals!
Written by Heather Moore
No one—and I mean no one—rocks like Chrissie Hynde. Whether she's fronting the Pretenders or backing a PETA campaign, the vegan Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is never in the "Middle of the Road." In fact, she's always willing to go the extra mile (or "2000 Miles") to help animals.
Case in point? After helping us re-launch our McCruelty campaign last year—urging McDonald's to require its U.S. suppliers to upgrade to less cruel slaughter standards—Chrissie took time off from promoting her upcoming album in New York this week to kick off our new "i'm hatin' it" national ad blitz with an appearance in Philadelphia. And to make sure that people got the message, she not only unveiled her attention-grabbing billboard, she also passed out some of our thought-provoking Unhappy Meals to the fine folks of Philly!
Check out these pictures:
"I have been in many lunchrooms during lunch period and can attest to the food that is frequently lacking from a nutritional perspective and very high in saturated fats. … What our bill will do is provide some lower-fat and lower-cholesterol ways for kids to get the nutrition that they need to be healthy." —U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) on the Healthy School Meals Act, which would start a $4 million pilot program to incorporate vegetarian food and drinks into school districts' lunch programs over a two-year period.
We'll cheer for that! Considering that vegetarian diets have been proven to curb childhood obesity, which remains a crisis in the U.S., Polis's proposed legislation would save kids and animals.
Many schools across the nation have already successfully adopted humane menus. Encourage your local schools to do the same.
Written by Logan Scherer
As if we needed another reminder that wild animals are not wind-up toys, a capuchin monkey reportedly being kept as a "service animal" by a man in Chesapeake, Virginia, bit the man so severely that he had to be hospitalized. A video that aired on a local news broadcast showed the monkey's cage and the floor surrounding it sprayed with the man's blood.
Dangerous attacks are just one of the many downsides to keeping primates as "pets" (remember Travis?) and/or using them for assistance or therapy. Monkeys who are trained for Helping Hands, an organization that provides monkeys to quadriplegics and other physically disabled people, are torn away from their mothers within days or weeks of birth—separations that are extremely traumatic for both mother and baby. Because monkeys are known to be prone to biting, some or all of the monkeys' teeth are usually pulled. (The Chesapeake man apparently did not obtain his monkey from Helping Hands, because the monkey's teeth appear to be intact.)
Capuchin monkeys are intelligent and highly social animals who naturally live in groups and spend most of their time in trees. In the jungles and forests where they belong, capuchins raise families and have intricate communication systems. They race through tree canopies with astonishing speed and accuracy. Because they are extremely active, messy, and destructive, captive capuchins often spend much of their time confined, alone, to cages—a far cry, both literally and figuratively, from their vibrant jungle homes.
No one can debate the tremendous challenges faced by disabled people, but forcing monkeys to bridge the gap is not the most humane—or the safest—answer. With so many people having lost their jobs during the economic downturn, it seems like it would make more sense to hire them as "helping hands" than to continue to force monkeys into a lifetime of servitude far from their families and natural habitats.
Written by Alisa Mullins
Really-old-but-still-totally-relevant history lesson (it's quick—I promise!): The Ancient Greeks were so awed by dolphins, whom they deemed friends to humans, that every time they spotted one swimming behind a ship, they considered him or her a good omen. Now, a new study suggests that in order to respect our marine friends and cognitive cousins, we must simply stay away from them. Findings from researchers at Newcastle University suggest that human interactions with dolphins—from following them in tourist boats to swimming with them to touching them—are harmful to these intelligent, sensitive mammals.
The report claims that when humans swim near bottlenose dolphins and touch them, they inflict severe stress on them, "preventing them from resting, feeding or nurturing their young." The study found that whenever tourist boats are present, dolphins become unsettled, and according to Newcastle University's Dr. Berggen, "[T]he dolphins are using more energy than they are taking in because they aren't resting or feeding as much but are swimming more as they try to avoid the tourist boats." This has a negative impact not only on individual animals but also on the population as a whole, and long term, it could be devastating.
Every dolphin is a self-aware individual with a unique personality, so it's no surprise that these animals are perceptive to their surroundings and susceptible to stress-related illnesses. If they're so intensely affected by the mere presence of humans, just imagine the kind of irreparable trauma they suffer when pulled from the ocean and placed in SeaWorld's chemically treated prisons. The only way that we can ensure that they'll live natural, happy, and peaceful lives? Leave them alone—no matter where they are.
I can't think of a better way to ring in spring than to make like a garden and go green—which is why I'm stoked for tomorrow's Meatout.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the nationwide celebration of cruelty-free eating, and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has gone the extra mile by officially designating tomorrow Michigan Meatout Day and encouraging all the state's residents "to choose not to eat meat." Her humane declaration has members of the state's cattle, meat, and dairy industries up in arms, calling on the governor to end Michigan Meatout.
Not one to let bullies push her around, Granholm has stuck by her proclamation to promote a healthy, kind, and environmentally conscious diet. While Granholm puts the uber in "gubernatorial," tell us how you plan to bring tomorrow's festivities to your community.
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.
Follow PETA on Twitter!