Written by PETA
I thought living downwind of the reeking refineries in east Houston reflected badly on the oil industry, but that's just a mere annoyance compared to the suffering of bulls at the hands of oil companies in India. That's why one of our friends from PETA India took over the stage at the Oil and Gas Review Summit and International Exhibition in Mumbai to urge India's wealthy oil biz leaders to replace carts drawn by bulls with modern, non-animal forms of transport. The PETA India staffer was dragged out of the conference—chanting "Shame!"
Let's hope that she opened some eyes (and hearts). Most of the bulls used to transport fuel from oil ports to rationing stations in Mumbai are underfed and malnourished and kept in filthy conditions, and many suffer from chronic inflammation, maggot-infested wounds, infections, or intestinal problems. They are forced to work until they are exhausted, pulling heavy loads through all weather extremes.
To learn how you can help end these bullocks' suffering, see PETA India's action alert and please make a donation to Animal Rahat, which was created to make a difference in the lives of working bullocks, donkeys, ponies and horses.
Written by Jeff Mackey
It's so hot in the city, you'd think I'd be making another batch of lemonade—but I've got a hankering for some Internet Soup. It's been a while since the last batch, so dig in!
Oof! I don't know about you, but I'm full after all that soup—and guac. This Special K needs a siesta. Until next time …
Written by Karin Bennett
Kudos to Kevin Costner. Haunted by images of the animals who were covered in oil after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, Kevin has been funding a team of scientists for the past 15 years to develop a device that can help clean up oil spills by separating oil from ocean water. BP tested six of these machines last month in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently the company was impressed by the machines' nearly 100 percent success rate at separating oil from water, because it has just ordered 32 more. Our hats are off to Kevin for his compassion and generosity. We hope that his machines will save many animals by preventing more oil from reaching the shore.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
Remember the Exxon Valdez disaster? It may soon be seen as small potatoes compared to the ever-spreading, ever-gushing oil spill off the Gulf Coast. But when it comes to how oil affects wildlife, even "minor" spills can cause major damage. As the International Bird Rescue Research Center points out, millions of birds die every year because of oil from jet skis and motorboats as well as oil washed off streets and into storm drains after it rains. That makes it pretty important to watch out for improper trash disposal.
But here's a surprise: Much of the oil used in America is used to produce meat. It takes approximately 10 times more fossil fuels to produce meat than to produce vegan foods.
So instead of blaming big business for oil spills, let's encourage people to do something positive! Ask everyone you know to curb America's appetite for oil and reduce the chances of devastating spills—of both oil and manure—by going vegan. You might also consider making a donation to an organization that works day in and day out saving wildlife, including birds who are unlucky enough to suffer as a result of human carelessness.
Written by Heather Moore
Officials are scrambling to contain the beyond-massive oil spill that's headed for the Gulf Coast and its wetlands and wildlife areas. At times like this, I know it's popular to blame big business, and that's fair enough. But in a free-enterprise system, business only gets big (and sloppy and greedy) because of consumer demand. This morning, PETA delivered that message to Alabama residents by flying a banner over downtown Mobile reading "Meat on Your Grill = Oil Spill."
Raising animals for food causes environmental devastation on a massive scale, and oil spills can be blamed in large part on the oil-guzzling meat industry—which owes its existence to the meat-guzzling public. According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it takes more than 10 times as much fossil fuel to produce a calorie of animal protein as it takes to produce the same amount of plant protein.
This disaster will have a devastating, long-lasting impact on the region and its residents, including more than 400 animal species, but crying over spilled oil and blaming big corporations won't make a difference. To ease tremendous animal suffering, safeguard human health, and help prevent oil spills, go vegan.
President Obama's decision to allow oil and gas drilling along the East Coast isn't sitting well with some politicians and environmentalists, who worry that new infrastructure and possible oil spills will harm the environment and animals. But there's a bigger culprit: factory farming.
More than one-third of all the fossil fuels produced in the U.S. are used to raise animals for food, and factory-farm waste lagoons are a leading source of water pollution in the U.S. People can best help conserve resources, save the environment, and save animals' lives by kicking the meat and dairy addiction. To spread the word, PETA has asked the Department of the Interior to "dress up" oil rigs with educational banners and to serve only vegan meals aboard the drilling rigs.
Those rootin' Teutons at PETA Deutschland (that's Germany, for those who don't sprechen the language) are always up to something interesting. Here's one recent example of their work for animals.
Working with the Düsseldorf duck hotline (best duck hotline name ever, don't you think?), PETA Germany campaigner Stefan Bröckling has rescued four swans at the port of Neuss. The birds were sitting at the water's edge, totally exhausted, their feathers covered in what appeared to be cooking oil.
PETA Germany became involved after a Frau Münchs noticed an oily surface on the water and then saw eight swans with very wet-looking feathers—not at all typical for water birds—trying vigorously to groom themselves. And this wasn't the first time: Last year, at least six swans were affected in a similar incident there.
Ms. Münchs contacted local officials who gave her the ol' runaround before someone at the harbormaster's office finally admitted that a broken filter at an oil production company had leaked oil into the water. The office claimed, however, that the oil had since been removed and that they considered the situation to be under control, adding that the oil is supposed to degrade by itself in the bird's feathers.
Nice try, but we'd have to call Stier Scheiße (you will have to look that up) on that old line …
Or, as PETA Germany's Stefan put it: "That's simply wrong; the oil decomposes the protecting layer of fat within water birds' feathers and soaks in deeper and deeper as time passes. The feathers soak up water like a sponge; the swans lose body temperature and die in the end."
Stefan rescued four swans, but one had already died and the three other oiled birds are still missing. PETA Germany is now looking into filing a complaint for cruelty to animals against the oil producers as well as pushing officials to take the dumping of cooking oils more seriously.
It's a good thing that Ms. Münchs was vigilant and blew the whistle. If you want to know more about how to help wildlife, check this out.
Today, PETA sent a letter to the National Football League asking that convicted dogfighter Michael Vick be subjected to a psychological test as well as an MRI brain scan like the one now in use at the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility in order to look for evidence of clinical psychopathy or anti-social personality disorder. Based on the fact that Vick funded and participated in a massive dogfighting operation (playing a direct role in hanging, drowning, or shooting countless dogs—and even slamming dogs to the ground to break their backs), it might seem obvious that there's something wrong with the guy. But whether or not Vick is indeed a clinical psychopath is an important piece of a bigger puzzle.
For the past 18 months, PETA has been meeting with Vick's management and legal teams behind the scenes about having Vick deliver a strong anti-dogfighting TV spot. If Vick is truly remorseful for what he's done, as he's said publically and privately, then a message from him telling people to stop these crimes could get through to dogfighters who relate to him. However, that's a big "if."
The only way to know for sure if Vick can change his ways is for him to submit himself for a brain scan and psychological test. Based on a number of factors—such as the fact that the right side of the hippocampus is larger than the left in 94 percent of captured psychopaths—these tests can help determine if Vick can ever truly understand that dog fighting is a sick, cruel business. Or, they could suggest that he's doomed to repeat mean, violent behavior in the future—whether with dogs or other human beings. And given that Vick plans to be around a lot of kids, to give talks to them, and to be a star in their eyes again, the world deserves to know who he is inside.
Vick's lawyers have run screaming, but unless and until he passes such a test, PETA will not participate in the production of a Michael Vick anti-dogfighting PSA. We hope that the NFL will require such a test as a precondition to even discussing the possibility of Vick's reinstatement. You can click here to add your name to a petition calling on the NFL to stick to its guns and maintain Vick's suspension until he's taken and passed a brain scan and psychological evaluation.
Written by Dan Shannon
The following is an op-ed from PETA president Ingrid E. Newkirk
Like many who watched President Barack Obama’s inauguration, I wasn’t made in America, but I’m a typical American: I’m from somewhere else.
In my case, I was conceived in Denmark, grew up on the wild, rugged Cornish coast of England and was sent to school in the Orkney Islands, crossing the sea in a light plane. Next stop, France, where we children wore clogs to school, then eight years among the bears in the everlasting snows near Shimla, India, followed by a marriage in Spain during the frightening days of martial law under General Franco. My home is now a medium-sized riverside town in the United States. I’ve been an American for the last 30 years.
America is a melting pot—I can describe the people of this country by talking about the people of Uganda, Uruguay or Utah. Some Americans may move people to tears of joy while others provoke them to react with disgust, but Americans are no better or worse than anyone else. We are all of us preoccupied with our own worries about relationships and children, health and mortality. Some are bursting with love, while others are scarred and filled with hate. Most are a bundle of mixed emotions.
But there are some universal values that transcend all differences and create a bond between people—and animals—such as understanding, helping and sacrifice. Once when I was in India, I saw a homeless woman on a bridge remove a handful of boiled rice from the hem of her skirt, place it on a flat leaf and push it a few inches away from her. A mother street dog appeared, wagging her tail very softly, humbly, her head down in a submissive pose. The woman let the mother dog eat, squatting beside her and guarding her so that she could feel safe while she took her meal.
These values were also present when a plane crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C., one winter, its wing flaps too frozen to move. People of all nationalities, for it was Washington after all, were caught in their cars on that bridge. News footage showed many people fleeing on foot as best they could. Others leaned over the bridge rail, frantically trying to determine whether there was anything that they could do, anything at all, even shouting encouragement over the wind and the snow to the passengers trying to stay alive in the frigid water below.
When tales were told afterward, it was no surprise that, finding themselves in a cabin filling up with ice water, some people had trampled and shoved aside other passengers in their panic to stay alive. But one man, an American, remained in the river, his body half in, half out of the plane, using his strength to hoist other, less able passengers out of the wreckage. He helped for as long as he could before his fingers and feet froze and he died. I am sure that he did not ask or care where anyone was from.
America is called the “melting pot” because it is home to people of all races, creeds, colors and religions. Yet America is not perfect, and among our citizens, we have the best and the worst and the middling. Within a few generations, the young often forget or even disavow their grandparents’ or earlier ancestors’ migrations, but no one can alter the fact that all of us, even those of us called Native Americans, are from somewhere else. And all of us are, in the ways that truly count, simply residents of this planet with the potential to be compassionate citizens.
Written by Ingrid E. Newkirk
When we read that the CDC recently published a report that showed that only one in 200 American kids is vegetarian, we were confused to say the least. With peta2's e-news list alone reaching well over 1,000,000 kids and growing at a staggering rate every month, the math just didn't add up.
We decided to do some digging around. After speaking with the lead author of the study, we learned that the intention of the survey was not to find out the eating habits of American children, but instead was focused on complementary and alternative medicine. In fact, the only two questions regarding a vegetarian lifestyle were the following (via VeganHealth.org):
During the past 12 months did [your child] use any of the following special diets for two weeks or more for health reasons? Please say yes or no to each. [Vegetarian was one of the options.] During the past 12 months did [your child] use a vegetarian diet to treat a specific health problem or condition other than weight control or weight loss?
During the past 12 months did [your child] use any of the following special diets for two weeks or more for health reasons? Please say yes or no to each. [Vegetarian was one of the options.]
During the past 12 months did [your child] use a vegetarian diet to treat a specific health problem or condition other than weight control or weight loss?
So, this study only accounted for kids who are vegetarian for health reasons. Any child who is vegetarian for ethical, environmental, religious, or other reasons wasn't factored in. And since the majority of kids we talk to go vegetarian because they care about the animals, it's pretty obvious that the number of vegetarian kids in America is waaaaay higher than one in 200.
Written by Liz Graffeo
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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