Written by PETA
Show me a bag of pork rinds and two things will happen. First, images like this and that will race through my mind. Then I'll get choked up.
The revolting* "snack" made a truck driver named Edward Sutherland get choked up too—only his reaction was apparently not prompted by thoughts of what animals endured before they went down his gullet. Mr. Sutherland lost control of his rig, which careened across the interstate, jackknifed, and landed in a ditch.
The truck did not hit any other vehicles, and Mr. Sutherland walked away with minor injuries—and a citation for driving with his wheels off the road. Had I been the cop at the scene, I might have let him go with a warning—to eat only Pirate's Booty. How would you complete the following: "____—now that vegan snack is the ticket!"
Written by Karin Bennett
*If you know any people who don't think that eating fried pigskin is revolting, they just might after you show them this video of how it's made.
As a die-hard baseball fan (go Rockies!), I was bummed to hear that the iconic Field of Dreams has been put up for sale. But I broke out my foam finger when I heard about PETA's proposal to temporarily lease the Iowa landmark for "The Field of Nightmares: Pig Empathy Display."
Iowa is the number one pork-producing state and pigs raised for meat get more of a bum rap than Shoeless Joe Jackson. In addition to the everyday abuses that pigs suffer on factory farms, they are often harmed in other ways. For instance, an undercover investigation of a Hormel supplier in Iowa documented that workers beat pigs with rods and sexually abused them with canes.
PETA's Pig Empathy Display will teach visitors how they can stop the abuse of these smart, sweet, and adorable animals by leaving pork off their plates. Did I mention that there will also be faux-pork Riblets and stickers? Score!
We'll keep you posted. While you're waiting, please take a moment to contact Hormel and demand that the company follow PETA's nine-point policy to help stop cruelty at its suppliers' pig farms.
Written by Amy Skylark Elizabeth
Regular readers already know that we at the PETA Files think that pigs are appealing even when they're squealing. But it's thanks to the work of professor Stanley Curtis, who passed away on Sunday, that we know that no matter how beguiling pigs may be, you shouldn't let them hustle you into playing Super Street Fighter IV with them. During his time at the University of Illinois, professor Curtis discovered that pigs can play and excel at joystick-controlled video games.
He observed that "there is much more going on in terms of thinking and observing by these pigs than we would ever have guessed." Pigs did better at video games than some primates (and, yes, based on my gaming scores, I fall into that group).
So cook up some "fakin' bacon" in professor Curtis' memory and then see how far you can get in the New Super Chick Sisters game without help from our porcine pals!
Written by Jeff Mackey
David Luciano—winner of the Toronto Film School's Best Director Award—turns the tables on humans in "Dirty Pig," a new short film that's sure to result in lots of forsaken bacon:
The scariest part of "Dirty Pig"? Considering that a pig is smarter than a 3-year-old child, Luciano's bloody role reversal isn't so far from the truth.
Written by Logan Scherer
Nothing ruins a road trip more than seeing an 18-wheeler driving down the highway crammed tight with animals destined for slaughter. From state to state, regardless of weather, animals are carted from factory farms and feedlots—where they suffer short, miserable lives—to slaughterhouses, where their throats are cut or they are scalded alive in baths of hot water. In transit, they are forced to face the blazing summer heat or freezing winter winds while being deprived of food, water, or rest—and sometimes they become the victims of highway accidents.
Today, we're thrilled to report that at PETA's request, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has instructed its 8,000 inspectors in procedures to help enforce the 28-Hour Law—a federal statute requiring that cows, pigs, and other farmed animals be fed, watered, and allowed to rest after 28 hours on the road. As a result of this regulatory nudge, transport conditions will improve for the estimated 50 million farmed animals who are annually transported for long distances and denied their basic necessities.
The FSIS's notice to its inspectors helps address the deplorable treatment of animals in transit from factory farms to slaughterhouses. A former pig transporter told PETA that pigs are "packed in so tight, their guts actually pop out their butts—a little softball of guts actually comes out." In hot weather, many cows who are on their way to slaughter collapse in the heat, and in the cold, cows sometimes freeze to the sides of the truck until workers pry them off with crowbars. Like cows and pigs, chickens are usually given no food or water and are shipped through all weather conditions. People who spot chicken-transport trucks on the highway frequently report seeing the heads of dead and dying chickens protruding from the crates.
We applaud FSIS for informing its inspectors of how they can report suspected violations of the 28-Hour Law for investigation. Of course, the only true way to prevent the suffering of animals used for food is to go vegan, but with these landmark actions, what was once a nightmarish and often fatal trip will hopefully become a little more bearable.
When your full-time job is extracting brains from pigs' heads, irreparable trauma and polyradiculoneuropathy are all in a day's work. Polyradic … huh?
Polyradiculoneuropathy is a painful nerve disorder that attacks the peripheral nerves and the spine nerve roots. Earlier this month, a study revealed that 24 slaughterhouse workers had developed the disease after inhaling pig-brain tissue mist.
We always knew that working at a slaughterhouse messes with your head, but now we can say it actually attacks your brain.
One Australian farmer could've used our swine flu mask recently, but not for the reason you might think. After smelling what he thought was a gas leak, he called emergency services, and two fire trucks rushed over to his farm. When the fire captain came in, he took one look at the man's pig, and it was immediately apparent that the foul air was a gas problem of a different sort: They were all getting a whiff of the pig's wind.
If a single sow's fetid flatulence is enough to warrant the attention of 15 firefighters, then imagine the gaseous trail left by the 63 million pigs on factory farms. Turns out that going vegan helps reduce more than one type of gaseous emission.
When I was 16 years old, I was invited to a picnic. When I arrived, I was shocked to realize that I'd actually been invited to a pig roast—big difference. The sight of a whole charred pig turning on a spit with an apple stuck in his mouth was all I needed to convince myself that I'd never eat pork, i.e. pig, again.
The pig was already dead, and I knew nothing about his journey from his mother's womb to the fire pit. I didn't need to—after all, I called myself an "animal lover," so it was a simple, logical decision. If I wouldn't eat my dog, I wasn't going to eat a pig.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that pigs and other animals on factory farms routinely endure horrific abuses, millions of people continue to happily chow down on hot dogs and ham. Today, Fox News offers food for thought—the Web site is featuring exclusive undercover video footage taken by Mercy for Animals at Country View Family Farms, one of Pennsylvania's largest pork producers and a Hatfield Quality Meat supplier.
The video shows a slew of horrors, including workers as they hurl baby pigs and slam them into transport carts, pick piglets up by their ears and tails, cut off the animals' tails with pliers, and rip off their testicles with their bare hands without any painkillers. (The sound of screaming piglets in the video made my skin crawl.) Their squealing mothers are shown scrambling to escape workers who slam spiked mallets into the animals' sides. Many pigs bear sores from their constant confinement—one mother pig suffered an excruciating prolapsed rectum for at least 13 days before she was killed.
Folks, this video is tough to view (I had to pause it three times), but as caring people, we owe it to ourselves and the animals it shows to watch it and then pass it on to others—along with a link to GoVeg.com. You can share the video and the link via e-mail, via a link on your Facebook page, and via "tweets." Anyone you know who still needs convincing that animals suffer on factory farms won't question it after they've watched this footage.
Well, we tried—but our permit to set up a factory farm display on the steps of the U.S. Capitol has been denied. Apparently, the Capitol Police thought that such a display posed "significant public health concerns about the possible spread of the H1N1 virus."
Hmm. That just might have been our point.
So, it's not safe to allow members of congress and lobbyists to be exposed to factory farms, but it looks like tough luck for the millions of Americans in rural areas who have to live amidst the poisonous waste of factory farms. And although the president has declared swine flu a national emergency, the government continues to prop up the industry that caused the crisis (to the tune of $62.6 million in one year alone—with the possibility of $250 million more in the coming fiscal year).
What do you think?
Written by Amanda Schinke
Paris has done it again. She's gotten herself another animal. This time she's purchased a pot-bellied pig who will surely be tossed aside faster than last year's "it" bag when the skeevy socialite tires of her.
Pot bellied pigs are inquisitive animals who require a lot of care and attention. Paris has burned through Chihuahuas, ferrets, and kinkajous in the past, so there's no reason to think that an animal who will undoubtedly root through her precious Manolos will grow old by her side as her BFF.
Pot-bellied pigs were all the rage in the 80s, a decade that had some truly unfortunate trends, but Paris seems bent on resurrecting them all. It's one thing for her to rake up fashion violations like this, but it's quite another to make animals suffer. If we could have the ex-con arrested for being so uncaring, we would.
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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