Written by PETA
Remember this?
Hot, right? Well, we have one more stellar Jenna ad to add to her ever-growing body of work with PETA. The super-sexy star just shot a new TV ad in support of our McCruelty campaign, and it will be hitting the airwaves this fall!
In the 30-second spot, Jenna says, "If you ask chickens, there's no such thing as a 'Happy Meal.' Chickens killed for McNuggets are dumped onto conveyer belts. Their fragile legs are slammed into metal shackles. … Spinning blades meant to cut their throats often tear through their wings or bodies instead. Many birds survive this terrifying, painful process, only to be scalded to death in defeathering tanks. There's a less cruel method of slaughter that renders chickens unconscious, but McDonald's chooses to allow birds to be mutilated and scalded instead."
Stay tuned!
Written by Shawna Flavell
If Rover's running with a little more spring in his step today, it may be because he heard the good news. Banfield—the largest network of animal hospitals in the U.S.—has announced that it will stop performing three painful and needless cosmetic procedures: tail-docking, ear-cropping, and debarking.
Banfield's decision follows that of the American Veterinary Medical Association, which, while getting a lot of things wrong during its recent convention in Seattle, got this one right: It upheld its opposition to these vile procedures.
Dr. Karen Faunt, Banfield's vice president for medical quality advancement, notes, "It is our hope that this new medical protocol will help reduce, and eventually eliminate, these cosmetic procedures altogether."
Amen to that! Here's hoping that next on the list is banning the declawing of cats.
Written by Jeff Mackey
Unlike the animated stars of G-Force, real guinea pigs aren't superheroes at all. If they were, they would immediately vaporize the human monsters who subject them to crude and painful experiments.
Every year, more than 200,000 guinea pigs are abused and killed in cruel experiments—they are forced to breathe tobacco smoke, they are locked in chambers for hours at a time and forced to listen to noises as loud as a jet engine, and pregnant guinea pigs are given alcohol to cause birth defects in their babies. Of course, common sense and human-based research tells us that drinking alcohol while pregnant is a no-no, standing next to an airplane when it's taking off is not so good on the ears, and smoking cigarettes can cause disease in nearly every organ of the body.
Wait until Agent Darwin hears about this!
Written by Justin Goodman, Research Associate Supervisor
"[A] living, breathing movie whose horrifying disclosures feel fully earned." —The New York Times
"To watch bleeding dolphins struggle for their last breath, to actually hear their agony, is devastating. … [Y]ou feel culpable just for being part of the species that can teach another mammal tricks, reward it with snacks and pats and at the same time be capable of getting up at dawn to poke it to death with spears." —Time
"[O]ne of the most powerful, heartfelt, and (yes, I'll say it) important 'nature' documentaries I've ever seen." —Cinematical
"[T]he footage is so horrifying, the facts so disturbing. It's not that you can't believe it, but that you don't want to." —The Huffington Post
When this movie hits theaters near you, go!
In an effort to push forward Sir Paul McCartney's plan for "Meat-Free Mondays," PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk has written to U.S. President Barack Obama urging him to help turn the White House into a "green" house by adopting the global initiative.
In her letter, Ingrid points out that "on October 5, 1947, in the first televised White House address, President Truman asked Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursdays to help stockpile grain for starving people in Europe. Today, the number of starving people in the world is on a par with the number of obese people in the U.S., and a restriction on meat and dairy-product intake could help tip those scales for the better."
It's enough to persuade even Bob Geldof that he does like Mondays.
Written by Alisa Mullins
I am deeply concerned that unhealthy school lunches are contributing to our nation's childhood obesity epidemic. School is tough enough already—schools shouldn't have to put up with lunches swimming in fat and cholesterol. It's time for healthier options. —Tobey Maguire
I am deeply concerned that unhealthy school lunches are contributing to our nation's childhood obesity epidemic. School is tough enough already—schools shouldn't have to put up with lunches swimming in fat and cholesterol. It's time for healthier options.
—Tobey Maguire
The Spider-Man star has teamed up with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to encourage public schools to escape the unhealthy web (yeah, I went there) of greasy cafeteria fare and offer healthy vegetarian options. He also says that as a father, "[T]his issue is tremendously important …"
If only all dads were that fly. (All right, I'm done. Promise.)
I remember the first hoarding case I ever went on. The woman would never open the door, and her blinds were kept drawn. Standing on her porch, you could catch a whiff of animal waste, but just a whiff. Since she was unwilling to work with local humane officers, there was only one thing left to do: get a warrant to remove the animals from inside her house.
That day is etched in my mind. When the door finally opened, the smell was so overpowering that seasoned police officers―including one who had just returned from Vietnam―called for masks. Fleas leapt up to bite us all over as we threaded our way through the piles of saved newspapers. There were dead cats among the live ones and, down in the basement, a maggot-covered floor, a broken hot-water pipe spewing steam, and feral cats living in the dark in the rafters.
Not every hoarder has reached that stage, but that was not the last house of animal-hoarding horrors that I saw or helped to bust.
Willow is one of nine puppies who were born to a dog living alongside numerous other animals in the dilapidated home of an indigent hoarder we talked to a few months ago. Our cruelty caseworkers coordinated with local officials to provide this woman with enough food to last her until a kind volunteer could arrange to take the animals out of there―to a decent, reputable animal shelter.
But then it was discovered that the pups were suffering from symptoms consistent with parvovirus. Crowded, squalid conditions—the conditions one typically finds in hoarders' homes—are incubators for communicable diseases. Parvo is a common yet preventable illness that causes uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea, loss of appetite, and eventual death in most cases. Willow was the only puppy to make it out of the house alive, along with nearly a dozen cats.
Willow's story does have a happy ending. The volunteer who drove her to the animal shelter was so smitten with Willow that she adopted her. As you can see from this picture, Willow is enjoying a great life in her new home!
Is that local "sanctuary" that you heard about run by a hoarder? What about that "no-kill" shelter on the outskirts of town? Hopefully not! There are lots of good facilities, for sure. But please be vigilant, because if no one investigates, animals can suffer greatly. Hoarding is a recognized symptom of a particular type of mental illness, which, if left unchecked, leads to animal suffering—and often a slow, miserable death for the animals involved. Hoarders "collect" animals even when they can't care for the ones they already have. They ignore or deny the increasingly substandard (and eventually appalling) living conditions that invariably arise and commonly refuse to seek veterinary care for sick or injured animals. They also often refuse to euthanize animals or take them to open-admission animal shelters—which is why so-called "no-kill sanctuaries" often wind up being a "front" for hoarders.
For animals who are suffering at the hands of hoarders, there is a fate worse than death—a fate that Willow escaped. I know that on my first hoarding case, we were able to rescue dozens of kittens from that horrid home, and I wept to think of how long they had lived like that and for the dozens more who had just crawled under the furniture and perished. To learn more about hoarding and what you can do if you know of a hoarder in your area, please read our factsheet.
Written by Ingrid E. Newkirk
Normally, I channel surf right through competitive food shows (nobody wants to eat trout ice cream, Iron Chef )—but ever since I found out that vegan Natalie Portman will be a guest judge in the upcoming season of Top Chef, I've been counting down the days until the premiere. Well, it looks like we vegans won't have to wait as long as we thought for our moment in the food TV limelight! Top Chef Masters (a Top Chef spin off) has just announced that next week, its contestants will be preparing food for a dinner party hosted by vegan actor and musician Zooey Deschanel. Check out a sneak peek of the episode, which will air Wednesday at 10 p.m.:
Ah, Mr. Smith, it looks like this'll be an especially good exercise for you if your specialty is greasy, unhealthy fried chicken and mac and cheese!
Big thanks to the folks over at Ecorazzi for shooting this our way.
Written by Liz Graffeo
That's the grand total of years that the 18 elephants used and abused by two of Ringling's touring units have been forced to endure beatings, chaining, and standing in cramped, sweltering boxcars. If you break that down, Ringling has tormented just these elephants—they have dozens more—for a total of 5,724 months, 24,804 weeks, or 174,105 days.
To put this in perspective, Baby, Sarah, and Banana (three of the elephants who are traveling with Ringling) were forced to perform for the first time in 1968—the year that Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. We've come a long way since then—or have we?
Ringling talks a big game about "elephant conservation," but the reality is that Ringling has actually removed more elephants from the wild than it has bred. Most of the elephants you see pirouetting and standing on their heads in Ringling performances at one point in their lives roamed vast jungles. You might call it Ringling's other dirty secret (besides that little issue of beating the @#$% out of elephants when they think nobody's looking).
Ringling's elephants are also dying faster than they are breeding: At least 26 elephants, including four babies, have died since 1992. Eight were under the age of 40 (which is just about half an elephant's natural life expectancy of 70 years). Oh, and those babies Ringling does manage to breed are only used to replenish its stocks as other elephants die—they will never be released into the wild—ever.
Pretty depressing, isn't it? Ringling must be using some kind of new math to make all that add up to "conservation."
If you follow the jump, you can read about each of the elephants—and the life sentences to which Ringling has condemned them.
As a dedicated Chelsea Lately fan, I was thrilled last night when Chelsea Handler opened her show with the announcement that she had adopted a mutt she has named Chunk from an animal shelter.
Chelsea has joined the growing list of celebrities who are showing the world that the era of the "purse pup" is so over—compassion is the new trend. Chunk is definitely one lucky pup to join the Handler brood, because Chelsea is obviously as kind as she is hilarious.
Now, with a faithful new companion by her side, I've got to ask the question that's on everyone's mind—what's going to happen to Chuy?!
Written by Christine Doré
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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