No! Say it isn't so. Doesn't Janet Jackson know that …

Animals suffer miserable lives and agonizing deaths to become fur cuffs and collars?

Surely she considered the "fan fallout" from this unwise, uncaring decision, which is supremely …

Tacky, cruel, inexcusable—help me out, people, are ...

You as disappointed by her decision as I am? Join us in asking Janet to donate the stolen skins so that they can be used as bedding for orphaned animals.

Written by Karin Bennett

Pleple2000 / CC by 2.0

Earlier this week, we told you the cautionary tale of a pork rind–munching trucker who nearly choked to death. Now we turn your attention to a report about a man who, after shooting and butchering a domestic pig, took a bullet himself after his dog stepped on the loaded rifle that the man had placed on the front seat of his pickup truck. The man is expected make a full recovery.

So here's some food for thought: If pig-eaters aren't concerned that their habit is cruel to animals. and dangerous to their own health and the environment, will the increasing threat of cosmic justice convince them to drop the chops? Your thoughts?

Written by Karin Bennett

Our honorary director, Pamela "Bombshell" Anderson, dazzled her Québécois admirers as she hit Montréal today to launch her latest global ad campaign for PETA.

Order the Poster

One small snag: City officials suddenly decided to prohibit the unveiling at its original location, claiming that the ad is sexist. It sounds like they're confusing "sexist," with "sexy," don't you think? Not missing a beat, Pam decided to unveil the ad instead at her news conference for the Just for Laughs festival, for which she's hosting a gala tonight. In the ad, as you can see, each of her perfectly sculpted body parts is clearly labeled like a traditional butcher's diagram.* The message? "All Animals Have the Same Parts."

Pam's striking ad offers a reminder that cows, pigs, and chickens are flesh, blood, and bone, just like us. Looking at any animal as a collection of breasts, shoulders, and ribs to be hacked apart is unthinkable. Or as the lovely Ms. Anderson herself said, "Humans and animals have a lot more similarities than differences. Both have a brain, a nervous system, and most importantly, a heart. And that's why I'm a vegetarian. I hope that this new campaign helps people come to the same conclusion."

Written by Jeff Mackey

*How cool is it that a Google image search for "butcher's diagram" turns up so many pictures of PETA campaigns?

Resolute / CC by 3.0

Update: Six horses died during this year's Calgary Stampede. Please take action and ask the Stampede sponsors to disassociate themselves from the event.

As if Canada's annual seal massacre isn't enough, the Calgary Stampede adds to the country's annual death toll. This year it's rodeo business as usual—five horses have already died and the event doesn't end until Sunday.

A fifth horse died yesterday 40 minutes after being forced to participate in the chuckwagon races. These are the Stampede's deadliest events, in which teams of four horses pull old-fashioned "pioneer" wagons around a track at breakneck speed—and often break their bodies as a result. In previous years, we've written to all the sponsors of these endurance races asking them to pull the plug, and we've called upon the chief crown prosecutor to file cruelty-to-animals charges. The Humane Society of Canada has also called for a boycott of the event. So far, except for the death rattle of the horses and the yahooing of the crowd, silence!

Please get everyone you know to tell those who are still sponsoring the Calgary Stampede that the chuckwagon races must be canceled permanently.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Animals across Japan are making a bid for freedom (hopefully, captive animals everywhere are taking notes). First, a dolphin who was being forced to perform stupid tricks for loud, obnoxious audiences day in and day out at Japan's Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium decided that he'd had enough. During a performance, he leaped over the side of his tiny tank. Unfortunately, he landed on the concrete instead of being transported back to his ocean home.

Then, earlier this week, 15 monkeys at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute (PRI) escaped from an enclosure (dubbed a "forest home" in news reports—yeah, right) by using tree branches to fling themselves over a 17-foot-high electric fence.

Sadly, freedom was short-lived for the monkeys as well. All the runaways were eventually recaptured. The head of PRI said that the monkeys didn't stray too far, probably because they wanted to be near the monkeys who were left behind.

Someone should listen to the SOS signals that animals in captivity are sending. Instead of keeping dolphins in chemically treated tanks and forcing them to "dance" for fish or locking monkeys in enclosures so that vivisectors can drill holes into their skulls, attach electrodes to their brains, and fasten small wire coils directly to their eyes to study eye movement (which is what some experimenters at PRI do), we should be leaving animals in the wild.

Please take action today to help us free captive marine mammals and put an end to senseless and cruel experiments on monkeys and other animals.

Written by Shawna Flavell

Dear Cleveland,

We know that it's hard to let go of LeBron James. Our hearts melted for you when we heard that he signed with the Miami Heat, so we thought we'd cruise around Cleveland today, doing something really cool to lift your spirits: handing out free Tofutti Cuties in outfits that would make most cheerleaders blush.

These vegan cuties (the soy ice cream, that is) are the perfect way to "beat the heat." But we are also big softies for animals and the Earth. Did you know that raising animals for food is a major cause of greenhouse-gas emissions? A recent U.N. report concluded that a global shift toward a vegan diet is necessary to combat the worst effects of climate change. Plus, switching to a dairy-free diet reduces the suffering of cows and can help lower your risk of cancer, heart disease, and obesity—meaning that you'll be in your stadium seats cheering on the Cavs for years to come.

So keep your chin up Cleveland. You'll go on without LeBron. And please enjoy the Tofutti Cuties on us!

Love,

PETA's "Cleavage Cavalier" Cuties

Life can be treacherous for everyone living in a war zone. Homeless dogs have been gunned down in Baghdad, and there are even rumors that the Taliban are training monkeys to use guns. (Hey, I said that it's a rumor.) But thanks to a few big-hearted Marines, two lucky cats, now named Kiki and Keykey, have been rescued from a dangerous area in Afghanistan.

When Lance Cpl. Chris Berry, Cpl. Brian Chambers, and Lance Cpl. Aaron Shaw of the U.S. Marine Corps noticed that some homeless cats were hanging around their base, they took the animals in and nursed them back to health, letting the cats sleep with them in the barracks. Then the men arranged for the cats to be transported to the U.S. to live with their families.

PETA is presenting each Marine with a Compassionate Action Award and is also offering to reimburse the cost of having Kiki and Keykey neutered in order to prevent more kittens from ending up homeless. Check out the photos of these Marines and their lucky rescues for further proof that real men are kind to animals!

Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post

munn∙tas∙tic (mun tas′ tik) adj. Tremendously great; extraordinarily good {e.g., "Actor and Daily Show correspondent Olivia Munn is munntastic for posing for an anti-circus billboard and leading yesterday's PETA protest against Ringling Bros. Circus at the Staples Center in Los Angeles."}

Christian Serratos, Pink, and Jillian Michaels are also pretty darn munntastic for tweeting about the event. Ringling, on the other hand, is hideous. Animals used by Ringling live in fear, are beaten into submission, and are forced to perform tricks that to them are confusing and meaningless. Still-nursing baby elephants are captured and dragged away from their mothers. Baby elephants are stretched out, slammed to the ground, gouged with steel-tipped bullhooks, and shocked with electric prods. These abusive sessions go on for several hours a day for up to a year.

Now here comes the part where you can do something munntastic for animals who are abused in circuses. Check out the video and the ele-friendly advice that Olivia posted on her blog. Show the video to everyone you know and tell them to show it to everyone that they know. While you're at it, help elephants by signing this petition.

Written by Amy Elizabeth

The following posting originally appeared in The Sacramento Bee.

If anyone out there is still wondering about the superiority of alternatives to animal tests, look no further than what is happening right now in the Gulf of Mexico. In its efforts to assist the devastated region, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is saving time, money, and the lives of countless animals—those suffering in laboratories—by using efficient and effective non-animal methods to study the endocrine effects of chemical dispersants that could be used to clean up the oil gusher.

In fact, using non-animal testing methods is the only way that the EPA can get information about these chemicals in a short period of time—a few weeks as opposed to years. Without such sophisticated methods, the EPA would have to rely on crude and cruel animal toxicity tests that date back to the 1930s, and we would be waiting years to know anything at all about these chemicals. Considering the dire conditions of the region, waiting years for an answer is simply not an option.

The modern in vitro tests that the EPA has on hand to study the endocrine effects of eight oil spill dispersants are rapid and automated, in contrast to what the EPA calls "time consuming and expensive" animal tests. Testing one chemical on animals can cost millions, versus the EPA's estimated $20,000 using in vitro testing. And while cost considerations are important, turn-around time is even more essential as ecosystems totter on the brink of disaster. The EPA states that, on average, it would take a researcher "eight hours a day, five days a week, for 12 years" to conduct these studies using traditional animal tests. The computer-driven in vitro tests deliver results in three days. The EPA has already completed the first round of toxicity testing on these dispersants.

The situation in the Gulf highlights the necessity of toxicology testing reform. Most of the tests used in standard chemical screening today were developed in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. They are heavily reliant on animals, are slow and costly, and have yielded inaccurate information about the effects of chemicals on humans. And they have allowed dangerous chemicals such as benzene and arsenic to enter and remain on the market—even after millions of animals have been killed in decades of testing.

Our current system is overloaded and incapable of accurately screening the tens of thousands of chemicals reportedly in the environment already, with more entering every day. Scientists and government agencies are now recognizing that "it is simply not possible with all the animals in the world to go through new chemicals in the blind way that we have at the present time, and reach credible conclusions about the hazards to human health" (Dr. Joshua Lederberg, Nobel laureate in medicine).

Indeed, Congress and the EPA are now looking to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act to bring chemical regulation into the 21st century. The EPA and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) are among the scientific organizations calling for toxicity testing methods that are human-relevant, faster, and cheaper and that use fewer or no animals.

In its 2007 report, the NAS confirmed that scientific advances can "transform toxicity testing from a system based on whole-animal testing to one founded primarily on in vitro (non-animal) methods." Such an approach will improve efficiency, speed, and prediction for humans while cutting costs and reducing animal suffering. As it should, the newly introduced legislation supports the continued development and implementation of this shift toward non-animal methodologies.

As the case in the Gulf demonstrates, non-animal testing is the stuff of science—not "science fiction" as critics often contend—and it is surely the future of ensuring chemical safety.

Posted by Jessica Sandler, director of PETA's Regulatory Testing Division, and Dr. Kate Willett, PETA's science policy adviser

Thomas Lersch / CC by 3.0

Update: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has written to National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins urging him to scrap plans to transfer more than 200 "retired" chimpanzees from the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico to the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research laboratory in Texas. He has also requested the return of 15 chimpanzees who have already been transferred.

"New Mexico wants to save these chimpanzees, who have already given so much of their lives to the American public as part of medical research studies," says the governor. "There is a compassionate and prudent alternative to the National Center for Research Resources' plan, and I feel strongly that we must save the chimpanzees."

Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico is also working hard to ensure that the chimpanzees are spared from further experiments. Stay tuned for more updates.

The folks at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) must have had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they "retired" 288 chimpanzees—who had previously been used in Air Force gravity experiments—to the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF) in New Mexico. I say this because NIH has now decided to "unretire" the surviving chimpanzees (more than 21 have died in the decade they've spent warehoused in cages at APF, including three who died by electrocution because of unsafe conditions). The animals will be sent to the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) laboratory in Texas, where they will likely be subjected to cruel experiments.

SFBR might sound familiar to readers of this blog because it is the same laboratory where two baboons escaped from cages in May and attacked two employees. PETA filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which then cited SFBR for failure to handle animals in a manner that does not cause trauma or physical harm as well as failure to provide animals with adequate and safe housing. SFBR had previously been cited twice—in 2009 and in February of this year—for failure to house animals in structurally sound enclosures in order to prevent them from escaping and injuring themselves and others. In one incident, a monkey escaped from a cage, got outside into the freezing cold, suffered from hypothermia, and later was euthanized as a result.

SFBR's "punishment" for these offenses? It gets more than 200 chimpanzees to confine, scare, poke, and prod.

Half of the chimpanzees at APF have been living in cages for at least a quarter of a century. As PETA Vice President Kathy Guillermo wrote today in a letter to NIH, it's time to truly retire these primates to a sanctuary, rather than sending them back to a laboratory where they are sure to endure tremendous physical and psychological trauma, possibly for the rest of their lives—which could last another quarter century or more.

Please take a minute to send your own letter to APF and let it know that "retirement" means living the rest of your life free from stress (and not confined to a cage).

Written by Alisa Mullins