Written by Michelle Kretzer
It wasn't as if experimenters at New York University (NYU) didn't know for days that Hurricane Sandy was approaching. It wasn't as if they didn't know that federal policy requires them to at least try to protect the animals they torment and kill in experiments from also becoming victims of a natural disaster. But the experimenters either made no evacuation plan for the animals in their "care" or they failed to follow through with it. Instead, they abandoned 10,000 mice and rats in a basement laboratory, who remained trapped in their cages as the floodwaters rose. Many animals—panicked, afraid, and desperate to escape—drowned to death, while others suffocated from the toxic diesel fumes of a leaking fuel tank. NYU was unable to give an exact figure for the number of animals who died—remarking instead that the facility lost 7,660 cages of mice and 22 cages of rats, with each cage holding one to seven animals.
PETA has filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health, the government body that oversees federally funded experiments, calling for an investigation into NYU's irresponsible and unconscionable actions and inaction. In our complaint, we pointed out that the university will likely acquire thousands more animals to replace those who died, multiplying the suffering caused by the experimenter's negligence.
It's not the first time that animals were left trapped in laboratory cages during natural disasters. At the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, 35 dogs, 78 monkeys, 300 rabbits, and 4,000 mice and rats drowned during tropical storm Allison in 2001. The storm also killed 30,000 mice and rats who were left in the basement at Baylor College of Medicine. Hurricane Katrina killed 8,000 animals trapped in Louisiana State University's laboratories, and thousands more died at Tulane.
An official with the National Academy of Sciences remarked: "This happens again and again and (research labs) never learn. Anybody with half a brain knows you do a site-specific analysis [to understand the risk of disasters], and it's really stupid to put your animals in the basement if you're in a flood zone."
Stupid, cruel, and inexcusable.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
Update: After reviewing evidence submitted by PETA, the National Institutes of Health has reprimanded the University of Colorado–Denver (CU) for repeatedly violating federal animal welfare guidelines in its laboratories, criticized it for not reporting the problems, and ordered the university to repay grant money used for noncompliant experiments on animals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's investigation into CU's laboratories is still underway.
Originally posted January 29:
It's starting to feel like déjà vu: PETA has once again filed formal complaints with the federal government about the abuse of animals in laboratories at the University of Colorado–Denver (CU). Through a state open-records request, PETA has just learned that the same neglect and incompetence that we documented there in a 2007 investigation are still occurring.
The records show that during just the past two years, at least 60 animal welfare incidents—dozens of which may constitute violations of federal law and guidelines—have occurred, including the following:
Based on PETA's undercover investigation, in 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited CU for serious violations of the Animal Welfare Act and also issued the university an official warning letting it know that it would be fined $10,000 per incident if it were found violating the law again. It's time for the government to follow through on that warning and stop CU's abuses for good.
Please ask the federal government to stop funding cruel animal experiments and to put your tax dollars toward modern, humane non-animal research methods.
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There's one thing that both Team Twilight and Team Hunger Games can agree on: Everyone should be on Team Tilly.
Are rats smarter than your search engine? The answer may make you want to Google the "Hidden Lives of Rats."
New Jersey is serious about protecting animals in vehicles. Drivers who let their Benjis ride without a seatbelt could find themselves shelling out a few Benjis.
Blood, flesh, veins, muscles, tendons, cow secretions, hen periods, and bee vomit? Bon appétit!
Sarasota County, Fla., officials postponed their decision on feral hog hunting—in which dogs are allowed to chase and maul feral hogs—in order to consider other wildlife control options. Send the county your thanks and ask it to choose humane methods.
Urban Decay is letting its values decay—urge the company to halt its new animal tests and remain cruelty-free.
Written by Jeff Mackey
Anyone who's heard her recent hit "Monster" (possibly NSFW, depending on where you work) knows that music sensation Meg Myers isn't afraid to be passionate and outspoken. As she prepares to play her first L.A. concert, Meg speaks out in a new video for PETA about one of her passions—her adorable rat companions—and urges people not to use cruel glue traps:
Rats are smart, clean animals who can be playful and affectionate companions, as Meg describes. Not everyone welcomes rodents into their homes, though, and irrational bigotry causes many people to resort to cruel and deadly methods when rats are spotted—the worst of which are glue traps.
Glue traps contain a sticky adhesive designed to capture any small animal who wanders across them, ripping patches of skin, fur, and feathers off their bodies as they struggle to escape. Many animals chew off their own legs trying to free themselves, while some get their noses and mouths or beaks stuck in the glue and slowly suffocate. Glue-trap manufacturers generally direct consumers to throw animals away along with the trap, leaving animals to suffer for days until they finally die of starvation or dehydration.
If you're ready to welcome a rat into your life, like Meg, be sure to adopt from an animal shelter or a rescue organization, instead of buying one from a pet store.
If rats show up uninvited, though, don't panic—just get (or make) a humane live trap and relocate your surprise guests, being sure to find and patch any openings that allow them access to your home. And if you spot glue traps on a store shelf, please urge the manager to carry live traps instead.
We know the beef industry isn't averse to a little sleight of hand (pink slime, anyone?). So, you would think the cowpokes could take a good-natured April Fools' Day prank.
On April Fools' Day 2010 (yes, two whole years ago), PETA published a blog post saying that we had been funding scientists who were genetically engineering rats to have fluffy rabbit tails. The idea was that by altering rats to be more in keeping with people's ideas of "cute and cuddly," we could usher in a rat renaissance of sorts, encouraging people to be kinder to our besieged, bald-tailed brethren.
Recently, an intrepid food-industry writer found said April Fools joke, thought it was real, and wrote an outraged article for Drovers CattleNetwork blasting PETA, rats, rabbits, and, oh yeah, cane toads and pigs (but not cows, conveniently) for good measure.
(c) iStockphoto.com | Josiah Jost
Mr. Food Industry also waged such a scare campaign against rats that it made me wonder if he might work for d-CON. He actually cited the Black Death, a plague that is several hundred years removed from modern-day scourges like, say, E. coli and for which rats are no longer blamed.
One has to wonder how many of the beef industry's tall tales about cow "welfare," "healthy" beef, and the industry's impact on the planet he has also swallowed hook, line, and fluffy tail.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse (although the rats were quietly knocking back some soy nog).
Written by PETA
A new experiment has once again shown that rats in laboratories have empathy for one another. In the experiment, one rat was placed in a cage with another rat who was stuffed into a tiny tube from which he or she was unable to escape. The "free" rat worked frantically to get his or her distressed friend out, even when a tempting chocolate treat was offered as a distraction.
This is far from the first time that altruism has been seen in animals used for experimentation. In one notoriously cruel experiment, macaque monkeys were given food only if they pulled a chain that electrically shocked another monkey. Nearly all the monkeys preferred to go hungry, and one macaque starved himself for 12 days. Monkeys who had previously been shocked were even more reluctant to pull the chain and subject another individual to such punishment. In PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk's book The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights, she quotes astronomer Carl Sagan, who asks, "If the circumstances were reversed, and captive humans were offered the same deal by macaque scientists, would we do as well?"
Millions of kind, intelligent rats and other animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in cruel experiments. You can show your empathy by clicking here to urge members of Congress to amend the Animal Welfare Act to include the protection of both rats and mice. Also, please only support companies and charities that don't test on animals.
Written by Monica Alexander
In a rare case of legal protection for a rat, a Denver woman has pleaded guilty to a cruelty-to-animals charge for torturing and killing a rat. Tashaya Abbott and Alison Milke bought a rat from a pet store to feed live to a snake, but the snake did not eat the animal for four days—during which time the terrified rodent was confined to a tank with the snake. So the young women reportedly electroshocked, shot with blow darts multiple times, and finally crushed the rat to death. Evidently thinking that this animal's horrific suffering and death were something to laugh about, Milke posted a photo of the rat to her Facebook page and boasted about the crime that they had committed.
A PETA supporter alerted us, and we immediately notified law enforcement and pushed for the women to be prosecuted.
The judge ordered Abbott to pay a $125 fine and complete 50 hours of community service and banned her from owning any animals for a year. There is still an outstanding warrant for Milke, who is believed to be in Florida now, and PETA is pushing hard for her prosecution as well.
If you spot any evidence of potential animal abuse on social-networking sites, contact PETA right away, and we will work to have the offenders prosecuted.
Do you take your tea with a dash of blood? How about a spoonful of dead mouse? PETA's new parody of a Nestea commercial from the '80s shows viewers why they should avoid the brand and "take the CruelTEA plunge":
Nestea insists on testing on mice and rats in an attempt to make health claims—despite the fact that U.S. and European regulators have stated that tests on animals are not sufficient to prove health claims about food and beverage products. One test involved locking highly social mice in dark chambers and painfully shocking their sensitive feet. In another test, experimenters injected mice with chemicals to make them develop diabetes and then force-fed them tea ingredients.
Share the new ad on Facebook and Twitter to urge everyone you know to "take the CruelTEA plunge" by pledging to drink only cruelty-free tea. Please also click here to urge Nestea to stop testing on animals. Unless you want to quench a thirst for cruelty, Nestea is one brand to avoid like the plague.
PETA's "do test" and "don't test" lists have been an essential part of shopping for millions of people for nearly three decades—and in all those years, we've never made a change to the way we list companies: They either conduct (or pay someone to conduct) painful skin, eye, and other poisoning tests on animals, or they don't.
© Jessica Florence
Now, for the first time ever, we are launching a new category, called "Working for Regulatory Change." This new category recognizes manufacturers that only conduct tests on animals that are required by law and work hard to develop and lobby for the validation of non-animal tests. The requirements for making the list are as tough as boot camp. In addition to refusing to conduct any tests on animals that are not required by law and devoting substantial support and human hours toward the acceptance of non-animal methods, companies must lift the veil of secrecy and talk openly with PETA about what tests they conduct on which species and how many animals are used. And they have to do it every year.
With such tough standards to meet, it's not too surprising that only one company is on the "Working for Regulatory Change" list so far: Colgate-Palmolive. Colgate has been transparent with the public and with PETA about what it does and why, and the company has had a moratorium on all tests on animals for its adult personal-care product line for more than a decade. In its last reporting year, Colgate conducted no tests on animals at all.
We'd never suggest buying products from companies that test on animals, but we also recognize that some companies have never spent one corporate dime on developing and validating non-animal test methods. We challenge these companies to follow Colgate's example and stop hiding and start working for an end to all tests on animals.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
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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