Tomorrow afternoon, PETA members will be demonstrating against the horrific cruelty involved in factory-farm egg production at, of all places, a Trappist Monastery. The perpetrators in question are a group of supposedly peace-loving monks who run an operation at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina that crams 20,000 chickens into tiny wire “battery cages” so small that they barely have room to move. Although Mepkin’s monks don’t grind the male chicks up in macerators themselves—egg farms don’t have any need for male chicks, for obvious reasons—their suppliers do, and this little deal with the devil doesn’t reflect particularly well on them either. In the spirit of Christmas (which is getting ominously close), now’s a really good time for these monks to think about a new way of participating in what they call "the caring cultivation of the Earth and its creatures" that doesn’t involve torturing defenseless animals. I’ll post pictures of the demonstration tomorrow—the protestors will be stationed outside the stores in Charleston and Columbia that sell Mepkin’s eggs—but in the meantime, you can watch footage from our investigation into Mepkin Abbey below.

Zac Posen is a New York fashion designer who still uses fur in his designs, which—pathetic as that is—wouldn’t be worth mentioning right now if it weren’t for the fact that, by a delightful twist of fate, PETA’s New York office has the same phone number that Zac’s mom used to have. Which leads to some pretty amusing conversations.

I got a kick out of that when my friend Michael (who works out of our New York office) told me the story, and I guess The New York Daily News did too, when he told them. You can read their coverage here. Priceless.

A little while back, I wrote about a photo that was leaked from the upcoming Sex and the City movie in which Kim Cattrall’s character, Samantha, gets red paint all over her fur coat—you can’t see the perpetrators of this act in the photo, but they’re presumably a group of angry animal lovers (or possibly a consortium of careless house painters). Well, here’s a little bit more of the inside scoop on that whole situation: Although Kim Cattrall used to wear fur herself, she had a change of heart when she learned how they make the stuff, and she feels very strongly about not appearing to endorse real fur. As soon as they’ve wrapped up work on the new film, she’s made arrangements to ship the coats used for the movie to PETA for us to use in our program to donate discarded furs to the homeless.

Thanks, Kim—we appreciate it. And good luck with the rest of the shoot.

Following a PETA action alert and protests targeting the company, which resulted in thousands of emails to Petsmart Corporate over the last three months, Petsmart has announced that they will no longer sell rabbits in their stores! “At this time,” writes Petsmart (using perhaps my least favorite prepositional phrase ever), “we’re not expanding the test and will not continue to sell dwarf bunnies beyond those already in or planned for our stores.” Given the thousands of rabbits who are abandoned to die in shelters every year, this is big news for bunnies—and for those who care about their well-being.

This doesn’t mean the end of our campaign against Petsmart, which continues to sell other animals like hamsters, rats, fish, lizards, and birds—who are just as prone to suffering at the company’s hands—but it’s an important sign that direct pressure on the company from consumers will make them listen. Petsmart claims that this was purely a business decision (“we failed to meet the business objectives”), which means that we need to continue to go after their bottom line by boycotting their stores—you’d be surprised to see how many “business decisions” turn into “ethical decisions” when a company realizes that consumers are outraged at their practices. A huge thank you to everyone who called or wrote to Petsmart about this issue—if you haven’t already, please take this opportunity to let them know that you appreciate this decision but will continue to boycott their stores until they end all animal sales. Please also ask that they turn the remaining rabbits over to a reputable rabbit placement group which can ensure that they won’t be used as Christmas presents and will go into permanent, responsible homes.

For anyone who's done animal rights protests before, you'll know that—no matter what the issue—the first thing anyone ever asks you is whether your shoes are leather (seriously, the question is almost a reflex for some people—I've heard of people being asked that at naked demonstrations). So it's always a bonus when the demonstration is focused on the treatment of cows in the leather industry—at least then, you can stay on topic.

And this particular topic is an exceptionally gruesome one in India (which, along with China, provides most of the world's leather), as today's protest in Bangalore showed to dramatic effect. The powerful demonstration was staged by a pair of PETA India members (in what appear to be canvas shoes, in case anyone's wondering) and was covered widely in the Indian media. Great work, guys.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been scouring our Holiday-themed ads a little bit recently. There are some real gems in there, but this one kind of jumped out at me. It makes an important point about not buying animals for Christmas, without hitting people over the head with it. Check it out:

I’m not sure that I’ve directly addressed this topic before on this blog, but there have been two events this month that really underscore the importance of having a serious discussion about “no-kill” shelters among animal advocates, so here goes: The first was this article in The LA Daily News, which published statistics showing that more animals die in “no-kill” or “limited-admission” shelters in LA than people think. As the article puts it:

To me, the article addresses what is in many ways a problem of terminology: “No-Kill” sounds pretty great, but it doesn’t mean “No-Suffering” (or “No-Death" for that matter), by a long shot. What it means is that the people running the shelter (though they are often well-intentioned individuals) have made a decision to turn their backs on the animals who may be abandoned and die on the streets because their limited-admission shelters lack room for more, and—as the article shows—allow the animals who are in their shelters to die from overcrowding, disease, or injury instead of humane lethal injection in the arms of caring people.

The second event that brought this topic to mind was the recent release of footage from a PETA undercover investigation into a “no-kill” shelter called All Creatures Great and Small. The investigator, who was there throughout a 7-month period, discovered systematic abuse and neglect of the hundreds of animals kept in filthy, overcrowded cages with no hope of reprieve or release from their suffering. There’s some more information about PETA’s stance on this issue here, and you can watch the video from our investigation below. I know this is a complex and emotional topic, but I thought this was a good opportunity to explain where we stand.

This Christmas, please, please, please remember to leave soy milk out for Santa Claus instead of cow's milk. With that in mind, here is PETA’s world-famous “Santa’s Not Coming” PSA. Warning: It’s a little bit controversial (by which I mean “hilarious”). As usual, please direct all complaints or concerns about this ad to OMGWTF@peta.org, with the subject line “Please, think of the children!”

Archele Hundley is the latest in a long list of brave ex-Ringling Bros. employees to come to PETA with her story about what the folks at the circus get up to when they think no one’s watching. The PSA that she just recorded for us to help expose the circus’s animal abuse is a must-see for any parents who still take their kids to the circus, so please do pass it on if you know any grown-ups with children.

The wonderful Pamela Anderson, who was once paid to promote M&M's, has come out against Mars Candy for funding inhumane experiments on animals in violation of its own written policy. Pam faxed a letter to Mars President Paul S. Michaels this week expressing her support for PETA’s Mars Campaign, and letting him know that she will be encouraging her fans to boycott the candy this Holiday season. "When my friends at PETA showed me evidence that Mars continues to fund cruel and pointless animal tests,” she writes, “I was shocked—and it takes a lot to shock me."

You can read the full letter here.