Written by PETA
Sometimes seals are on Sarah McLachlan's shirt. Sometimes they drive tractors. Sometimes they're in Washington, D.C.
And, as it turns out, sometimes they block the entrance to the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City to protest Canada's seal slaughter while the country's prime minister, Stephen Harper, is inside at a meeting … and then they're taken away by the police.
Take action! Tell Prime Minister Harper that the seal slaughter must end.
Written by Amanda Schinke
Oh, reality TV stars, will you never learn? Jon and Kate Gosselin—who don't exactly have a stellar record when it comes to animal companions—have allowed their marital disputes to affect their family, and I'm not talking about their eight kids.
Jon has packed up the family's dogs and is returning them to their breeder.
Returning them—like taking a sweater back to the mall.
Jon claims that Kate doesn't take care of Shoka and Nala when it's her turn to look after the family, saying, "It's not fair to the dogs to not be wanted in their own home."
We can agree with him on that. It's also not fair to buy dogs from breeders when millions are sitting in animal shelters waiting for homes. And it's not fair to dump your dogs when they've outgrown their puppy cuteness and are becoming a tad inconvenient. Dogs aren't disposable.
If you aren't going to be able to provide an animal with a home forever, you shouldn't get an animal in the first place.
It looks like Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus isn't anxious for PETA to capture any more footage of its goons employees whacking elephants with bullhooks. How else would you explain the ugly incident that happened this past Tuesday in which a burly, 200-something-pound Ringling worker apparently shoved and almost knocked down PETA staffer Amanda Fortino—who stands 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds soaking wet—while she was videotaping elephants who were being led from a Ringling train to the Rose Garden arena prior to the circus's performance in Portland, Oregon.
His friends must have been worried that Mr. "Tact and Diplomacy" was in danger of being overpowered by the deceptively slight Amanda (she does have super-vegan powers, you know), Amanda reports that several of the thug's cohorts bounded to his assistance and surrounded her, effectively blocking her view of the elephants.
Not the smartest move, because another activist was holding the aforementioned video camera and caught the whole thing on tape. We promptly turned the tape over to Portland police, who have opened an investigation into the incident.
Written by Alisa Mullins
As Agent 007, Sir Roger Moore battled the bad guys—but as a real-life Knight of the British Empire, Moore has spent the past several years battling the cruel foie gras industry.
When Moore heard about PETA Europe's campaign to urge Selfridges to stop selling foie gras—he sent a private letter to Selfridges' owner, Galen Weston, offering to buy up the company's entire remaining stock of the cruelly produced food if Weston agreed never to restock it again.
Always the classy gentleman, Moore gave Weston the chance to make this deal behind the scenes—but Selfridges has not responded to Moore's generous offer, so he has taken it to the airwaves. Check out his recent interview on the topic.
Written by Liz Graffeo
We've told you about some of the best iPhone apps for animals, such as guides to cruelty-free shopping and vegetarian dining. Now there's an app for those times when you just don't feel like speaking "vegan-ese" to your nonvegan friends: the vegan soundboard from quarrygirl.com. And the bonus? It's free!
Some of these vegan sound bites are simultaneously hilarious and embarrassing—it's good to know, for example, that just by pushing a "button" I can let people know about my obsessions with the PPK and the vegan mecca that is Portland (there's a vegan mini-mall, for goodness' sake!). But I shudder to think that I've ever demanded, "Do you have a separate fryer for your French fries?" (Seriously. Don't be that guy.)
iPhone devotees can download the app for free. For those of you who still carry flip phones, no worries. You can still play with the soundboard here.
If you were going to create your own vegan soundboard, what would you put on it?
The agency that oversees the largest animal testing program of all time has just announced new guidelines that mean that the number of animals who could fall victim to toxicity testing during the course of the program has dropped—by 4.5 million!
This news from the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) comes in response to a detailed letter PETA initiated in cooperation with other animal protection groups. That letter was written after we learned from a chemical manufacturer that under the E.U.'s new Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical Substances (REACH) Regulation, a number of duplicative tests were going to be conducted.
PETA, along with PETA Europe, the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments, Eurogroup for Animals, HSI Europe, and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, voiced concerns about the likelihood that companies would conduct duplicative animal tests for some types of toxicity when registering their chemicals under REACH. The letter explained how the redundant testing could be avoided.
ECHA was quick to issue a news release and a factsheet instructing chemical companies not to conduct initial toxicity screenings if they are planning to conduct more comprehensive tests during the later stages of REACH. Based on ECHA's own figures, 6,000 chemicals may fall under the relevant information requirements, and because up to 735 animals may be used for the initial toxicity screening for each chemical tested, ECHA's response has the potential to save the lives of 4.5 million animals.
There's still much work to be done, as REACH will still cause massive animal suffering. But you can bet your (vegan) boots that our next step will be to do everything possible to make sure that companies follow ECHA's new guidelines so that as many animals as possible will be spared.
Written by Shawna Flavell
Imagine being sealed inside a clear coffin, bubble-wrapped, packaged in a box and sent through the mail on a terrifying journey to an unknown destination. Jostled around, forced to endure the summer heat while sitting in a delivery truck, and living in your own waste. If you can imagine this, you have some idea of how the little frog in this video feels.
This traumatized or now dead frog is a 'replacement' for another who died in a Brookstone Frog-O-Sphere. Despite public outrage and PETA protests, the body count continues to rise as Brookstone refuses to stop peddling live animals.
Urge Brookstone to send these Frog-O-Spheres packing and immediately implement a policy against selling live animals at all of their stores. If you know anybody who has misguidedly purchased these poor frogs only to watch them helplessly suffer and die, please inform them to request a chargeback on their credit card as Brookstone defers responsibility and costs for deaths and 'replacements' to the breeder.
Written by Amy Elizabeth
Never buy an animal on a whim just because you saw one in a movie. How many times do we have to say this?
It looks like at least once more. Harry Potter fans, or to be more precise, their parents, have broken our cardinal rule of movie fandom. As a result, an animal sanctuary has opened on the Isle of Wight in the U.K. to help cope with the problem of owls who have been dumped by people who purchased them without thinking.
In the books and movies, Harry's snowy owl, Hedwig, is portrayed as low-maintenance, but many fans who purchased snowy owls for their kids are realizing that real owls require a lot of attention—and they're abandoning the birds after the magic wears off.
The moral of this story is twofold. Companion animals shouldn't be acquired on a whim, and birds of prey shouldn't be preyed upon by film fanatics.
Written by Karin Bennett
OMG … this is the cutest, most fascinating video that I've seen in a long time. Prepare yourself for intense adorableness.
You are now officially armed with even more proof that animals are emotional, sensitive, and complex beings.
Written by Christine Doré
The solution is as simple as a CD recording of birdsong and a small boombox. The babies learn to mimic the songs that they hear in the center, which are real recordings from the wild—exactly what they're supposed to be learning. Upon completed treatment and release (read: graduation from Songbird U.), they're ready to go chat it up with friends and family outside the center, saying such cute things as "Food? Now?" and "Mate? Now?"
I always find it heartwarming to come across very elaborate efforts to care for some wild species, which, for some reason or another, ends up at rehabilitation centers. As contradictory as it may seem given the huge animal industries that exist today, rescue and rehabilitation efforts demonstrate just how much humans are capable of caring for animals—both as individuals and as species.
Posted by Sean Conner
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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