Written by PETA
Seal Enemy Number One, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was seeing double (or rather, quadruple) at a dinner marking the anniversary of his fifth year in office. More than a dozen PETA members, including some wearing masks of Harper spewing blood, joined Sammy the Seal in braving minus-32 temperatures to swarm the Ottawa Hampton Inn, where the dinner took place.
Five years of turning a blind eye to the largest marine-mammal massacre on the planet doesn't really seem like anything to celebrate, does it?
Written by Michelle Sherrow
It's so hot in the city, you'd think I'd be making another batch of lemonade—but I've got a hankering for some Internet Soup. It's been a while since the last batch, so dig in!
Oof! I don't know about you, but I'm full after all that soup—and guac. This Special K needs a siesta. Until next time …
Written by Karin Bennett
A day in the life of PETA's lovable day tripper involves going here, there, and everywhere, eight days a week, to plead with caring people to come together and stop Canada's shameful seal slaughter.
While en route to Parliament Hill in Ottawa yesterday, our seal was glad all over to pose with members of a Beatles cover band, With the Beatles, who maintain that all you need is love—not clubs, hakapiks, or seal fur.
This year's seal-bashing season concluded earlier this week, but seals in Canada still need your help to ensure the end of the seal slaughter, permanently.
P.S. I've snuck the names of 11 different Beatles tunes (I couldn't resist) into the blog. Which ones can you find?
Oops—I meant to say "Parade."
OK, so maybe that pun made you wince, but the photos from Toronto's first annual Veggie Pride Parade will make you beam! PETA's own Chris P. Carrot, Lettuce Ladies, and "seal" joined hundreds of revelers who encouraged curious onlookers to help animals, their own health, and the planet by going vegan.
(No more puns this week. I promise.)
Looks like somebody over at The Onion has been surfing the PETA Files. Catch the satirical newspaper's spot-on skewering of elephant acts, with descriptions of a "hooked rod," "cramped, feces-covered enclosure," and "constant beatings." They even picked up on the fact that the only male elephants used in circuses are youngsters, because once they reach adolescence, they become too aggressive to be controlled—despite the constant threat of being whacked with a bullhook (or, perhaps, because of it).
As usual, The Onion's parody so closely parallels reality that it can bring tears of laughter and sorrow. Take this gem:
"Look, they're dancing," said 5-year-old Jonah Meeks, mistaking the elephants' constant swaying for something that wasn't a maladaptive behavior caused by serious psychological trauma. "I can dance like an elephant, too. Look at me!"
The folks at The Onion obviously do their research, but is it possible that they are also psychic? Their circus send-up was published just days before peta2 launched its brand new "Elephants Never Forget" campaign today. Coincidence?
Written by Alisa Mullins
If you think that you can judge that package of dismembered animal bits by its expiration date, here's a cautionary tale that will make you think again. A customer at a Brooklyn grocery store found a newer "sell-by" label slapped on top of an expired one on a package of chicken and told the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets about it. The inspecting body for food safety shrugged it off, saying that sell-by dates are "nothing but a tool for store managers," who are permitted to relabel or repackage food.
60 Minutes called the fluid in which dead chickens float before they are processed for food "fecal soup," and we have heard enough horror stories to realize that most meat is contaminated with dangerous bacteria like E. coli, campylobacter, listeria, and other bacteria that live in the intestinal tracts and feces of animals. Meat and dairy products spoil fairly quickly, so this might be a good time to start avoiding the stuff altogether. I'm hoping for a run on our vegetarian/vegan starter kit displays, but if you don't have one nearby, you can download a copy or order one from our Web site.
It just goes to show—any way you slice it, meat is still just decomposing flesh.
Written by Heather Moore
Wild animals are dying because of human avarice, but unlike the plight of those who are perishing in oil, the carnage at SeaWorld can easily be stopped. An orca named Taima died this weekend while giving birth to a stillborn calf at SeaWorld Orlando. The baby was conceived by Tilikum, the angry and frustrated orca who battered a trainer to death earlier this year—the third time he has killed a human.
For Taima, death was terrifying and painful, but it was a release from a miserable life of deprivation. In nature, orcas choose their own mates, and the families stay together for life. Ripped from her ocean home, Taima's own mother, Gudrun, died in captivity after a complicated delivery in which chains were used to extract her stillborn calf. Gudrun was called mentally ill and was known to be violent. Both mother orcas and their calves met their end alone in a tank full of chemically-treated water that must have felt like a bathtub to these animals, who were meant to explore the endless fathoms of the sea.
SeaWorld is a greedy outfit that spends millions of dollars on cruel breeding programs and marketing promotions. It values profit over safety and treats orcas as if they were wind-up toys. Like BP, SeaWorld can never make up for the harm that it has done. It should immediately fund the creation of a coastal sanctuary into which the orcas can start their journey back home. It can start with Tilikum.
Please, contact Blackstone Group and insist that it stop the horrors associated with keeping animals in captivity and put its money toward more humane endeavors.
Written by Jennifer O'Connor
PETA's brand-new McCruelty PSA starring actor Jenna Jameson turned out fantastic, as we knew it would, but we had to shoot it several times. Jenna had to stop the action to regain her composure whenever she started talking about how chickens' legs are often broken when workers slam them upside down into metal shackles, and how these gentle birds are frequently scalded alive in defeathering tanks.
It's depressing enough to think (and blog) about cruelty that McDonald's could stop but simply chooses not to—let alone to talk about it on camera. Perhaps McDonald's should change its slogan "You deserve a break today" to "We'll give you a breakdown today."
Jenna is passionate about this issue, and she's optimistic that better times for chickens are ahead. "They're going to listen. Just wait," she told PETA. Yes, they will, if we all get behind the campaign and push—so come on, everyone. And thank you, Jenna!
Please join Jenna in demanding that McDonald's start buying chickens from suppliers that only use controlled-atmosphere killing, a less cruel form of slaughter.
My family and I play some mean games of nickel poker, but there's nothing mean about World Series of Poker player Annie LePage, whose thoughtful interview with PETA about why she went vegan showed that this competitor has a heart bigger than any jackpot.
Annie says that her healthy, humane diet helps her focus and will surely serve her well as she competes in this legendary tournament. Good luck, Annie!
This week, The Colbert Report aired the shocking video of a tortured bull who gored a matador (or, in Colbert's words, "tight-assed fancy-pants in a sparkly coat") moments before the animal was killed. Even if you've already seen the gory footage before, you won't want to miss what Colbert had to say about the gruesome blood sport:
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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