Written by PETA
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
In case you forgot how smart, social, and absolutely adorable pigs are, meet Sherlock. Found wandering down a rural road in Suffolk, Virginia, this little guy was captured and taken to the local animal shelter:
When he was found, Sherlock was still a baby, but he was already castrated and his tail had obviously been docked. That means that this plucky little piglet likely fell off a truck headed to a growing/finishing barn—which is what the piggy flesh industry calls the factories that are used to fatten up little pigs like Sherlock for slaughter. On factory farms, piglets are taken away from their moms when they are less than 1 month old. Workers cut off their tails, clip their teeth with pliers, and castrate the males—all without painkillers. The animals spend their entire lives in extremely crowded pens on tiny slabs of filthy concrete. It gets even more heartbreaking when you factor in the abuse that these animals face: A recent undercover investigation of an Iowa pig factory farm, which supplies piglets to Hormel, documented that workers beat pigs with metal rods and sexually abused them with canes.
When one of our fieldworkers saw the headline about Sherlock in the Suffolk paper, she immediately went to work to find this guy a wonderful home. Click here to see how Sherlock's story ends!
Written by Amy Elizabeth
It's a hazy day here on the Right Coast. As I watch leaves fall and steam rise from my soy mocha, the mood is set for a lazy (yet highly skilled) meander through gossip rags for fun stuff. Here are my faves:
Thanks for stopping by! Catch you next time, and don't forget to hug all your vegetarian friends.
Written by Missy Lane
The following is a guest post from peta2's Ryan
As those of you who have been keeping up with your NCAA "March Madness" brackets will know, this year's college basketball championship series is down to the final four schools, all vying for the top spot. Unfortunately, they're all losers.
I say this because, in a tragic irony, the universities that have the most talented athletes also seem to hire some of the cruelest animal abusers in the nation.
Need proof?
Villanova University vs. University of North Carolina
Villanova experimenters inject methamphetamine into rats' stomachs to determine whether the drug influences the rats' response time in behavioral tests (gee, I wonder). Unfortunately, as you might have seen in our "Who Cares?" video, this kind of pointless and cruel test on rats and mice is still legal—in fact, no experiment on them, no matter how painful, is against the law.
Maria Boccia, a vivisector at UNC–Chapel Hill, removes rat pups—at 2 to 14 days old—from their mothers for extended periods of time in order to induce a deep depression in the mother rats. She then places the mothers in cylinders of water from which they can not escape in order to see how quickly they are overcome with a sense of helplessness and stop swimming.
University of Connecticut vs. Michigan State University
At University of Connecticut, experimenters implant steel rods into rabbits' spines to keep them immobile. They then shock the rabbits with electrodes and measure the animals' brainwaves while they are still awake.
Not to be outdone, the returning "champion" from last year's contest, MSU vivisector Arthur Weber has continued his "work" removing the eyes of cats while the animals are still alive. Weber attempted to justify his cruel and pointless experiments last year; on Weber's behalf, an MSU official stated, "The animals are completely anesthetized, receive painkillers, and once the animals come out of the anesthesia, 10 minutes later you can't tell the difference." Yeah, you're probably right. I'm sure eyes are overrated anyway. What?! And don't forget the part where you keep them alive for a week after the operation and then kill them—I'd be willing to bet my March Madness pool money that they notice that too!
Of course, it's not the basketball players' fault that their schools hired such colossal creeps—animal experimentation is big business. As shown above, though, no amount of money can keep animal abusers from being morally bankrupt.
Written by Ryan Huling
Canadian hockey hasn't given anyone much to cheer about since the Montréal Canadiens' last Stanley Cup victory 16 years ago. But if PETA has its way, Canadiens fans will get another chance to be victorious on the ice—the ice floes, that is.
The owner of the Montréal Canadiens is considering selling the team, and guess who's throwing an offer on the table? In our letter to team owner George Gillett, we're offering to pay $10,000 Canadian to rent the team for a week, during which time we'd change its name to the Canadian Seal Pups and encourage every spectator to sign and mail our postcards to Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging him to end the seal slaughter.
Give the seal pups some hockey sticks, and then let's talk about blood on the ice.
Written by Shawna Flavell
When the racers in this year's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race crossed the finish line last week, the press reported that six dogs had died on the bitter, involuntary trek from Iditarod to Nome. Now we have received a whistleblower report alleging that two more dogs may have died because of the 2009 race.
Here's what we're told: Lou Packer, a 55-year-old musher, struggled to finish the race, and even after two of his dogs died, he continued to push his team until he eventually scratched. It now appears that two more of his dogs may have perished after he was removed from the trail. The whistleblower claims that Packer may have denied his dogs food and left them out in the open throughout the night during a bitterly cold storm, while other mushers took their dogs to the tree line to protect them from the wind. If true, that would have been a death sentence.
Now that the death toll may have reached eight, we have renewed our request to Col. Audie Holloway, Director of the Alaska State Troopers, to launch a vigorous criminal investigation into all the deaths related to this year's Iditarod. Alaskan cruelty-to-animals laws specifically prohibit people from knowingly inflicting "prolonged suffering on an animal." The conditions under which the Iditarod is run are no secret. Anyone with half a brain and one ounce of compassion knows that no dog chooses to struggle to survive for days and nights in the freezing cold while being pushed to or beyond his or her physical limits. Or are Iditarod racers exempt from anti-cruelty laws—or the laws of human decency?
Written by Liz Graffeo
Today, amid a flurry of tourists and cameras, PETA unveiled our new "Let Vegetarianism Grow on You" ad in Times Square. In the ad, the always witty Cloris Leachman wears a dress of red cabbage and leaf lettuce. The release follows last week's publication of the results of the biggest medical study ever to conclude that avoiding meat gives people a better chance of living longer. Who better to illustrate the point than Cloris, a vibrant 82-year-old vegetarian?
For those of you who were unable to make the trip to the unveiling, no worries. We've got exclusive photos of the event as well as video of Cloris for ya.
Thanks Cloris—you're now in our Lettuce Ladies Hall of Fame!
When public school systems fall on hard times, they know they can count on PETA to pitch in. Remember when we sent message toilet paper to a struggling Detroit school? So, of course, we jumped into action when we heard about a cash-strapped school in Idaho that's limiting how much writing paper teachers can use.
One of Pocatello High School's teachers has actually begun selling ad space on the writing paper he uses in his classroom—one pizza joint has already placed an ad. While we respect his initiative, we thought we could one-up him. So we've written to the school's principal, Don Cotant, offering to provide the whole school with an entire semester's worth of recycled writing paper printed with our snazzy Meat's Not Green logo on it.
We'll let you know if Pocatello High takes us up on the offer! It would definitely be a more eco-friendly way to ease the budget crunch than encouraging kids to spend $5 on a pus-laced pizza. Plus it would be one step in the right direction toward being listed as one of the most vegetarian-friendly school districts next year.
In a recent Houston Chronicle article, Rockets small forward Ron Artest openly admits that he doesn't have the best track record when it comes to animal care. In the article, he confesses that because he spends a lot of time traveling, he once left one of his dogs vulnerable to neglect. In a refreshingly candid admission, he says, "I was an irresponsible pet owner."
What sets Artest apart from other "irresponsible pet owners," though, is that he is man enough to admit that he's made mistakes, and he's now doing all he can to educate others so that they don't make the same mistakes he did. "PETA came and showed me how to be a better pet owner," he says. "I loved my dogs. You just need to be more mature and accountable for how you treat your animals. I had to be educated."
These days, Artest can be found volunteering his time to help the Houston Humane Society or lending his star power to PETA's campaigns. "I've told my people that whenever [the Houston Humane Society] need[s] me for something, they've got to make it happen," he says. "I've always loved animals. Now I've learned how to be responsible."
In a video that was shot behind the scenes at the photo shoot for his PETA spay-and-neuter ad, Artest talks about his passion for helping animals, and he also condemns dogfighting. (He has even placed a plea right on the front page of his personal Web site to urge people to spay and neuter their animal companions.) Check out the interview b-roll here:
Speaking of dogfighting, another star athlete who has had run-ins with the law over his treatment of dogs isn't exactly jumping through hoops in an effort to show that he's learned the error of his ways. Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback and convicted dogfighter Michael Vick did attend PETA's "Developing Empathy for Animals" seminar, but he has not gone out of his way to show the public or his fans that he feels any remorse for torturing and killing dogs.
Now, just as he is on the verge of being released from federal prison, Vick is reportedly shopping around for a book deal. It's pretty unlikely that his book will be subject to the "Son of Sam" law (which is a type of law that aims to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes) because Vick's victims were dogs. Unless the book basically consists of the words, "I was a sick, cruel, despicable jerk, and I'm sorry," and all the proceeds go to animal protection charities, we ain't buyin' it.
Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky
You may have heard about this already: KFC is offering to fund pothole repair in five U.S. cities in exchange for ads promoting the decomposing bird bits that the company sells at its fast-food outlets.
KFC even hired a Colonel Sanders lookalike for the kickoff of the program in its hometown of Louisville.
KFC might concentrate instead on improving conditions for the chickens it abuses, but it won't, so we're offering to double the money that KFC offered the City of Louisville—if the city will use our ads against KFC cruelty on its potholes instead. After all, drivers have a right to hear the chickens' side of the story—and it isn't pretty.
Written by Jeff Mackey
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.
Follow PETA on Twitter!