Written by PETA
Mahatma Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." What, then, can we surmise about the U.S., where 59 billion animals a year suffer intensive confinement, are deprived of all that is natural to them, have their bodies mutilated by dehorning, castration, ear cropping, and more, all before they are killed for a fleeting taste of flesh? October 2, Gandhi's birthday, marks World Farm Animals Day, a day to honor Gandhi's advocacy of nonviolence and vegetarianism and to remember the animals killed for what he called "the satisfaction of our bodily wants."
The plain facts are appalling: Every year in the U.S. alone, more than 7 billion chickens and 275 million turkeys have their legs slammed into shackles and their throats cut before being immersed—often while still conscious—in scalding water to remove their feathers. Many of the 118 million pigs killed annually are improperly stunned and scream in pain as they are scalded to death. More than 39 million cows are hung upside down and left to dangle with all their body weight suspended by one leg before their throats are cut and they are skinned and gutted, some aware of what is happening to them as their bodies are hacked apart.
If humanity is to make real moral progress, we must treat animals as sentient beings whose lives are their own and do not belong to us. This World Farm Animals Day, we're trying to get 10,000 people to visit Meat.org and watch the site's "Glass Walls" video. Please share the page on Facebook, on Twitter, and in any other way you that can imagine to get the word out there!
Written by Michelle Sherrow
It's here! "Hug a Vegetarian" Day has arrived, and it's the perfect time to show some love to the people who are showing love to animals. The average vegetarian saves about 100 animals every year from cruelty and abuse on factory farms. That's definitely worth a few X's and O's.
PETA's youth division, peta2, held hugging events across the country. If you didn't make it to one of the hug fests, you can still spread appreciation for people who are fighting cruelty to animals, climate change, and the obesity epidemic by posting and tweeting virtual hugs. That's what Victorious star and vegan Daniella Monet will be doing—she's ready to hug it out with one enthusiastic peta2 supporter.
© iStockphoto.com | Piotr Gatlik
Don't forget to tweet-hug your favorite vegetarian celebrities too. Will it be animal champion Lea Michele; Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity winners Russell Brand and Kristen Wiig; everyone's favorite vegan president, Bill Clinton; or funniest vegan Steve-O? What the heck, just hug 'em all.
Thank you, China! In a move that breaks with a tradition reportedly going back 600 years—when dogs barked, giving away the army's position—officials have canceled an annual Chinese festival in which 5,000 to 10,000 dogs are killed and eaten on the streets of Jinhua City. The cancellation follows protests by thousands of animal rights advocates. This is a wonderful move by the Chinese government, and we hope to see many more compassionate decisions like this in the years ahead.
Damhyojung | cc by 2.0
One protester described what he had seen at previous festivals: "I've seen the dogs being stabbed, strangled and even beaten into comas and thrown into boiling water. Some dogs woke up in the extremely hot water and they struggled, but the vendors kept pushing them, plucking their fur."
If this sounds horrifying, bear in mind that animals by the billions meet similar fates in American slaughterhouses every year. Improperly stunned cows, turkeys, pigs, and chickens have their throats cut while they are still conscious. The beating and intentional abuse of animals by farm workers is rampant. And pigs, chickens, and turkeys are often still alive when they are dunked into tanks of scalding-hot water to remove their hair and feathers.
Order your free vegetarian/vegan starter kit today and protect all animals from painful slaughter.
This whale of a tale is true: Dolphin activist Hayden Panettiere traveled to the White House to thank President Obama for asking Iceland to ban hunting whales and exporting their meat. Fellow ocean-animal advocates Richard Branson and basketball legend Yao Ming are calling for a ban on shark-fin soup in China, where 95 percent of the cruel fare is served.
Yao Ming isn't the only athlete taking action for animals. After being vegetarian for four years, Toronto Maple Leaf Mike Zigomanis has gone vegan as part of his effort to become healthier, stronger, and a better player.
Congratulations to glowing vegan mom Emily Deschanel, who gave birth last week to her first child, son Henry Hornsby. A rockin' congrats also goes out to the inimitable Joan Jett for her well-deserved Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination. She loves rock and roll … as well as chickens, cows, seals, pigs, elephants, and rabbits.
Another award we couldn't help but crack a smile about—furry Kim Kardashian was voted the most annoying celebrity. Maybe kind sis Khloe can teach her how to be more popular.
Speaking of popular—Ellen DeGeneres, Bill Maher, and other celebs helped make PETA's White House spay-and-neuter petition one of the first to reach 5,000 signatures and go to the president for review by tweeting about the dog and cat homelessness crisis. You can join Ellen, Bill, and many others in sending a strong message about the importance of spaying and neutering by signing the petition too.
A man who was spear-fishing off Anna Maria Island in the Gulf of Mexico found out what it was like to be speared by a fish when a shark bit his left thigh. By issuing a series of biting (geddit?) ads placed in the area, PETA is using this incident to remind Floridians that the deadliest killers in the water aren't sharks—but human beings.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Sharks aren't the only animals who have been striking back:
Perhaps if animals always fought back, people might think twice about abusing them. It would save a lot of lives all around. And speaking of saving lives—maybe these surfers will always be spared from shark attacks in return for their compassionate actions.
After the Sacramento Superior Court ordered the spin doctors behind the blatantly false "Happy Cows" advertising campaign to hand over to PETA thousands of pages of records they wrongfully claimed were "trade secrets," it became obvious why the agencies wanted to keep the documents under wraps.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is required to ensure that the California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB) doesn’t make baseless (let alone outlandish) marketing claims. However, even though the CDFA searched thousands of records, it couldn't produce so much as a single page that substantiated the ad claims. The CDFA and the CMAB have conspired for years to mislead consumers into thinking that dairy cows in California are somehow spared the horrors of the abusive dairy factory-farming industry.
The documents also show that PETA’s campaign against the "Happy Cows" deception led to the ads' demise, and the records support our claim that the CMAB's newest propaganda, the "Family Farms" campaign, is just as tall a tale. We are working to have those ads pulled and sent into the deep recesses of the CMAB's archives of lies. The judge also ordered the CDFA to pay PETA's attorneys' fees and costs over the wrongfully withheld documents.
Unless California's milk producers are all auditioning for impostor spots on To Tell the Truth, they need to learn the difference between fact and fiction. You can avoid funding their lies by throwing the support of your dairy dollars behind real cruelty-free milks like rice, soy, and almond milk.
It might be the genesis of a new era in animal rights: Wearing nothing but her long, flowing hair, Angela Simmons—devout Christian, founder of Pastry, and niece of longtime PETA supporter Russell Simmons—made the poignant revelation that eating meat is wholly unholy in a new ad for PETA.
"I want to open people's eyes up. … If this is where I can find my niche to come and help, I want to help," she explained.
Angela unveiled the ad to an enthusiastic crowd at Manhattan's Paramount Hotel last night, including her uncle Russell, whose vegan lifestyle inspired her own, Ami James, Simone Reyes, and other animal-loving VIPs, while enjoying music by Samantha Ronson (who wore a "no fur" button all night).
Angela believes that God's creatures deserve love and compassion, not abuse on factory farms and painful slaughter. "I really want people to know what happens to animals … I think it's important we take action," she said.
You can follow Angela's advice and take action today by ordering a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit. And we promise it's not a sin to covet the delicious recipes you'll find on our Living page.
With one move, two grocery store chains may have spared thousands of pigs from a good deal of suffering. Foodland Super Market and Times Supermarkets on Oahu have announced that they will no longer sell meat from pigs who were shipped live to Hawaii from the mainland. In addition to the pain of having their throats cut and being scalded during slaughter, pigs who are transported across the ocean alive spend days aboard ships in cramped, filthy conditions and stifling temperatures. Many become sick and die during the arduous voyage.
The grocers' decision could spell the end for Oahu's only slaughterhouse certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and could end all live transport to Oahu. Slaughtering pigs shipped from the mainland is the bulk of business for Hawaii Livestock Cooperative's slaughterhouse. The facility has been struggling financially for a decade and surviving only with help from the government. The president of the slaughterhouse cooperative, Calvin Wong, said he isn't sure that it can sustain the latest loss of business, calling it "another nail in the coffin."
Want to add another nail to that coffin? Stop eating pigs.
On the eve of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' United Nations address requesting that his embattled country be given permission to join the world body, PETA members joined the throngs of people gathered outside the U.N. to spread the message that we can each keep our own bodies free of violence with a vegan diet.
With people all around them screaming and fighting and the police doing their best to keep the peace, our nun, rabbi, and monk calmly showed that one thing people of all races, religions, and creeds can agree on is that we can all reject violence three times a day, 365 days a year, every time we sit down to eat. (After all, the Bible, the Torah, the Dharma, the Qur'an, and other religious texts condemn cruelty to animals.) Our peaceful trio even got a thumbs-up from Robert Kennedy Jr.
Want to start working for peace? Start in your kitchen: Take PETA's Pledge to Be Vegan for 30 Days.
© Lauri Patterson | iStockphoto.com
Don't adjust your screen—you read that right. In less than a year, a popular butcher shop has grown from one store to 30, and we couldn't be happier. The Vegetarian Butcher in the Netherlands offers long glass display cases stocked with tempting "cuts" of delicious faux meats, and customers can't get enough.
Why is De Vegetarische Slager butchering its animal flesh–hawking competitors? Perhaps because 75 percent of people in the Netherlands either no longer eat meat daily or are full-time vegetarians or vegans. Radio Netherlands Worldwide cites cruelty to animals, the risk of dangerous infections, and the overuse of antibiotics as probable reasons for the national gustatory shift.
Vegetarian Butcher founder Niko Koffeman adds meat's devastating impact on the environment to the list of reasons people are flocking to faux. "Especially," he points out, "since we can create a product that has the exact same look, taste and bite as the similar meat product."
While we anxiously await a Vegetarian Butcher shop stateside, most grocery stores in the U.S. already carry yummy faux meats. PETA has done the tastework for you and ranked our favorites.
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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