In an oddball attempt to break back into the Japanese fast-food market, Wendy's had introduced a burger that contained foie gras—you know, the smashed, bloated liver of a force-fed goose. But after a PETA campaign—including action alerts (hooray to everyone who chipped in) and an appeal to fellow Wendy's shareholders—the burger chain has dropped the foie gras.

California has banned the sale and production of foie gras, and its production has also been outlawed in more than a dozen countries, including Australia, Germany, Israel, and the U.K. Most airlines won't serve it, and the best of the big grocery stores won't stock it.

What You Can Do

If you learn that a restaurant you patronize serves foie gras, please tell the store's owners or managers where foie gras comes from: the utter misery of force-fed birds. Ask them to watch the shocking undercover video recently released by PETA U.K. and narrated by Sir Roger Moore, and let them know that you won't be dining there again until foie gras is taken off the menu.

We're delighted to report PETA's latest victory for animals used for experimentation—and this time, our "happy dance" is a Charleston, in honor of the hometown of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Following a vigorous PETA campaign, MUSC has confirmed that the school has not used any pigs for crude trauma training exercises in more than a year and that it has no future plans to do so.

After learning that participants in cruel, archaic training exercises were cutting holes into the throats and chests of live pigs—even though the university used superior state-of-the-art simulators to teach the same skills in other courses—PETA embarked on a three-year campaign to urge MUSC to modernize its curriculum.

Thanks are due not only to MUSC but also to everyone who supported PETA's efforts, which included protests near campus; involvement from local law students; an online campaign in which tens of thousands of people contacted the school via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter; and complaints to authorities that prompted citations for violations of federal animal welfare law.

What You Can Do

Pigs in South Carolina can rest a bit easier now, but a few schools still torture and kill animals instead of using modern and superior non-animal training methods. Please urge the University of Michigan to follow MUSC's smart and compassionate example by ending the use of animals for its trauma training courses in favor of the simulators that it already owns.

Animal advocates, it's time to break out the bubbly. After pressure from PETA and tens of thousands of our members and supporters, NBC has pulled the plug on its cruel show, Animal Practice. Here's the celebration in progress at PETA's Bob Barker Building in L.A.:

The only thing funny about this "sitcom" was its laughable ratings. By not tuning in, viewers told NBC that they weren't interested in watching animals dressed up and made to perform cheap tricks—animals who had been torn away from their mothers as babies and subjected to cruel training methods and unnatural living conditions.

Even before the first episode aired, PETA showed NBC that if the network wanted to broadcast cruelty, it was going to have a rocky road ahead of it. We wrote to NBC and the show's producers and explained how wild animals suffer in the entertainment industry. We kept the heat on by asking advertisers to pull their support, organizing demonstrations, sending an urgent action alert to our members and supporters, and enlisting primate experts to speak out about how the portrayal of monkeys as "pets" leads irresponsible people to acquire them on a whim. And it worked.

NBC will air the three remaining episodes of Animal Practice that have already been filmed. Then viewers can rest assured that cruelty to animals won't be part of the Wednesday night TV lineup.

Cheers!

Raise your barbells to Millennium Partners Sports Club Management, LLC, which is banning glue traps from all its locations nationwide.

After talks with PETA, Millennium learned how glue traps cause their victims a slow, agonizing death. Because the animals get stuck but aren't killed, they struggle to free themselves, often ripping off fur, skin, or feathers in the process. They may also chew off their own limbs to try to escape. Animals may languish for days before finally succumbing to starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, or injuries. And glue traps don't discriminate—birds, companion animals, and even small children can be harmed by them.

Presented with that information, Millennium agreed that glue traps had about as much business being in their gyms as a triple cheeseburger—and neither one will be making it through the door.

Make sure that neither gets through your door, either, with a humane "smart" mousetrap (and a veggie burger, of course). 

In an important step toward justice for the many rabbits who suffered at Bunny Magic Wildlife & Rabbit Rescue, Inc.—as revealed by PETA—Carole Van Wie,  the operator of that nightmarish hoarding facility, was convicted in court of neglecting rabbits. More importantly, she has promised not to take in any more animals and will be on supervised probation to ensure her compliance.

Van Wie will be turning in her state and federal animal rehabilitator licenses and has vowed to get out of animal rescue work—not that she was actually rescuing any animals, of course. Van Wie must undergo a psychiatric evaluation—which is critical for ensuring that no more animals suffer and die at her hands—and pay back some of the costs of caring for the animals who were seized from Bunny Magic. PETA thanks Calvert County Animal Control, the Tri-County Animal Shelter, and the Calvert County State's Attorney's Office for all their hard work on this case.

What You Can Do

Some "rescuers" are anything but—before handing over any animal, take extra care to ensure that you're not sentencing him or her to a miserable incarceration at the hands of a hoarder. Also, please don't bring any animals into your household if you can't make a lifetime commitment to them. But if you are ready, please consider adopting one (or two) of the adorable rabbits rescued from Bunny Magic!

Update: On May 15, 2012, officials filed 17 additional charges of cruelty to animals against Susan Marino, based on evidence gathered as a result of PETA's undercover investigation. Animals like Tuxie—the cat whose gaping neck and head wound Marino picked at and who, PETA learned, died last fall after suffering terribly for many months—will finally be granted a chance at justice. Marino now faces a total of 22 cruelty charges as well as a drug-related charge.

The Delaware County, New York, District Attorney's Office has filed charges of cruelty to animals as well as a drug-related charge against Susan Marino, the woman responsible for the horrific suffering of hundreds of animals at Angel's Gate, Inc., which she founded, operates, and dares to call "a hospice and rehabilitation center."

PETA's investigation of this hellhole exposed the daily neglect and terrible suffering of disabled, elderly, and ailing animals, many of whom had been shipped to Marino by well-meaning but severely uninformed individuals and agencies, including the New York Center for Animal Care and Control (NYCACC), which doomed Malcolm the Chihuahua and hundreds of other animals to die slowly at Angel's Gate through its "New Hope" program.  

PETA had provided the District Attorney with the evidence that our investigator gathered while volunteering at Angel's Gate. Our investigator saw Marino allow animals to suffer, sometimes for weeks, from treatable conditions as well as terminal illnesses without providing veterinary care, medication, or pain relief. Paralyzed animals dragged themselves until they developed bloody ulcers. Animals developed urine scald after being left in soaked diapers for up to two days. Dehydrated animals were denied water, and others were forced to stay outside in freezing temperatures. The bodies of dead animals were left among those of the living for days.

While Marino has been charged, the nightmare is not over for the animals at Angel's Gate, as they have not yet been seized. Please help us ensure their welfare and the safety of future victims by joining us in urging the New York State Attorney General to revoke Angel's Gate's nonprofit status and ensure that the animals are removed from Marino's custody. Please click here to send a letter to the Attorney General, and please, when your animal companions become elderly or ill, let them live out their final days with dignity in the comfort of their own homes, surrounded by their families, not at the mercy of a conniving stranger.

Exciting news from our pals at PETA India! Following that group's extensive campaign, the Indian government has issued guidelines to the Medical Council of India, the Pharmacy Council of India, and the University Grants Commission instructing them to completely stop dissection and experimentation on animals to train both undergraduate and postgraduate students and use non-animal methods of teaching instead.

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Going All Out for All Animals in Laboratories

This campaign was hard-fought. In addition to writing letters to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (which issued the guidelines) and the entities mentioned above, efforts included gathering petition signatures from university students, letters from and meetings held by progressive scientists, and work by other caring individuals as well as online outreach, celebrity involvement, media pressure, and demonstrations. And of course, the PETA Foundation's administrative, fundraising, and finance departments helped keep the campaign afloat.

Another key to this victory was a recent brainstorming session among government scientists and other researchers in which PETA India participated, making the point that animals are not required in order to train students. Indeed, as the ministry said in issuing the guidelines, "Nowadays effective alternatives in the form of CDs, computer simulations, manikin/models, in vitro methods, etc are available and they are not only effective and absolute replacements to the use of animals in teaching anatomy/physiology but they are also superior pedagogic tools in the teaching of pharmacy/life sciences."

How You Can Help Animals in University Laboratories

Countless animals continue to suffer and die in laboratories at U.S. colleges and universities—please take action to persuade the U.S. to follow India's compassionate and forward-thinking example.

After hearing from thousands of animal advocates, the owners of Atlantic City's Steel Pier have canceled their plans to hold horse-diving shows, in which horses would be marched up a narrow ramp and out onto a platform and then forced to jump, plummeting many feet into a pool below.

We know from past horse-diving events that horses suffer bone fractures, internal organ damage, bruising, and leg, spine, and other injuries.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-24057

PETA wrote to Atlantic City organizers and sent out an action alert, and thousands of supporters urged everyone involved to cancel the events. Other animal protectionists organized protests and set up online petitions that garnered 50,000 signatures.

Horse-diving at the Steel Pier was stopped in 1978, but it was briefly revived in 1993. Steel Pier's then-owner, Donald Trump, canceled it because it was cruel to animals.

We're glad that Steel Pier Associates has followed in Trump's compassionate footsteps and are sending them flowers and a letter of thanks for canceling the horse-diving before it started. And we want to thank the many, many kind people who spoke out in the horses' behalf. Together, we made a big difference!

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Following an extensive campaign by PETA India, Indian universities' top governing body, the University Grants Commission (UGC), is officially recommending that all colleges and universities replace animal dissection and animal experimentation in zoology and life sciences courses with modern non-animal methods. According to Dr BK Sharma, associate professor and head of the Department of Zoology at the RL Saharia Government PG College in Jaipur, by using computer simulations, interactive CD-ROMs, films, charts, and lifelike models, it is estimated that Indian universities will save 19 million animals every year.

Animals used for dissection may be captured from their natural habitats or may come from "biological supply" companies, which not only breed animals but also purchase them from slaughterhouses, pet stores, animal shelters, and dealers who sell lost or stolen companion animals. Animals are killed by gassing or drowning and are then injected with formaldehyde, sometimes without first being checked to make sure that they are dead. 

The UGC's recommendations will not only spare millions of animals' lives but also ensure that students don't have to choose between their education and their morals.

Visit CutOutDissection.com to learn how PETA can help you get dissection alternatives implemented in schools near you.

Fewer exotic animals such as hedgehogs, macaws, and lizards will spend their lives locked in cages as "pets," and it all started with a kind woman who wouldn't give up until she got help for a sick, dying ferret in an Arkansas pet store. The woman repeatedly asked the store manager to let her take the ferret home for rehabilitation, but the manager refused. Finally, she called PETA for help. We pushed animal control to check on the ferret, and the store's owner quickly surrendered the ill animal.

PETA's caseworker explained to the store's owner that animals suffer in mass-breeding facilities and animal dealers' warehouses before they end up in pet stores. The owner agreed to watch PETA's undercover video footage from the now-defunct exotic-animal warehouse U.S. Global Exotics, Inc., and the massive ferret factory Triple F Farms, Inc. He was so moved by the plight of wild-born exotic animals—who are often abducted from their families and stuffed into luggage to be smuggled into the U.S.—that he agreed never to buy or sell these animals again.

This victory is an encouragement to us all always to report cruelty and never to miss an opportunity to educate others about how animals suffer in the pet trade and other cruel industries. You never know whose mind you might change!

Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post