Veterinarian Paul Armbrecht during testimony in which he asserted thathanging animals from a forklift does not constitute cruelty

During an undercover investigation conducted by the Humane Farming Association at Wiles Hog Farm in Creston, Ohio, employees were caught killing sows by fastening a chain around their necks and attaching it to a front-end loader, which was hoisted into the air, strangling the animals to death over a period of four to five minutes. In addition to testifying that this was a reasonable form of "euthanasia," the doctor opined that Wiles Farm's practice of dragging, kicking, and dropping sows off a 4-foot ledge was an acceptable method of transporting the animals to their deaths.

Along with five other major animal protection organizations, we have asked the Iowa Veterinary Medical Association to immediately investigate this pathetic excuse for a veterinarian. The Iowa Veterinary Practice Act explicitly prohibits "knowingly making misleading, deceptive, untrue, or fraudulent representation in the practice of the profession," and if his testimony is shown to have violated this clause, we're asking them to immediately revoke his vet's license.

As PETA VP Bruce Friedrich puts it, "Dr. Armbrecht's testimony directly contradicts industry guidelines, which provide only the bare minimum of protection for animals. Giving the okay to a killing method that causes animals to slowly strangle to death makes Dr. Armbrecht a disgrace to the veterinary profession, and it opens the door for even more widespread abuse of animals."

It's a little tough to watch, but here's some video footage of the practices that Dr. Armbrecht recently defended as being "humane."

Please click here to contact the Iowa Vet Board about this issue now.

Lindsay and Nicole, a couple of die-hard anti-KFC campaigners, completed the Louisville Half-Marathon in KFC’s hometown yesterday. So what, you ask? Well, they did the whole thing with “Boycott KFC” and the like written on their bodies, and the pair reported that they got tons of support from the crowd and even talked to several Yum (KFC’s parent company) employees along the way, including one particularly chatty woman who wanted to debate around mile six. Of course, she couldn’t defend KFC, since you can’t really defend a company that refuses to take even the smallest steps towards improving the miserable lives and deaths of the animals killed for its products, despite the fact that its own animal welfare advisory board recommends the changes, and other industry giants like McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy’s, and scores of others, have already taken similar action.

Congrats Lindsay and Nicole!

And on a totally unrelated note, Wu Tang Clan member RZA walked away with the crown in the Hip Hop Chess Federation’s first annual Chess Kings Invitational. Lucky for RZA that I didn’t know about it in time to enter!

We got an e-mail the other week from a student named Christopher Leeman, who had taken the time to create these unique web banners to help promote our wool, fur, and leather campaigns. I liked them so much that I figured I'd post them on the blog (with Christopher's generous permission) for anyone who's looking to spice up their website or myspace page with some artistic, anti-fur bling. Feel free to use the code provided to post these on your site, and if web banners is your thing, there are a bunch more at http://www.peta.org/actioncenter/banners-clothing.asp.

Of course, if you don't have your own website, blog, or myspace page, these aren't going to be much practical use to you beyond maybe providing a bit of inspiration, but they're pretty to look at. Thanks, Christopher!

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Australian singer, actress, and long-time vegetarian Sophie Monk is as compassionate as she is beautiful, which is why she jumped at the chance to star in this beautiful ad promoting vegetarianism.

Sophie is super hot right now, and not just because she’s lying on a bed of chili peppers. She was in Date Movie and Click last year, she’s set to star in Scary Movie 5, and she absolutely killed it in a guest spot on Entourage last season. And I’d be remiss not to mention her amazing cover of the classic Salt ‘n’ Pepa track “Push It.” The video for “Push It,” directed by Sophie’s fiancé, Good Charlotte guitarist and fellow animal rights supporter Benji Madden, became an online hit almost immediately.

Check out what Sophie has to say about being vegetarian, animal testing, and other animal issues in this exclusive behind-the-scenes video from the photo shoot:

Right now, anyone who wants can walk into any Petland store in America and buy an animal with a credit card as if they were picking up the latest Britney Spears single. What ends up happening is that, much like the new Britney joint, these animals get discarded, cast aside, or returned to the store at the earliest opportunity. With more than 6 million cats and dogs turned in to shelters every year in the U.S., stores like Petland are already an unpleasant example of ethics and social responsibility taking a back seat to making easy money, but the very least that they can do is implement some basic, commonsense policies that will help to prevent the animals they sell from ending up with someone who’s going to neglect them, dump them at a shelter, or worse.

We’re asking the company to ban the use of credit cards to purchase live animals, implement a 24-hour waiting period on live-animal purchases, and spay or neuter puppies and kittens before release. If you’d like to contact Petland yourself about these issues, you can do so here. It’s not a lot to ask of a multi-million dollar corporation, but it will make a world of difference for the animals.

Well, we took a week off last week ’cuz, to be frank, researching these people can really ruin my Fridays sometimes—and if there was ever a man who could suck all the fun out of your weekend, it’s our latest winner (by a margin of 15-1!), Hagai Bergman, who enjoys romantic movies, long walks on the beach, and drilling holes into monkeys’ brains while they scream for mercy.

While Hagai shuffles into his rightful place as this week’s Vilest Vivisector, it’s time to turn our attention to the new blood. This week, we’ve got two researchers for you from the Yerkes Center at Emory University who are studying the psychology of despair the only way they know how … by inflicting it! So here it is—a PETA Files exclusive sneak peek into the very darkest reaches of two twisted human souls … it’s time to cast your vote for the next Vivisector of the Week!

Stuart Zola, Emory University. Emory/Creative Commons For the past 3 years, Stuart Zola, who is the director of Emory’s Yerkes Primate Research Center, has been refining his theories about what makes baby monkeys suffer the most. He’s tried slicing into their brains, and he’s tried tying them to restraint chairs for hours on end. He’s even spent some of the $2.2 million in taxpayer money he’s received for these experiments to turn the young primates into drug addicts in the hopes of finding out whether drug-addiction has adverse effects on the memory (yes, Stuart, it does). But Zola’s curiosity about early-life trauma in monkeys knows no bounds! If you’d like to see this relentless dedication to sadism given its due, be sure to cast your vote for Stuart Zola now!

Maria Sanchez, Emory University. Emory/Creative Commons Maria del Mar Sanchez has the dubious honor of being our first female candidate for Vivisector of the Week, and—doubtless mindful of the weighty implications that this carries for her gender—she’s gone out of her way to show that natural compassion and maternal instincts mean absolutely nothing to her. A mother herself, Sanchez conducts experiments in which infant primates are taken from their mothers again and again, giving rise to extreme depression in the monkeys. Baby monkeys taken from their mothers are so desperate that they will cry out more than 200 times in 30 minutes. To elect our very first female Vivisector of the Week, cast your vote for Maria Sanchez!

Will Mrs. Sanchez’s diabolical role as a parent who has devoted her life to wrenching infants from their mothers be enough to edge out the sadistic brain butcher Stuart Zola? Find out next week* when we crown the very latest Vivisector of the Week!

*The PETA Files cannot guarantee that they will remember to do this next week.

Well, for now anyway. The Ellen DeGeneres puppy story has been all over the news lately and a lot of people have been asking us for our stance on the issue, but I have to say I was pretty surprised by the reaction after I posted PETA’s statement on the subject yesterday. Comments ranged from complaints that we were being too soft on her to admonitions that we were being too hard on her to some very impassioned attacks against both Ellen herself and the shelter involved.

But this just isn’t a black-and-white issue. There really are two legit sides to the story, and I honestly can’t understand why anyone would paint either Ellen or Mutts & Moms (the shelter that confiscated her dog) as a villain here. For one thing, the shelter has rules in place for a very good reason—to protect the animals. It seems like in this case they really could have taken the time to make a more thorough evaluation in the hopes of avoiding another traumatic move for the animal (there are certainly plenty of suitable homes for animals with kids in them), but you can’t fault a shelter for enforcing the rules it has in place to prevent animals from ending up in bad situations.

Now as far as Ellen is concerned, she screwed up by not reading what happened to be some really important fine print, but that doesn’t make her a bad person. On the contrary, with so many vapid celebrities running around with puppies under their arms that they picked up from some Hollywood pet store without so much as a passing thought for the millions of homeless animals in shelters, Ellen’s choice to adopt was commendable, and I hope that message doesn’t get lost in all the partisan ranting about this story that’s going on in the media.

Honestly, I’m a sucker for pretty much any crime drama. As long as there’s gunplay, a car chase or two, and maybe a bit of double-crossing, I’ll watch the damn thing. But from everything I’ve seen, Gone Baby Gone looks like it’s a cut above. The reviews have been stellar, and all indications are that this is going to be something special.

I mention all this because Gone Baby Gone (which comes out today) is set to establish my boy Casey Affleck as one of Hollywood’s elite leading men, and the value of having someone as well-spoken, thoughtful, and passionate about animal rights as he is in the public eye is pretty much inestimable. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the video Casey made for us about why he’s vegan. There are no car chases or anything, but it’s extremely compelling stuff.