Written by Alisa Mullins
So are you feeling a little bummed that you missed out on the record-breaking $500 million Powerball jackpot? No need.
As PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk points out in an opinion piece just published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, you've already won the jackpot just by being in the right place at the right time—and of the right species:
When we feel sorry for ourselves, it helps to put things in perspective. It helps to remember that we live in the United States of America, where we have a great many luxuries unknown to most of the world. We don't have to stifle our opinions or get a government-issued pass to travel to another state: We enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of movement. We are entitled to an education. We do not have to starve or freeze: Someone will provide us with food, shelter, and water. If we are down on our luck or out on the street, there are basic support services available from the government and from charities. And even beyond all of that, we have won life's lottery because we have been born human. Whether you believe we lucked out because of karma or divine intervention or by an accident of birth, just imagine for one moment what life would be like if you had been born a mouse in a laboratory, a dog kept outside on a chain all winter, a bear in a barren enclosure in a roadside zoo, or a bird confined to a cage. This is an appeal to all of us who have won life's lottery by being born into the luckiest 0.0001 percent of life-forms: Remember to care and to share, especially during this season of goodwill—Powerball or no Powerball.
When we feel sorry for ourselves, it helps to put things in perspective. It helps to remember that we live in the United States of America, where we have a great many luxuries unknown to most of the world. We don't have to stifle our opinions or get a government-issued pass to travel to another state: We enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of movement. We are entitled to an education. We do not have to starve or freeze: Someone will provide us with food, shelter, and water. If we are down on our luck or out on the street, there are basic support services available from the government and from charities.
And even beyond all of that, we have won life's lottery because we have been born human. Whether you believe we lucked out because of karma or divine intervention or by an accident of birth, just imagine for one moment what life would be like if you had been born a mouse in a laboratory, a dog kept outside on a chain all winter, a bear in a barren enclosure in a roadside zoo, or a bird confined to a cage.
This is an appeal to all of us who have won life's lottery by being born into the luckiest 0.0001 percent of life-forms: Remember to care and to share, especially during this season of goodwill—Powerball or no Powerball.
Read the essay in its entirety here.
Via Philly.com
Written by Michelle Kretzer
Update: Thanks to pressure by animal advocates, zoo officials have moved Diego to a larger enclosure, where he can now feel grass under his paws. They have also moved a lioness in with him, and he seems to be relishing the company of his new friend.
Published May 22, 2012:
Diego, a young lion, has spent most of his life alone in a cement and chain-link cage. Mexico's wildlife protection agency, PROFEPA, seized him during a criminal investigation when Diego was just a few months old. PROFEPA placed Diego in the Zacango Zoo outside Mexico City, where he has languished in a barren cell, alone (lions are by far the most social of the big cats). Telemundo star Pablo Azar has teamed up with PETA to persuade PROFEPA—which has legal custody of Diego—to send the lonely lion to a U.S. sanctuary that is standing by to receive him.
Photographs and video footage provided to PETA depict Diego pacing incessantly in his tiny cage—behavior that is indicative of stress, boredom, and frustration.
In his letter to PROFEPA, Azar implored:
Diego's life has no enrichment, and he paces back and forth in his tiny space, making it clear that he is losing his mind in this unnatural situation. … Please do the compassionate thing and see to it that Diego is transported to the United States as soon as possible so that he does not have to suffer another day.
At the sanctuary, Diego could finally enjoy the company of other lions, receive veterinary care, enjoy a vast space in which to roam and explore, and recover from the stress of intensive confinement.
Urge Mexican officials to transfer Diego to the U.S. sanctuary.
Could the Lake Superior Zoo have taken steps to prevent the deaths of 14 animals, including a donkey, sheep, goats, a snowy owl, a turkey vulture, and a raven, after their enclosures were engulfed in floodwaters during a flash flood last week? PETA thinks so, and we sent a letter to the Duluth, Minnesota, city attorney urging him to charge the zoo with cruelty.
mwanasimba|cc by 2.0
Minnesota's animal protection laws define "cruelty" as "every act, omission, or neglect which causes or permits unnecessary or unjustifiable pain, suffering, or death" and state that anyone who deprives any animal of necessary shelter or causes or allows any animal to be unjustifiably injured or killed is in violation.
In our letter to the city attorney, we pointed out that the zoo had advance warning of the risk of flash flooding and that the same creek that flooded the zoo had caused flooding at the facility two years ago.
These animals had no way to save themselves—they were at the mercy of their caretakers, who let them down in the worst possible way. If zoos are going to confine animals to cages so that people can spend a Saturday with the kids gawking at them, the least that they can do is to make sure that the animals aren't swept away in a flood while the people who are supposed to be safeguarding them are safe at home in their beds.
Written by Jeff Mackey
In the final chapter of a case we've been following for some time now, the Knoxville Zoo has agreed to pay a $9,000 fine stemming from the death of elephant handler Stephanie James, who was crushed by Edie, a female African elephant.
The zoo was initially cited after PETA urged the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSHA) to enforce the law in the wake of the highly preventable fatality. TOSHA agreed with PETA and assessed a fine, but the zoo had contested the decision before finally settling the case this week.
Benoit Dupont|cc by 2.0
In addition, after this incident, PETA urged the Knoxville Zoo to switch to a safer and more humane method of working with captive elephants called "protected contact," in which barriers always separate elephants and handlers and bullhooks are never used, and the zoo agreed. While this is a definite improvement, no zoo can provide an adequate environment for the needs of elephants, so PETA will stay on the job until all captive animals are free.
Google goes gaga for vegan food, learn how to show bunnies some love this Valentine's Day, and help us ask Florida not to change its slogan to "The Hoarder State." Here's everything in PETA's world that you might have missed this week.
Don't miss any breaking animal rights stories. Hop on over to PETA's Tumblr page for the latest:
Written by Jennifer OConnor
Update: After a PETA staffer swore out a complaint against Henry Hampton, Lazy 5's owner, Hampton finally made arrangements to trim two giraffes' painfully overgrown hooves. Because he delayed the critical procedure and caused one giraffe to suffer for more than a year, PETA is calling for prosecutors to pursue cruelty-to-animals charges against him. However, PETA is open to dropping the charges if Hampton promises the court that he'll adhere to a continual regimen of appropriate hoof care.
The following was originally posted December, 14, 2011.
North Carolina's Lazy 5 Ranch should be the last place that schools take children on field trips, unless the trip is meant to teach children about how cruelly animals are treated in roadside zoos. But visiting Lazy 5 is exactly what some local schools are doing.
In the last year and a half, federal authorities have cited Lazy 5 for 21 violations of animal welfare laws, and the feds have also opened a formal investigation into the roadside zoo. One giraffe's hooves are so overgrown that she has to walk on her heels. She has suffered this painful, debilitating condition for more than a year.
The zoo has also been cited for leaving a deer to languish with a hernia for more than a month after euthanasia was recommended, failing to properly care for a deer with a large wound that was infested with flies, failing to shear sheep who were left panting in heavy fleece in 86-degree weather, and allowing dangerous, unsupervised public contact with animals. The list goes on and on, and PETA is appealing to all local schools to stay away.
If your local school takes children on field trips to the zoo or circus, click here for tips on reaching out to your principal to get these cruel field trips off the list.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
It never hurts to brush up on answers to questions about animal issues—even seasoned protesters can get a stumper from passersby now and then. See if you know the answers to the following five questions that often pop up in discussions about animal rights:
What's wrong with eggs and dairy products from "free-range" animals? There are no standards for what "free-range" means, so animals on such farms may still spend most of their time in filthy, crowded sheds. Cruel practices such as searing off hens' beaks with a hot blade and relegating male calves to veal crates occur, and when the animals stop producing enough eggs or milk, they are sent to the same slaughterhouses as factory-farmed animals.
If we don't test on animals, what other methods are available? Computer simulations, cell cultures, human cadavers, and clinical trials are just some of the many options researchers can use instead of animal testing to obtain more accurate and cost-effective results.
davedehtre|cc by 2.0
What's wrong with wearing wool? In Australia—where most of the world's merino wool comes from—sheep have been bred to have excessively wrinkled skin in order to produce more wool. The wrinkles collect moisture, which attracts flies, so many farmers resort to "mulesing," a gruesome and cruel procedure in which huge chunks of skin and flesh are cut from lambs' backsides in a crude attempt to prevent flystrike.
Should we put endangered animals in zoos? Endangered animals bred in zoos are rarely released into the wild. Instead, they will spend their lives "warehoused" in cramped enclosures that cannot come close to replicating their natural habitats. As a result, many develop stereotypic behaviors such as pacing, rocking from side to side, and self-mutilation. The only humane and effective way to combat extinction is to protect animals' habitats.
What's wrong with using a choke or prong collar on my dog? As their names imply, choke and prong collars inflict discomfort and pain, and they can severely injure dogs' necks and throats. Far safer and more humane options are no-pull harnesses and halters like the Easy Walk, Halti, or even a standard figure-H harness. For cruelty-free dog-training tips, check out celebrity dog trainer Tamar Geller's video series for PETA.
Have another animal rights question that you've always wondered about? Visit PETA's Frequently Asked Questions page.
Update: Animal friend and philanthropist Bob Barker is paying the entire cost of shipping Toka, Thika, and Iringa from Toronto to the PAWS sanctuary in California.
The following was originally posted on November 25, 2011:
To thank the three members of the Toronto City Council who spearheaded the vote to send the three elephants at the Toronto Zoo to a sanctuary, we sent them each a box of vegan chocolates and a Compassionate Legislator Award certificate. The City Council voted 31 to 4 to allow Iringa, Toka, and Thika to leave the freezing Canadian winters behind and spend the rest of their days roaming with other retired elephants at California's spacious Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) sanctuary.
Elephants in Canadian zoos—including Lucy, the lone elephant in the Edmonton Zoo—spend much of their time indoors since they cannot tolerate the winter cold and snow. They often suffer from arthritis and other painful ailments as a result of the lack of exercise and standing on hard surfaces for prolonged periods. While the compassionate city councillors recognized the need to send the three Toronto elephants to a sanctuary, zoo officials were battling to send Iringa, Toka, and Thika to another zoo. But last night the zoo voted to send the three elephants to PAWS.
Please click here to send a polite email to the Toronto Zoo thanking them for their compassionate decision to send Iringa, Toka and Thika to the PAWS sanctuary.
© Zebra: deste / sxc.hu | Ribbon: Elize / sxc.hu
Fading director Cameron Crowe is using wild animals as "actors." In his new movie, We Bought a Zoo, he used lions, bears, and other wild animals who are at great risk for abuse because of their strength and instinctive aggression.
PETA repeatedly reached out to Crowe and Fox Studios before and during production and warned them about how wild animals used for films are often subjected to food deprivation, beatings, and jolts with electric-shock devices during pre-production training and urged them to use high-tech computer-generated imagery instead, like that used in the blockbuster Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Animals rented out for use in movies aren't often abused on the set—that usually takes place when no one is around to see it. PETA undercover investigations at wild-animal training facilities documented that lions and tigers were repeatedly beaten and psychologically abused by trainers intent on showing them "who's boss." When animals grow too old or too large to be controlled, they often spend the rest of their lives at decrepit roadside zoos or backyard menageries.
Please skip this movie and tweet that animals belong in the wild, not on the big screen, @WeBoughtAZoo.
When students at China's Guangdong University of Foreign Studies bustled onto campus for open day, little did they know that their education would begin on the sidewalk.
Armed with hundreds of leaflets and stickers courtesy of PETA Asia-Pacific, an enterprising group of students flooded the campus with messages about protecting animals and the environment using the slogan "We all live under the same sky."
Considering how eagerly their receptive classmates grabbed information about factory farming, zoos, and other animal rights issues, it's safe to say that these students opened the school year with a bang.
If you know students who want to get active for animals, let them know that they can "take charge" by visiting peta2.com
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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