Written by Michelle Sherrow
PETA has been on pharmaceutical company Amgen's case for years over the company's stubborn refusal to more actively implement alternatives to animal experiments, among other things. But we're riding high this week after pulling a fast one at Amgen's Tour of California Bike Race.
Amgen sponsored the massive race and had its branding everywhere, but so did we:
PETA got the last laugh near the finish line. As the racers flew by and the news cameras flashed, two stealthily placed staffers whipped out signs about Amgen's animal abuse and held them high for the crowd to see:
It's time for Amgen to join in the race to replace animal tests with modern science.
Written by Jeff Mackey
PETA has joined Animal Defenders International in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for illegally issuing permits allowing the Ringling Bros. circus to export endangered tigers and elephants for use in its shows anywhere at any time for the next three years!
FWS has allowed incomplete permit applications from Ringling for far too long. It is illegal to export endangered animals, and the Endangered Species Act includes exceptions to this prohibition only in the most limited of circumstances. To get a permit, an application containing very specific information needs to be submitted to FWS—and as a matter of law, all this information must be made available to the public.
FWS violated this requirement in numerous ways by issuing these latest permits. First, it didn't tell the public about four of the elephants Ringling sought to export, so PETA and the public were illegally deprived of some of the information related to the applications. In addition, the permit applications to which the public was given access lacked extensive information required by law, including details about when, to where, and for how long Ringling intends to export the animals as well as specific data about Ringling's supposed conservation education activities, which it used as justification for the permit.
Because concerned citizens were denied this information—and because FWS must stop illegally rubber-stamping incomplete permit applications—PETA has filed suit.
There's no telling how much these animals will be forced to endure abroad, where, in many countries, animal protection laws are scarce and enforcement is even less common. One of the elephants FWS is allowing Ringling to export is Sarah, who tested positive for tuberculosis and was taken off the road after collapsing last year in Anaheim, California—and after the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited Ringling for failing to treat her adequately for a chronic infection.
At home or abroad, Ringling is bad news for animals, which is why more and more people are speaking out against the circus's inexcusable cruelty. Help the animals abused by Ringling by adding your voice at RinglingBeatsAnimals.com.
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.
Ringling just got its bell rung, courtesy of Rio Rancho, New Mexico. The circus was scheduled to perform in the city in June, but because of Ringling's sordid history of violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and its recent $270,000 fine from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the city refused to issue Ringling a permit to perform.
James Preston|cc by 2.0
Just last year, Rio Rancho added a provision to its animal ordinance barring any animal shows that had been fined by the USDA in the past five years or cited for violating the AWA in the last three years. Since Ringling just paid the largest fine in circus history last year and racked up 10 violations of the AWA in the past three years, it certainly didn't pass muster. PETA has sent a thank-you letter to the city.
Now Ringling is trying to haul "The Cruelest Show on Earth" to the state fairgrounds in Albuquerque. PETA is appealing to the Tingley Coliseum at the fairgrounds, detailing Ringling's long history of animal abuse and urging the venue to block the circus just as Rio Rancho has.
Call state fair officials at 505-222-9700 and politely urge them not to allow Ringling to perform. You can follow up your call with an e-mail to the general manager of the state fair, Dan Mourning.
Update: Tom and Misha were released back into the ocean earlier this month and within hours were already chasing and hunting fish together and socializing with other wild dolphins. Born Free kept their release on May 9 a secret to avoid human interference with Tom's and Misha's progress, but satellite transmitters on their dorsal fins show that since their release, the dolphins have already traveled hundreds of miles and are healthy and eating well.
Two dolphins who were formerly held captive for four years as part of a swim-with-dolphins program will finally be released back into their native habitat later this spring.
Captured and imprisoned in a tiny tank in Hisaronu, Turkey, bottlenose dolphins Tom and Misha were denied everything natural to them and forced to perform for a constant barrage of tourists. Their future seemed bleak until the Born Free Foundation, a British organization that campaigns in behalf of animals in zoos and aquariums, embarked on a mission to win their freedom. With the help of PETA Germany, which posted an action alert on its website, wrote to Hisaronu's mayor, and coordinated actions with Turkish animal rights groups, Born Free got Tom and Misha released to a marine reserve in the Mediterranean Sea and began preparing them for life in the ocean.
pmarkham|cc by 2.0
Because of the stress of intensive confinement, the dolphins were weak, underweight, and lethargic when they arrived at the reserve. But after two years of nurturing, they are healthier and stronger and, most importantly, are starting to catch fish on their own, a sign that they are nearly ready to be released on schedule in late spring. Once again, they will be able to swim for up to 100 miles a day and use their sonar to explore the ocean.
If you love dolphins, please don't pay for them to be imprisoned and tormented in swim-with-dolphins exhibitions. By contrast, programs like the one at the Florida Keys' John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park allow you to interact with dolphins in their home—on their terms.
When PETA learned about a horse in Washington state who appeared very thin and sickly, we contacted animal control, which refused to help him. Fortunately, we knew a local humane investigator who agreed to go and check on the horse.
The horse's owners said they were giving him plenty of food and water but that he was still losing weight. A checkup by a veterinarian the humane investigator had brought along revealed a simple solution: The horse's teeth had become overgrown, so he needed to have them filed down so that he could chew properly. After getting the much-needed veterinary care, the relieved horse began to eat. He has subsequently gained weight and is looking much healthier.
People often acquire animals on a whim, without knowing how to care for them properly. When your friends and family are thinking about bringing home a new animal, offer them PETA's factsheet along with that new toy or treats so that they know what they're getting into—and so that the animal goes to a home that's prepared.
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It's the weekend! This little sloth has a great idea for how to spend it.
As vegan eating goes mainstream, delicious new vegan products are popping up in grocery stores like dandelions in summer yards. Here are some of our favorites.
I would love to put Oscar-nominated actor Michael Clarke Duncan up for a VMA, because the gentle giant's new PETA video, in which he talks about why he went vegetarian and how much he loves animals, is my hands-down pick for Video of the Year.
You'll fall crazy in love with Kiwi Crazy Love and the other sumptuous smoothies on new video website BlendedRecipes.com.
Photo: Robert Sebree|Grooming:Georgie Eisdell for Exclusive Artists Management
NEW FEATURE
It's down to the wire: Which lovely lass and good-looking guy will be named peta2's Cutest Vegetarian Alive? Cast your votes!
NEW ACTION ALERT
We already know that tobacco is harmful without subjecting more animals to cruel, archaic experiments. Tell the Food and Drug Administration to remove animal tests from its guide on tobacco product testing, especially since previous tests have shown that animals don't even develop the same diseases that human smokers do.
Rihanna got busted by the fashion police for wearing a dress made of crocodile. Kelly Osbourne rocked for crocs by proclaiming that she's not down with people wearing crocodile skins.
Over on one of our other favorite shows, Ellen, Carrie Underwood dished about how her hubby, hockey player Mike Fisher, is getting cozy with vegan cuisine. And since Ellen DeGeneres gave Underwood Vegan Cooking for Carnivores by her chef, Roberto Martin, we're betting things will really be heating up in the couple's kitchen.
Ellen, Portia de Rossi, and Roberto also veganized the Rachael Ray Show. While Roberto and Portia cooked, Ellen quipped that cheese is so heavy that if you skip it, "there is more room for cocktails!"
In the Philippines for a performance, outspoken vegetarian Morrissey (a few chords from Meat Is Murder, anyone?), urged President Benigno Aquino III to send Manila Zoo's lone elephant, Mali, who has spent the last 35 years imprisoned, to a sanctuary that PETA has secured for her in the U.S.
Captivating actor Marion Cotillard is also against holding animals captive. On the orca training scenes that appear in her upcoming film, Rust and Bone, she said, "I've always had a repulsion going in a place where animals are in captivity."
Of course, celebrities were also tweeting for animals this week, including Jonah Hill and Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino:
To keep up with what the stars are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.
Some people may know about PETA only from what they see on TV or read online or in the gossip mags, but celebrities aren't the only stars who work for PETA. I'm talking about our hardworking superstar spay-and-neuter clinic staffers, of course.
Six—sometimes seven!—days a week, PETA's mobile clinics provide animals in Virginia and North Carolina with free to low-cost sterilization surgeries. In April alone, the mobile clinics spayed or neutered 717 animals, and PETA's Community Animal Project fieldworkers even transported 29 more to and from the clinics. Here are just a few of the lucky animals "SNIP'ed" by our fabulous medical team this month:
Fluffy
Blackie Jr.
Layla
Missy
Charlotte
You can help end the animal homelessness crisis by volunteering at a spay-and-neuter clinic in your area or offering to transport an animal belonging to someone without transportation to a spay or neuter appointment.
It was one of those stories that was so appalling that people had to share it. A PETA supporter learned from someone at her workplace about a couple who had moved out of their house and left their St. Bernard there alone, caged in a crate 24 hours a day. She called us immediately.
After tracking down the owners, we learned that they were going once a day to give the dog food and water but were forcing him to spend his life alone in the crate, where he also had to relieve himself. We pressured the local police department and animal control to talk to the couple and convince them to surrender the dog. Thankfully, they agreed.
The dog was finally free, but the stress of confinement had left him with psychological scars. Like many dogs who are crated for an extended period of time, he had become aggressive and developed other behavioral problems. As it would have been dangerous to put him up for adoption, he was peacefully euthanized.
Had he not been deprived of socialization, exercise, affection, environmental stimulation, and everything else that was important to him, this dog might have been adoptable. You can help by encouraging the dog guardians in your life to let their dogs do what social pack animals do best: spend their time surrounded by family, not stuck in a crate or on a chain.
After PETA just filed formal complaints about horse abuse and neglect on the set of the HBO show Luck, we've placed this graphic ad in the Los Angeles Times:
Image:(c) iStockphoto.com/Eric Isselee
Like all other animals, horses don't want to be "actors," and they are often subjected to stressful and dangerous situations during the production of films, ads, and TV shows. The American Humane Association (AHA), the organization responsible for overseeing how animals are cared for on the set, is funded by the Screen Actors Guild—part of the same industry that it monitors. The AHA rarely, if ever, files formal complaints when animals are abused.
We hope our ad encourages producers and directors to protect horses by calling, "Cut!" on using them in films and television.
PETA made sure that attendees at this week's annual meeting of KFC's parent company, Yum! Brands, in Louisville, Kentucky, would have something to chew on besides their cruelly obtained drumsticks and wings.
As shareholders of Yum! Brands stock, PETA can attend the company's annual meeting and ask a question during the Q&A. So Yum! bigwigs and stockholders got an earful from PETA when it detailed how chickens used to supply KFC restaurants spend their entire short lives mired in their own waste in cramped filthy sheds on factory farms, only to be hung upside down, sustain broken wings and legs, and often end up scalded to death in slaughterhouse defeathering tanks. PETA's representative then asked when the company will make the simple, badly needed changes that were recommended by KFC's own animal welfare advisers (who understandably resigned in frustration).
Join Pink, Sir Paul McCartney, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Black Eyed Peas, and many others in telling KFC to do right by chickens.
On the heels of trainer Doug O'Neill's win at the Kentucky Derby with I'll Have Another, The New York Times reported that in the past 14 years, O'Neill has had nearly that many violations for giving horses illegal performance-enhancing drugs. That O'Neill could be forcing horses to run when they shouldn't may account for the fact that the horses he trains sustain breakdowns or injuries more than twice as often, on average, as other thoroughbreds. Yet even with multiple drug violations, O'Neill is still sought after. Little oversight and lenient penalties make it too easy for him and other trainers to drug horses and get away with it.
banamine|cc by 2.0The U.S. is the only country that still allows routine and extensive use of drugs in horse racing, despite the overwhelming evidence that drugs are deadly for horses.
Long-Standing History of Drug Abuse
In fact, of the top 20 U.S. trainers in 2011, only two were never cited for a drug violation, according to Racing Commissioners International.
Leading trainer Todd Pletcher, who trained 2010 Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver, has been suspended several times for drug charges, fellow top trainer D. Wayne Lukas was caught running horses with cocaine in their systems, and Darrel Delahoussaye and Patrick Biancone have both had numerous drug violations, including citations for using snake venom. Rick Dutrow Jr., who trained 2008 Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown, racked up so many drug violations that he was banned from all New York racetracks for 10 years.
What You Can Do
Last year, after a congressional hearing on the use of drugs in horseracing for which PETA supplied information, the Interstate Horseracing Improvement Act of 2011 was introduced, which would ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs and require that the winner and one other randomly chosen horse be tested for drugs at all races.
Please take a moment to ask your representatives to vote in favor of this much-needed legislation.
Seeing is believing for a team of researchers from the University of Nevada–Reno who are developing an app to help blind people navigate independently. Giving the visually impaired more mobility without bringing more dogs into the world to serve as guide dogs certainly qualifies as progress in our book, so PETA has given the team a Proggy Award.
© Eduard Kyslynskyy/Shutterstock.com
The app functions much like a GPS system, gauging the user's pace, warning of obstacles, and giving spoken directions. And unlike its canine counterpart, the app doesn't contribute to the animal overpopulation crisis. Guide-dog breeders take homes away from dogs in animal shelters, as dogs who have become too old to work, along with those who don't make the cut to begin with, must be put up for adoption. The app also doesn't mind being required to work day after day or being forbidden from socializing while working.
We call that a doggone good invention.
Written by PETA
Update: Because summer is approaching, we're reposting this blog piece in order to help turtles.
PETA rescue workers discovered these two turtles beside local roads. Although they were mortally wounded, both turtles were still alive and suffering immensely when we found them. They were quickly and mercifully put out of their misery.
As the weather warms up, turtles are becoming increasingly mobile. If you see a turtle attempting to cross a road, lend a hand. Small turtles can be carried across the road by holding both sides of the shell and body, in front of the back legs. Large or snapping turtles can be gently coaxed into an animal carrier or onto a sturdy, flat surface so that they can be safely moved a short distance, or you can simply walk behind the animal until the turtle is safely across.
Always carry turtles in the direction they were heading. These determined animals have a destination in mind, and they will simply head back into the road if you try to change their course. Healthy, uninjured turtles shouldn't be moved from the general area where they were found, so once they've made it safely across, it's best to leave them be.
If you see a turtle who has been hit by a car, take the animal to a veterinarian or an animal shelter to be assessed and, if necessary, euthanized. Turtles have an extremely slow metabolism and can take days or weeks to die, even when they are severely injured.
For more tips, visit PETA's "Wildlife Emergencies" page.
Just three years after it opened following a long battle with PETA and local citizens, a laboratory owned by a notorious animal testing company, Covance, in Chandler, Arizona, is closing because of lack of demand for its cruel and deadly services.
Shutting Down Cruelty …
When plans to build the Chandler facility were uncovered in 2005, PETA worked with outraged local residents to try to stop it and managed to delay its construction. The world's largest contract testing laboratory, Covance subjects animals to painful and deadly tests of cosmetics ingredients, personal and household products, food additives, industrial chemicals, and drugs. Covance is also the world's largest breeder of dogs and the largest U.S. importer of primates to be tormented and killed in experiments.
Despite media censorship, word clearly got around about the horrendous cruelty found inside Covance's laboratories, including physical and psychological abuse of primates and lack of veterinary care for sick and injured animals.
The shutdown of the Arizona facility follows the 2010 closure of a Covance lab in Virginia, where shocking abuse of animals was exposed by a PETA undercover investigation. Around that same time, Covance scrapped plans to build a massive facility elsewhere in Virginia that PETA had urged officials to reject.
… But Keeping Up the Pressure
These closures will save countless monkeys, dogs, rabbits, mice, rats, and other animals from suffering, but Covance is still in business, so PETA's work goes on, including a recent protest at the company's annual meeting, where PETA also presented a resolution calling on the company to make animal welfare improvements.
Ready to help animals in laboratories? Learn how—and be sure to follow PETA on Twitter to learn about more opportunities to get active.
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.
In the upcoming Disney flick LOL, Lina Esco plays Miley Cyrus' fearless BFF who always speaks her mind. The role wasn't a stretch for Lina, who constantly looks for opportunities to talk about the cause that is closest to her heart: getting marine mammals out of captivity.
Lina has helped create two stirring public service announcements about how marine parks such as SeaWorld abuse animals and how the parks are responsible for Japan's dolphin slaughter. One of the ads features a talented group of kids, and the other boasts a who's who of Hollywood elite. Now it's Lina who is in front of the camera, starring in a video for PETA in which she asks her fans not to patronize marine-mammal shows:
Lina makes a difference because she is never silent. Whether the cause you are most passionate about is ending the abuse of animals in marine parks, preventing animals from being killed for fur, or getting great apes out of laboratories, learn how you can "never be silent."
Fighting for truth, justice, and the cruelty-free way, PETA's caped crusaders descended on the Ottawa Comiccon to ask fans to be superheroes for animals by going vegan.
The meat and dairy industries are colder to animals than Mr. Freeze, but all people can fight for good every time they sit down to eat.
Ready to fly faster than a speeding bullet, be more powerful than a locomotive, and leap tall buildings in a single bound? Just get rid of the kryptonite, er, animal products.
PETA is seeking current or former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents who are also vegan or vegetarian to volunteer as models for our new "Look Bomb in Your Underwear: Go Vegetarian!" poster, which will be released nationally. The models will be photographed in sexy skivvies while posing in front of an airport body scanner.
As frequent fliers, PETA staffers appreciate the TSA's job of helping to safeguard America's skies. And in the same way that Charlie Chaplin famously deflated Hitler in The Great Dictator, we would like to make a mockery of the Al Qaeda mindset and lighten the mood. Our ad will also be a public service, reminding people that we can all live longer by avoiding a far more common threat to our national well-being: a meaty diet that is associated with illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
(c)iStockphoto.com/Bart Sadowski Last time, PETA put passengers who were proud of their veggie bodies on our ads. Now it's the TSA's turn to step out from behind the scanner.
As PETA Files readers know, vegetarians and vegans are significantly healthier and trimmer and less prone to the major killer diseases than their meat-eating counterparts are. TSA agents (and others!) who want to look bomb in their underwear can check out PETA's vegetarian/vegan starter kit.
If you are a current or former TSA agent and would like to be considered for this explosive, lifesaving ad, please comment below.
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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