Ryan Gosling has certainly earned his cape this month. First, he broke up a street fight in Manhattan. Then, the Academy Award-nominated actor leapt to the defense of chickens and turkeys on factory farms. Gosling wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on PETA’s behalf calling on the agency to revoke its … Read more »
PETA wishes a very happy 60th birthday to rock legend Chrissie Hynde, who, when she isn’t using her beautiful voice to sing platinum hits, uses it to stop cruelty to animals. From opening her vegan restaurant, VegiTerranean, to having her hit song “I’ll Stand by You” featured in a heartbreaking public service announcement, the Rock … Read more »
The Pew Environment Group just released a report, “Big Chicken: Pollution and Industrial Poultry Production in America,” explaining how manure from chicken farms in the “Broiler Belt“—the area extending from eastern Texas through the southeastern United States to Maryland and Delaware—is virtually choking the Chesapeake Bay. And I’ll tell you, with these findings, it’s the … Read more »
Never one to shy away from speaking up for animals plainly and forthrightly, Morrissey urged fans who were upset about the tragic bombing and shooting rampage in Norway to consider the animals who face needless, terrifying deaths every day. Before launching into “Meat Is Murder” during a concert in Warsaw on Sunday, Morrissey told the … Read more »
Adult film star Raul Armenteros and another man have each been charged with 22 counts of cruelty to animals after police allegedly discovered a menagerie of animals—including roosters, guinea hens, pigeons, goats, and a duck—baking inside their locked van in the scorching Miami heat. Reportedly, the goats were all tied up inside plastic bags, and … Read more »
During the hot summer months in South Korea, where dogs are bred to be killed and eaten, restaurants serving dog meat soup boast long lines of patrons who mistakenly believe it will help keep them cool. But while many of us are quick to condemn killing dogs for food, shouldn’t we also be bothered by the consumption … Read more »
Say you’re an edgy, rabble-rousing punk band and you want to make a statement against cruelty to animals. What would you do? One band that had a bone to pick with KFC took a musical approach to get its message across. The toe-tapping tune was performed by the Phoenix, Arizona, “punkgrass” outfit Haymarket Squares—all of whose … Read more »
Do you know one of those people who says, “I’m a vegetarian, but I still eat chicken”? Considering that chickens are arguably the most abused animals on the planet, they should be one of the first animals we remove from our plates—and there’s no better time to do that than World Week for Abolition of Meat. … Read more »
Why I don’t eat chicken—let me count the reasons: There’s cruelty and callousness, blood and pus, pain and suffering, and sickness and death, not to mention feces, vomit, parasites, pollution, plaque build-up, and other disturbing and disgusting things that I just can’t stomach. PETA has created a compelling 30-second clip called “Why I Don’t Eat … Read more »
One surprising item in the news today (h/t Treehugger) is a story about activists with the Israeli group Animals Now. For the last few years, Animals Now has been campaigning against the use of cruel battery cages on egg factory farms. Now, the group has put a hidden webcam inside a battery cage on an … Read more »
It wasn’t your average Chicken Dance: A pink stretch Mini Cooper delivered a troupe of little people dressed as dancing chickens to a PETA protest outside a McDonald’s in New York’s Times Square yesterday afternoon. “I Am Not a Nugget!” declared each of the little “chickens” with signs and dance. The “chickens” paraded in front of the … Read more »
Muhammad Mahdi Karim/CC by 3.0 It seems like only yesterday I was writing about the nationwide salmonella outbreak and massive egg recall. But now it’s time to move on to the latest food safety scare: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) just shut down a Tyson Foods meat-processing plant in Buffalo, N.Y., after food safety … Read more »
If anyone still believes that “organic” eggs are a humane choice, please look at these gut-wrenching photos from the Organic Valley farm in Wisconsin: They show birds in stinking, stifling, windowless warehouses, crammed so tightly together that they’re barely able to move—much less spread their wings, scratch in the dirt, or interact normally in any … Read more »
Like Claude Rains in Casablanca, federal inspectors were shocked—shocked!—to find that the egg farms implicated in the recent salmonella outbreak (which led to a still-spreading recall) were filthy and shoddily maintained. In fact, a recent investigation by the Food and Drug Administration turned up barns that were infested with flies, maggots, and scurrying rodents as … Read more »
Ever since half a billion eggs were recalled because of a salmonella outbreak, people have been talking about food safety regulations. Animal welfare issues have been mentioned, but they need to be considered more seriously. The following are some facts to help you tell the hens’ side of the story: There’s cruelty in every … Read more »
