PETA to Pentagon: Don’t Blame Thailand for Cobra Gold Bloodlust

For Immediate Release:
February 23, 2021

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President of International Laboratory Methods Shalin Gala regarding a report that the Pentagon is putting the responsibility for the cruelty of the Cobra Gold military training exercises on the Royal Thai Armed Forces:

It’s disingenuous for the Pentagon to blame Thailand solely for the horrific animal killings that occur during the annual Cobra Gold exercise. The U.S. Armed Forces cosponsors this drill and sent nearly 5,500 service members to it last year, using a portion of the more than $12 million of taxpayer money designated for training. If the Department of Defense is truly committed to ensuring the “best practices for the humane treatment of animals,” that surely shouldn’t involve beheading cobras to drink their blood or chomping on the live bodies of other animals. It’s time for the military to take seriously the dangerous zoonotic disease threat posed by Cobra Gold and permanently disavow all participation in the use of live animals during this training.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.