PETA has sent Compassionate Legislator Awards to members of the Margate, Florida, City Commission for unanimously voting to ban bullhooks, electric prods, and other cruel devices specifically designed to inflict pain on animals. The move means that the Cole Bros. Circus, which has visited Margate in the past and whose handlers have been caught on … Read more »
PETCO pledged in 2005 that it would end the sale of large birds in its stores. Last month, a concerned PETCO customer noticed that a PETCO store in his area had a white-capped pionus, a kind of parrot, for sale. The bird had apparently spent 14 months in a cage at the store, waiting for … Read more »
Sparks flew recently after Congress restored funding for U.S. inspectors to oversee horse slaughter, opening the door for horses to be killed and butchered in the United States for the first time since 2006. But there is hope for a better bill: The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011 (S. 1176/H.R. 2966), which would … Read more »
While heading out to pick up and transport animals belonging to low-income residents for spay-and-neuter surgeries at one of PETA’s mobile clinics, a PETA Community Animal Project fieldworker spotted a truck driver attempting to drag something out of a ditch on the side of a busy highway. Our staffer pulled over to make sure that … Read more »
For many young people, college is a time when they are making their first independent decisions about what they will eat three times a day and, on a broader scale, what issues are important to them. The decisions that they are making now will shape the rest of their lives and, in fact, the course … Read more »
Some Santa Monica citizens are outraged after a group of atheists flooded a city lottery with applications, took over the space where more than a dozen of the city’s Nativity displays would normally be set up, and then simply left much of the space vacant. PETA is reaching out to the atheists to ask permission … Read more »
It’s tempting to eat poorly during the holidays (so much junk food, so little much time), but now there’s one place in which the old excuses no longer apply: the airport. In its annual report on the state of restaurant food at airports, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine found that 83 percent of menus … Read more »
What do Bill Clinton, former President George W. Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully, and the Rev. Al Sharpton have in common? They’re all political animals who don’t eat meat. Sharpton first got an idea of what happens to animals on factory farms when he appeared in PETA’s video exposing cruelty in slaughterhouses that supply KFC and … Read more »
Following her marriage to Prince William earlier this year, Kate Middleton—now the Duchess of Cambridge—became a role model for young people in Britain and around the world. That’s why we were thrilled to learn that during her first Christmas with the Royal family this year, Kate has chosen to forgo shooting in the annual Boxing … Read more »
Why a rickshaw was on Bourbon Street in New Orleans is anyone’s guess, but for the horse pulling it, it was far from the Big Easy: He fell to the ground and was dead before humane authorities arrived at the scene. A witness reported that the horse appeared to be thin and not well cared … Read more »
derekp | cc by 2.0 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 … Read more »
According to a whistleblower, two bearded dragons languished in the back room of a Chicago-area PetSmart store for six months, apparently suffering from improperly treated eye infections that spread to their jaws and caused their faces to rot away. After pressure from PETA, the store’s manager finally took the bearded dragons to a veterinarian who … Read more »
How do you convince lawmakers to turn a blind eye to the devastating effect that fast food has on our health? If you’re McDonald’s, you spend more than $1.1 million (in 2011 alone) lobbying political representatives. YUM! Brands, the owner of KFC, wasn’t far behind, at $845,000. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that the food … Read more »
Yoshimai | cc by 2.0 In college, I volunteered at a small animal shelter in Ohio. I never thought much about the shelter’s policies. Only later did I realize how much suffering its limited-admission policy caused. All “no kill” animal shelters—big or small—are limited-admission facilities. The dogs no one wanted sat for years (yes, years) in … Read more »