Written by Jeff Mackey
Wrongdoers, watch out—wearing animals' skins and fur is a total (and literal) rip-off, but PETA, as always, is on the case! October has been declared Crime Prevention Month by the National Crime Prevention Council, and we're glad to do our part here at The PETA Files—after all, it's the least any animal advocate could do for a group whose symbol is a dog.
What happens to animals who are killed for their skins may not be illegal in many places (yet), but it's a flagrant violation of their rights. Confined to cages, caught in steel-jaw traps, subjected to cruel abuses, nailed to trees, suffocated, electrocuted, gassed, poisoned, bludgeoned, hanged, and often skinned alive—together, it's a crime against common decency.
So PETA's walking the beat and throwing the book at offenders. The fabulous PETA "fashion police"—gotta love a cop in pleather!—hit the city streets to hand out tickets for leathery larceny and felony fur-flaunting. They've even braved that most hostile of precincts, New York Fashion Week, where they issued a citation to the cruelest of all fur hags, Vogue's Anna Wintour, proving that they never miss the meaner misdemeanors.
Some of PETA's famous friends are taking on crime-busting duties, too. Pink and Ricky Gervais use their voices to call out the skin trade for what it really is—theft—in PETA's attention-getting "Stolen for Fashion" video, while Tim Gunn reminds everyone that these aren't victimless crimes. Then there's the animals' own wonder woman, Pamela Anderson, who gets the message across that "cruelty doesn't fly" (with a little help from Steve-O, Andy Dick, and Carol Leifer) as only she can:
Keep on the straight and narrow—sign PETA's pledge that you'll shed everyone's skin but your own!
Update: After this latest tragic horse-drawn carriage accident, New York native Adrien Brody has thrown his support behind PETA's campaign to get horses off New York City's streets. The Academy Award–winning actor wrote to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on PETA's behalf urging her to adopt the proposed pilot program to replace the carriages with eco-friendly replicas of classic cars. You can read Adrien's letter here.
Originally posted August 19:
Yet another scary incident involving a horse occurred in Manhattan last week as Oreo, a horse forced to pull carriages around Central Park, panicked at the chaotic automotive traffic at Columbus Circle and fled down Broadway, overturning the carriage, which contained the driver and two passengers. Shocked onlookers—including Soledad O'Brien of CNN—watched as the carriage struck an object, splitting in two. Oreo was finally restrained and tranquilized by the police.
In addition to the public danger that crashes like this pose, as PETA has often pointed out in its campaign to help New York City's horses, it's simply cruel to make horses pull heavy loads on hard pavement in all kinds of weather, dodging loud traffic and inhaling exhaust fumes. Celebrities—including Martina Navratilova, Pink, Kristen Johnston, and Lea Michele—have offered their support for PETA's campaign to get these anguished animals off the mean streets of Gotham.
It's high time for the horse-drawn carriage industry to be put out to pasture permanently. Please join PETA in asking City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to support a bill seeking to replace the carriages with eco-friendly classic cars.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
What better way to spend your birthday than being with the people you love, eating great food, and doing something good for animals! That's exactly how Carey Hart celebrated—with wife Pink and a vegan meal at San Francisco eatery Prospect.
Beantown is a great place to be vegan, too, as Tobey Maguire confirmed while munching on nondairy sweets at vegan ice cream shop FoMu.
Vegetarian Colbie Caillat is getting bubbly over cruelty-free skincare. The singer is the new face of Lily.B, an all-natural product line.
And beauty Pamela Anderson networked for animals on Twitter this week (as she does every week) asking her followers to help end the cruelty of the Calgary Stampede.
Bucking ropes are used to enrage animals in rodeos. The rope is tightly cinched around the animals’ abdomens, which causes them to buck vigorously to try to rid themselves of the torment.Ashley Bayles|cc by 2.0
A host of other celebs joined Pam in staying atwitter for animals:
Mariah Carey is rumored to be considering joining American Idol and bringing the show a much-needed breath of fur-free air. Years ago, when one of Mariah's fans, who clearly had more money than taste, sent her a pair of fur coats, she promptly donated the offending skins to PETA.
Fur is running out of places to hide, as Russell Simmons banned it from his news and lifestyle website, GlobalGrind.
To keep up with what all your favorite stars are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.
Last night, the Stand-Up for Animals PETA benefit show at the famous Comedy Store on L.A.'s Sunset Strip was funnier than a barrel of animatronic monkeys.
Bill Maher, Jane Lynch, Carol Leifer, Jeffrey Ross, Marc Maron, and host Fred Willard—in other words, some of the most talented comedians in the world—came together to raise money for PETA and kept the packed house laughing until the audience's sides hurt.
Guests included Pink, Carey Hart, Olivia Munn, Cloris Leachman, Jorja Fox, Christian Serratos, Renee Olstead, Elisabetta Canalis, Emily Osment, and Moby, many of whom tried valiantly not to do spit takes with The Comedy Store's delicious vegan snacks while laughing at Jeffrey Ross' hysterical poem to his cat or Carol Leifer's explanation that she had to go vegan because being a Jewish lesbian wasn't enough.
Bill Maher quipped, "Before PETA was around, you know, you could f-ck with animals any way, anybody, anytime, anywhere, and now you can't. That's a pretty big change in the world. That's a big achievement. … Animals will not be ignored. They're the Glenn Close of species."
And with all the funds raised by the end of the night, PETA can make sure that animal abusers won't be laughing for long.
Michelle Pfeiffer is known for three decades of film and television roles, Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe, her stunning and ageless beauty, and, now, her cruelty-free diet. She told Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN that the evidence pointing to the healthfulness of a vegan diet is so clear that "I couldn't not listen to it."
(c)StarMaxInc
Rani Williamson, aka "Miss Maine USA," might not have snagged the tiara at the Miss USA pageant, but she captured a lot of hearts for promoting vegetarian eating.
Pink's heart belongs to her daughter, Willow Sage, whose first birthday party the singer celebrated with an adorable three-tier vegan cake shaped like baby blocks.
The book that's veganizing the world, Skinny Bitch, will soon be veganizing the fiction section as well when the new novel Skinny Bitch in Love hits shelves.
Who is likely to be celebrating by vegetarian Fiona Apple's side when her new album comes out this month? Her rescued pit bull mix, Janet, who is her constant companion.
Sophia Bush added a new rescued pit bull mix to her family, and PETA helped her welcome little Griffin with toys, treats, and our "Mutts Rule" T-shirt.
Leonardo DiCaprio is jumping in to save fins. The actor helped get a ban on shark-finning passed in California, and now he's set his sights on getting a similar bill passed in New York.
To keep up with what the stars are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.
Hey, Soul Sister! PETA has sent an urgent letter to the rock band Train urging the group to cancel their performance at KFC's franchisee convention in San Antonio—or else face the music from PETA supporters—because of KFC's refusal to stop its suppliers' cruelty to chickens.
Many of the top names in music have taken a strong public stand against KFC, including Sir Paul McCartney, Pink, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Chrissie Hynde. Let's hope that Train gets on board, too, but if they take KFC's dirty money, they must carry the company's baggage—and PETA will protest their show.
Even those of us who are not quite famous can tell KFC to take cruelty to chickens off the menu. Sign Pink's petition demanding that KFC require its suppliers to stop abusing birds (and don't eat at its restaurants until it agrees).
Pink is proving once again that she has a big heart. After someone threw a puppy off a Los Angeles overpass and into the river below, Pink donated $5,000 for emergency surgery, saving the young dog's life.
Actor Dawn Olivieri (of Vampire Diaries fame) might have jumped into the river herself. She told Marie Claire magazine, "I will stop my car if there's a stray animal along the side of the road. I've spent hours trying to catch lost dogs wearing collars so I can help people get their pets back."
There were no animals on Paula Patton's back at the Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol premiere in Moscow—her rep tells us that she braved Russia's cold in a faux-fur coat.
Ke$ha recently traveled to the Ukutula Lion Park and Lodge in South Africa to help rehabilitate an orphaned lion cub. Although she fell for the cub (now named Ke$ha), she said, "I was glad to leave my lion, because an animal like that should live in the wild. Keeping [a lion] confined is really just inhumane."
When True Blood star Kristin Bauer thinks something is inhumane, she spells it out. When the actor visits her family, she writes, "Tested on animals" in black marker on her family's products that aren't cruelty-free.
The cruelty-free and fabulous Lea Michele graces DoSomething.org's list of Top 20 Celebs Gone Good for 2011 in honor of her work with PETA, including her ever-present animal-friendly tweets. Case in point:
A new report found that celebrities and their children often inspire baby names among the rest of us. For example, pop singer and PETA supporter Pink's daughter's name, Willow, made a list of top celeb-inspired names.
With the plethora of animal-friendly celebrities out there, people who want to name their baby after someone whose heart is as big as his or her star power have many options to chose from, such as Portia, for a vegan role model who embodies cruelty-free beauty; Taraji, in honor of someone who wears her heart (but never animals) on her sleeve; and Kellan, for a boy who's not afraid to show his sensitive side, especially when it comes to helping animals.
Who knows—maybe next year's top baby names will be Lea or Steve-O or even Metta World Peace.
Which animal-friendly stars do you think have names worthy of consideration for a new bundle of joy?
Written by PETA
Whatever Milwaukee is brewing, we want some of it. We were already rooting for the Brewers because of veggie royalty Prince Fielder, and now we learn that vivacious outfielder Nyjer Morgan, with whom Fielder shares this week's Sports Illustrated cover, attributes his out-of-the-ballpark energy and .306 batting average to his healthy vegetarian diet.
Could Roseanne Barr be the next star to "do a Clinton" and convert to a vegan diet? Extolling the virtues of faux meat and tweeting at McDonald's to stop abusing chickens sounds like a great start.
Eli Roth is such a talented tweeter for animals that we gave him his own web feature. (Wait 'til you see what he says about Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons. #hilarious.)
Fellow animal-friendly tweeters Pink and Tommy Lee took to Twitter to express their outrage over Indiana's barbaric "snapperfest." And Indiana native Bree Olson was so determined to stop the turtle torture that the Green Goddess posted the local sheriff's department's contact info on her website and asked people to call and complain.
Not to be out-tweeted, Glee star Lea Michele opined about her dream of retiring all the horses who are forced to spend long, hot days hauling around carriages full of tourists in her native New York City.
The next time she visits New York, Lea may spot Whoopi Goldberg out buying toy and treats for the lucky kitten she adopted after he was tossed from a moving car. Adopting instead of buying is catching on across the pond, too, if we can judge by Camilla Parker Bowles and her new rescued pup, Beth. We think dedicated dog guardian Michael Vartan, who stars in this weekend's highly anticipated thriller Colombiana, as well as a new PETA ad, would approve.
While Michael steams up the big screen, fellow PETA pal Bethenny Frankel will be taking over the small one with her new talk show. Will she get naked for animals again? Stay tuned.
To stay up to date on all celebrity/animal happenings, follow PETA on Twitter.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
A horse pulling a carriage in New York City collapsed to the ground twice yet was right back waiting at the curb before her driver was challenged by the woman who had been riding in the carriage at the time and who caught most of the horrifying incident on her cell phone. See the woman's emotional confrontation with the driver here (warning: graphic language):
PETA pals Chrissie Hynde, Pink, Lea Michele, and Pamela Anderson have all called for these cruel and dangerous rides to be eliminated. New York City Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito has introduced a bill (Intro. 86) that would phase out the industry and replace it with electric-powered antique cars or "green" horseless carriages. Carriage drivers would be given first dibs.
Please never patronize these cruel rides, and e-mail City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to let her know that you support Intro 86.
Written by Jennifer O'Connor
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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