Written by PETA
It's so hot in the city, you'd think I'd be making another batch of lemonade—but I've got a hankering for some Internet Soup. It's been a while since the last batch, so dig in!
Oof! I don't know about you, but I'm full after all that soup—and guac. This Special K needs a siesta. Until next time …
Written by Karin Bennett
Yesterday, PETA filed a lawsuit against the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW) for alleged violations of the Wisconsin Public Records Law. UW has refused to provide PETA with information related to the university's invasive and deadly taxpayer-funded eye-movement experiments on monkeys and cats. UW completely denied PETA access to some records, such as videos of experiments and complaints about potential violations of the law, and redacted important information from other documents that were provided.
In the experiments, holes are drilled into animals' skulls; recording chambers and restraint posts are bolted to their heads; electrodes are inserted into their brains; and stainless steel coils are implanted in their eyes. Some cats have even had their ears cut off. Monkeys and cats are typically immobilized in restraint devices in dark rooms for hours at a time and coerced into following visual or auditory targets with their eyes. At the end of the experiment, many of the animals are killed, and their brains are removed and dissected. UW continues to conduct these experiments despite their inherent cruelty, irrelevance to human health, and the fact that safe, sophisticated, and accurate human-based methods for studying brain activity related to eye movement are available and can take measurements down to the single neuron.
UW has a horrendous history of violating federal animal welfare laws, and the school's refusal to release public information makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to track patterns of animal abuse and noncompliance.
And there's plenty of reason to be concerned. It was recently revealed that last year, the university suspended Michelle Basso, a vivisector who conducts eye-movement experiments on monkeys, because of her long history of abusing and neglecting monkeys—a history that dates back to 2003. Basso repeatedly performed sloppy surgeries that caused brain damage and bleeding, ignored advice from veterinarians, and left sick and injured animals unattended and untreated. Not only did it take UW six years to take serious action, but even after all that, Basso has had her permission to experiment on animals reinstated. And who can forget UW's illegal killing of sheep in painful decompression experiments?
There are thousands of animals' skeletons in UW's closet, and we intend to shed light on them all.
Written by Logan Scherer
The following is a guest post from peta2's Ryan
As those of you who have been keeping up with your NCAA "March Madness" brackets will know, this year's college basketball championship series is down to the final four schools, all vying for the top spot. Unfortunately, they're all losers.
I say this because, in a tragic irony, the universities that have the most talented athletes also seem to hire some of the cruelest animal abusers in the nation.
Need proof?
Villanova University vs. University of North Carolina
Villanova experimenters inject methamphetamine into rats' stomachs to determine whether the drug influences the rats' response time in behavioral tests (gee, I wonder). Unfortunately, as you might have seen in our "Who Cares?" video, this kind of pointless and cruel test on rats and mice is still legal—in fact, no experiment on them, no matter how painful, is against the law.
Maria Boccia, a vivisector at UNC–Chapel Hill, removes rat pups—at 2 to 14 days old—from their mothers for extended periods of time in order to induce a deep depression in the mother rats. She then places the mothers in cylinders of water from which they can not escape in order to see how quickly they are overcome with a sense of helplessness and stop swimming.
University of Connecticut vs. Michigan State University
At University of Connecticut, experimenters implant steel rods into rabbits' spines to keep them immobile. They then shock the rabbits with electrodes and measure the animals' brainwaves while they are still awake.
Not to be outdone, the returning "champion" from last year's contest, MSU vivisector Arthur Weber has continued his "work" removing the eyes of cats while the animals are still alive. Weber attempted to justify his cruel and pointless experiments last year; on Weber's behalf, an MSU official stated, "The animals are completely anesthetized, receive painkillers, and once the animals come out of the anesthesia, 10 minutes later you can't tell the difference." Yeah, you're probably right. I'm sure eyes are overrated anyway. What?! And don't forget the part where you keep them alive for a week after the operation and then kill them—I'd be willing to bet my March Madness pool money that they notice that too!
Of course, it's not the basketball players' fault that their schools hired such colossal creeps—animal experimentation is big business. As shown above, though, no amount of money can keep animal abusers from being morally bankrupt.
Written by Ryan Huling
Canadian hockey hasn't given anyone much to cheer about since the Montréal Canadiens' last Stanley Cup victory 16 years ago. But if PETA has its way, Canadiens fans will get another chance to be victorious on the ice—the ice floes, that is.
The owner of the Montréal Canadiens is considering selling the team, and guess who's throwing an offer on the table? In our letter to team owner George Gillett, we're offering to pay $10,000 Canadian to rent the team for a week, during which time we'd change its name to the Canadian Seal Pups and encourage every spectator to sign and mail our postcards to Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging him to end the seal slaughter.
Give the seal pups some hockey sticks, and then let's talk about blood on the ice.
Written by Shawna Flavell
When the racers in this year's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race crossed the finish line last week, the press reported that six dogs had died on the bitter, involuntary trek from Iditarod to Nome. Now we have received a whistleblower report alleging that two more dogs may have died because of the 2009 race.
Here's what we're told: Lou Packer, a 55-year-old musher, struggled to finish the race, and even after two of his dogs died, he continued to push his team until he eventually scratched. It now appears that two more of his dogs may have perished after he was removed from the trail. The whistleblower claims that Packer may have denied his dogs food and left them out in the open throughout the night during a bitterly cold storm, while other mushers took their dogs to the tree line to protect them from the wind. If true, that would have been a death sentence.
Now that the death toll may have reached eight, we have renewed our request to Col. Audie Holloway, Director of the Alaska State Troopers, to launch a vigorous criminal investigation into all the deaths related to this year's Iditarod. Alaskan cruelty-to-animals laws specifically prohibit people from knowingly inflicting "prolonged suffering on an animal." The conditions under which the Iditarod is run are no secret. Anyone with half a brain and one ounce of compassion knows that no dog chooses to struggle to survive for days and nights in the freezing cold while being pushed to or beyond his or her physical limits. Or are Iditarod racers exempt from anti-cruelty laws—or the laws of human decency?
Written by Liz Graffeo
Today, amid a flurry of tourists and cameras, PETA unveiled our new "Let Vegetarianism Grow on You" ad in Times Square. In the ad, the always witty Cloris Leachman wears a dress of red cabbage and leaf lettuce. The release follows last week's publication of the results of the biggest medical study ever to conclude that avoiding meat gives people a better chance of living longer. Who better to illustrate the point than Cloris, a vibrant 82-year-old vegetarian?
For those of you who were unable to make the trip to the unveiling, no worries. We've got exclusive photos of the event as well as video of Cloris for ya.
Thanks Cloris—you're now in our Lettuce Ladies Hall of Fame!
When public school systems fall on hard times, they know they can count on PETA to pitch in. Remember when we sent message toilet paper to a struggling Detroit school? So, of course, we jumped into action when we heard about a cash-strapped school in Idaho that's limiting how much writing paper teachers can use.
One of Pocatello High School's teachers has actually begun selling ad space on the writing paper he uses in his classroom—one pizza joint has already placed an ad. While we respect his initiative, we thought we could one-up him. So we've written to the school's principal, Don Cotant, offering to provide the whole school with an entire semester's worth of recycled writing paper printed with our snazzy Meat's Not Green logo on it.
We'll let you know if Pocatello High takes us up on the offer! It would definitely be a more eco-friendly way to ease the budget crunch than encouraging kids to spend $5 on a pus-laced pizza. Plus it would be one step in the right direction toward being listed as one of the most vegetarian-friendly school districts next year.
In a recent Houston Chronicle article, Rockets small forward Ron Artest openly admits that he doesn't have the best track record when it comes to animal care. In the article, he confesses that because he spends a lot of time traveling, he once left one of his dogs vulnerable to neglect. In a refreshingly candid admission, he says, "I was an irresponsible pet owner."
What sets Artest apart from other "irresponsible pet owners," though, is that he is man enough to admit that he's made mistakes, and he's now doing all he can to educate others so that they don't make the same mistakes he did. "PETA came and showed me how to be a better pet owner," he says. "I loved my dogs. You just need to be more mature and accountable for how you treat your animals. I had to be educated."
These days, Artest can be found volunteering his time to help the Houston Humane Society or lending his star power to PETA's campaigns. "I've told my people that whenever [the Houston Humane Society] need[s] me for something, they've got to make it happen," he says. "I've always loved animals. Now I've learned how to be responsible."
In a video that was shot behind the scenes at the photo shoot for his PETA spay-and-neuter ad, Artest talks about his passion for helping animals, and he also condemns dogfighting. (He has even placed a plea right on the front page of his personal Web site to urge people to spay and neuter their animal companions.) Check out the interview b-roll here:
Speaking of dogfighting, another star athlete who has had run-ins with the law over his treatment of dogs isn't exactly jumping through hoops in an effort to show that he's learned the error of his ways. Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback and convicted dogfighter Michael Vick did attend PETA's "Developing Empathy for Animals" seminar, but he has not gone out of his way to show the public or his fans that he feels any remorse for torturing and killing dogs.
Now, just as he is on the verge of being released from federal prison, Vick is reportedly shopping around for a book deal. It's pretty unlikely that his book will be subject to the "Son of Sam" law (which is a type of law that aims to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes) because Vick's victims were dogs. Unless the book basically consists of the words, "I was a sick, cruel, despicable jerk, and I'm sorry," and all the proceeds go to animal protection charities, we ain't buyin' it.
Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky
You may have heard about this already: KFC is offering to fund pothole repair in five U.S. cities in exchange for ads promoting the decomposing bird bits that the company sells at its fast-food outlets.
KFC even hired a Colonel Sanders lookalike for the kickoff of the program in its hometown of Louisville.
KFC might concentrate instead on improving conditions for the chickens it abuses, but it won't, so we're offering to double the money that KFC offered the City of Louisville—if the city will use our ads against KFC cruelty on its potholes instead. After all, drivers have a right to hear the chickens' side of the story—and it isn't pretty.
Written by Jeff Mackey
As a Midwestern gal, I would like to take you on a quick, two-stop, cruelty-free tour of my section of the U.S. It's a little something I'm calling the Midwest Victory Tour. Sometimes I feel as though this part of the country gets a bum rap, so this tour is to give props to two forward-thinking Midwestern educational institutions, one in Wisconsin and one in Utah, that have recently stopped exploiting animals. If only all schools could be as progressive.
First stop on the Midwest Victory Tour is a school district in Wisconsin. A concerned citizen contacted us after learning that the district was offering a kids' summer science course that included six dissections as well as an activity in which students were given a live rat to "care for" throughout the duration of the course. We contacted the school immediately about cutting out the old-school classroom dissections and to inform school officials that rats need constant care and compassion, not a summer course's worth of "caretaking." After nearly a year of persistent follow-up, we are excited to let you know that this course is finally history!
Our next stop on the tour takes us to a Utah educational nonprofit that was recommending experiments in which live goldfish were put in ice baths in order to cause hypothermia. Since the experimenters probably wouldn't do this sort of thing to Fluffy, the family kitty, we sent the nonprofit a letter outlining why it's cruel to freeze any kitten—including sea kittens. After hearing our suggestion for cruelty-free coursework, the nonprofit has agreed to no longer suggest shocking the nervous systems of these adorable goldkittens for classroom experiments.
Well, that's the end of our Midwest Victory Tour. See, it's not all beef-expos and pus-farms in the Midwest. There's some compassion for animals too.
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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