Written by PETA
You never can tell where PETA's bombshell BFF—and honorary director—Pamela Anderson might pop up. Could be Finland. Or France. Or Oz. Or even a Vegas homeless shelter. No wonder her show is called Girl on the Loose!
The latest dispatch comes from The Netherlands. The thing about Pam that's so awesome is that no matter where she goes, you know she's gonna be helping out animals. Kinda like a globetrotting superheroine for compassion.
In this case, Pam was in Amsterdam for the opening of a luxury-goods expo called the Millionaire Fair. And while she's totally down with luxury, she wanted to make it clear that that doesn't include animal fur—after all, what's so luxurious about draping yourself in torture and death? So she dropped a note to Queen Beatrix, asking her to go all the way. Um, that is, to back a current legislative bill that would ban all fur farms in the Netherlands (the Dutch have already banned several kinds of fur farming).
Well, like most things Pam does, hardly anyone noticed. Just kidding! More like "total media frenzy." Or, in the case of the Millionaire Fair, "widespread panic." It turns out that some of the heartless fur floggers at the expo don't much care for being called out on their cruelty (go figure). No matter, though, because the media (who love 'em some Pam) demanded more, so we put together a news conference to promote the fur-farm bill. This should lead to a lot of Dutch love for the ban, even if Her Maj doesn't get on board.
Go, Pam, Go!
Written by Jeff Mackey
Awesome news for animals today! For more than a year, commissioners of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, have been in debates over improvements to their animal control ordinance, and we are so very excited to announce that last Tuesday the animal-friendly bill was approved by a 4-0 vote. The county hereby bans cat and dog sales at pet stores (yay!) and goes one step further to give farm animals better living conditions (double yay!). Of course there are a few exceptions, but you can read about the specifics of the ordinance here.
This means that those awful pet stores won't be allowed to sell cats or dogs anymore, and breeders who try to make a profit off kittens and puppies won't have it so easy either. It's just too bad that Joe Biden didn't get the memo …
The new bill cuts the license fee in half for a spayed or neutered animal companion and bans the chaining of backyard dogs! But wait, there's more! Not only do the good people of Bernalillo County care about companion animals, but the legislation states that animals on farms must be given food, water, veterinary care, and shelter. Seems pretty basic, but now it's the law.
Possibly the coolest thing about this legislation is the fact that the changes were made because of regular people. Commission Chairman Alan Armijo said, "We've had tons and tons of input. The commissioners have tried to accommodate the different points of view," and an audience of about two dozen people cheered the amendment's passage. Know what that means? Anyone can do it! Seriously. You can contact your legislator right now and make a real difference in the lives of animals all over your district!
Well, what're you waiting for? Visit HelpingAnimals.com for more info. The animals (and PETA) thank you!
Written by Lianne Turner
I was extremely disappointed to read that Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his wife bought a dog from a breeder instead of adopting one from an animal shelter. Obviously he or his wife blanked on Ingrid's letter, which asked him to consider adopting and explained, "Every year, U.S. animal shelters are forced to euthanize millions of wonderful, deserving dogs and cats because of the lack of good homes."
Ugh. I'm sorely upset about this—not to mention worried that his supporters will now all run out and get purebred German shepherds. I mean, not only is it really out of touch with dog issues to buy a dog from a breeder—or plain cold-hearted—it's such a bad idea that one New Mexico county has just banned selling dogs from pet stores altogether. At least some Americans know what's up. So what's with our future vice president?
If it weren't bad enough that Biden chose to buy from a breeder, we are now trying to confirm the accuracy of a report that was sent to us alleging that he bought his dog from a known puppy mill operator! An anti–puppy mill activist who claims to have firsthand knowledge of this particular breeder's operation writes, "When I was there, she had dogs living outside in [I]gloos and a large side building wrapped in blue plastic … the barking was deafening … her inspection report states approximately 100 breeding dogs … she sold more than 275 dogs in 2006 … it was a stupid move on Biden's part … a puppy mill, for sure." Wow, Biden—if this is true, you've left us speechless.
Well, we decided to remind Mr. Biden and his home state of Delaware that every time someone buys a dog from a breeder, a dog in an animal shelter is killed. We will be running the following PSA on every station we can in Delaware:
Mr. Biden may have let us down, but we're still pinning our hopes on President-elect Obama, who said, "[a] lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me."
Written by Christine Doré
Picture this: You're cruising down the highway when you catch a glimpse of a truck in your rearview mirror. Your eyes focus on the white bits of feathers or maybe the pink skin visible through the openings in the side, and suddenly you're no longer in a good mood.
We've all seen those transport trucks whiz by us with little regard for the safety of the animals jostled about inside, often struggling to stay on their feet on the slippery floors. It's horrible enough that these animals are headed for the slaughterhouse, but many people don't realize that millions of animals each year die when they are trampled or succumb to untreated illnesses before they even reach that awful destination.
The Vancouver Sun deserves a hundred thousand well-deserved props for running an excellent front-page article about animal transport fatalities. According to the article, "up to three million farm animals are found dead each year" inside transport trucks when they arrive at Canadian slaughterhouses. And there's more: "more than 11 million farm animals are declared unfit for human consumption after arriving diseased or injured …." And that's just in Canada—the issue is just as serious in the U.S. These animals are just more senseless victims of animal agriculture, but to the industry, their purposeless deaths are simply another cost of doing business.
The numbers are heartbreaking, but they're no surprise when you factor in the abuse these animals face: Workers routinely poke pigs with electric prods and beat them—sometimes on the snout with baseball bats, breaking their noses. Birds are often thrown into the holding space, resulting in broken bones and wings. Animals are piled on top of each other with no room to turn around, and no food or water is given to them during transport. The sheer number of animals crammed into the cargo containers can cause some to suffocate, especially in the heat. During the summer months, temperatures inside the metal fixtures are sweltering, and during the winter months, the animals have almost no protection from the wind, ice, and snow. Many pigs actually freeze to the sides of the trucks in winter.
Truck drivers can be reckless and absentminded, putting both the animals and humans in danger. Transport truck accidents like this one are common. If an animal is lucky, he or she might escape injury and be able to flee and avoid the slaughterhouse forever, but most are not so fortunate. These accidents are horrifying for animals who are injured—often they are simply reloaded onto another truck to continue the journey to the slaughterhouse.
Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky
Every visit to New York City causes me to reflect upon the misery that befalls those poor old racetrack castoffs, Amish cart-pullers, and other worn-down horses who end up between the shafts of a heavy carriage, pulling loads of tourists—and some uncaring driver—through the dirty, noisy streets of New York City in all weather. Seeing them out there in the winter is particularly upsetting: A few weeks back, I saw one horse still lumbering along in traffic, head down, at 9:30 p.m.
Even when they aren't working, horses need lots of water, yet the "carriage" horses' water troughs are often bone dry. People report seeing the horses standing there, unbending in their traces and unseeing in their blinders, unable to take a drop of water. And, when, late at night, they finally end up at their "stables"—which are actually decrepit fire-trap walk-ups—they cannot even take their weight off their aching feet: The "stalls" are boxes or bars that fit just around their bodies, like sow stalls on factory farms.
Oh, there's so much more that stinks for these poor horses, including the traffic accidents that spook, hurt, and kill them. (I've seen a driver, obviously anxious to go home to his comfortable house, whip and race his horse, chariot-style, pounding along the road; this must have added to the horse's pain.) PETA and local concerned citizens are working hard to make this business go away. We want to see it switch to something humane—perhaps to a new, environmentally friendly tourist vehicle that doesn't bleed, ache, and die. It may take another year of hard work, but what can we do in the meantime, other than tell people never to ride in the carriages?
Perhaps you'd like to contact the ASPCA—which is charged with enforcing the anti-cruelty code and regulations on horse-drawn carriages—with your thoughts and questions. Please share with us the answers you receive. The horses can't ask why someone doesn't order their owners to allow them to lie down at night, for example, but we can. And, in my opinion, local law enforcement can compel the owners to let them.
Written by Ingrid Newkirk
I'm pretty sure my mother has set up Google News alerts for my name. So when I saw a News of the Weird–esque article in Australia's Weekly Times about an Aussie senator, Bill Heffernan, taking jabs at me to the media by talking about my—ahem—circumcision, I knew it was just a matter of time before she'd see it too. Proactively, I e-mailed her the article with the subject line, "Should I be honored by this?"
Now, I'm sure you're all wondering what an elected official was doing talking about my naughty bits to the press. Well, there's a perfectly, um, reasonable explanation: I oversee PETA's campaign against mulesing—a cruel mutilation in which Australian farmers hack chunks of lambs' flesh from their backsides without as much as an aspirin for pain relief. It's the cheapest way to prevent a fly infestation that is dangerous—but that could be prevented if farmers would just look after the sheep instead of abandoning them in open fields and forgetting about them until slaughter or shearing. So, in his frustration over the fact that we've been getting major retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Perry Ellis to stop using Australian wool, Senator Heffernan lashed out. Check out this juicy excerpt from the article:
Last week [Senator Heffernan] turned his verbal blowtorch on animal activist Matt Prescott from the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals [sic], after Prescott flagged the wool industry would die if it failed to ban mulesing. "I'll bet he's been circumcised," Senator Heffernan said, the inference being that it is no different to a lamb being mulesed. "I hope he has. I'll be putting that to him. That bloke needs to come over here, have a look at our sheep and learn some home truths."
Last week [Senator Heffernan] turned his verbal blowtorch on animal activist Matt Prescott from the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals [sic], after Prescott flagged the wool industry would die if it failed to ban mulesing.
"I'll bet he's been circumcised," Senator Heffernan said, the inference being that it is no different to a lamb being mulesed.
"I hope he has. I'll be putting that to him. That bloke needs to come over here, have a look at our sheep and learn some home truths."
My reply? "Dear Senator Heffernan, You were right: I have indeed been circumcised. Fortunately, my parents didn't perform the cut in a field with a pair of garden shears, and they didn't remove my flesh because of a financial interest. No such luck for lambs." (You can read the full reply here.)
My mother's reply? "I'm not sure this is a compliment, but I guess you can't beat a senator talking publicly about your circumcision."
Written by Matt Prescott
Our fearless campaigners have been hard at work exposing cruelty to animals—and sometimes quite a bit of themselves—all across the country!
A Lowe's in San Diego received a visit from a bikini-clad "mouse," who lay in front of the store on her own glue trap. In case you didn't know, Lowe's still sells hideously cruel glue traps— the kind in which animals can suffer for days before succumbing to starvation, dehydration, suffocation, and shock.
Meanwhile, PETA demonstrators have been visiting cities in Iowa and Nebraska to show the eating populace exactly what factory farming means for animals with these eye-catching gestation crate sculptures. It's hard to buy ham and Spam when you are crying!
Finally, our "tiger" visited some cities in the southeastern U.S., where she sat in a cage to demonstrate the cruelty of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Shreveporters were especially interested to see our tiger, because the last time PETA came to their town, the demonstrators were dragged off by the police! This time, law enforcement officials behaved themselves. Our tiger also captured a lot of attention in Little Rock!
And, while we're on the subject of Ringling Bros.—we heard that Hansons Windows, a home repair company in Michigan, was offering free circus tickets. No, that's not the great news—the great news is this: When we wrote to the folks at Hansons Windows and explained to them how animals in Ringling circuses are beaten, forced to perform tricks, and kept in chains or tiny cages for most of their lives, the president of Hansons ended the promotion!
Kudos to Hansons Windows for making the compassionate choice—and kudos to our campaigners for the great demos!
Written by Amanda Schinke
We at PETA have long loved Zappos.com for its amazing selection of leather-free shoes. In fact, we recently ranked Zappos.com the number one best vegan shoe retailer. So needless to say, when we found out that Zappos.com was selling lots of fur products, we were none too pleased.
Back in August, we wrote to the company about this, urging it to adopt a fur-free policy. At the time, the company said that it would look into the issue to gauge people's thoughts on it. So, to help speed that process up, we launched an online marketing campaign, getting members of the public to write to Zappos.com's CEO and urge him to send the pelts packing—and more than 11,000 of you did! The campaign became totally viral and social networking played a huge part—many people posted tweets on Twitter, passed around our petition on Facebook, and much more.
I mean, seriously, is this the first campaign in history ever to be won by tweeting and the slick use of other online tools? It's pretty exciting if you ask me—and also pretty novel! We are paving the way of the future, my friends.
Well, it seems that Zappos.com got the message that people hate fur, because yesterday, the company officially adopted a permanent policy never to sell any products containing the fur of an animal!
Thank you SO much, all you fantastic online activists, for helping—and thank you, Zappos.com, for making the kind decision to forgo fur now and in the future. This will help spare countless minks, rabbits, foxes, and other animals all the horrors of fur farming and trapping, such as being electrocuted, bludgeoned, and skinned alive.
Now that we're all rightfully pumped up about this exciting victory, we've decided to take on a new campaign—because, well, we can't be stopped! Please join us in asking Amazon.com to follow Zappos.com's lead and go fur-free. For those who want to learn more about the issue and find other ways to help, please visit FurIsDead.com and be sure to check out our compassionate clothing guide here.
As promised, we have an update regarding the relocation of endangered desert tortoises, which army officials began airlifting earlier this year in preparation for the land expansion of Fort Irwin in California.
To jog your memory a bit: The desert tortoises had been living in critical habitats located near (and sometimes on) Fort Irwin–owned land. These protected land areas were created in order to provide protection for these reptiles and boost their dwindling population.
Sadly—but certainly not unexpectedly—phase one of the project has reportedly resulted in the deaths of 90 desert tortoises. Even worse, officials expected there to be some loss of life because of the relocation, but they continued with their plans anyway. Officials clearly underestimated the frailty of these animals and the harm that relocation could cause. It's pretty clear that officials failed to consider all potential threats to these tortoises when they factored into their plans the deaths of up to 136 desert tortoises during the entirety of phase one—not the deaths of 90 tortoises during the initial relocation, as has happened.
Early reports indicated that many of the relocated tortoises seemed to be moving in a direction back toward their original home. Unfamiliar surroundings, lack of shelter, and larger animals such as coyotes put these tortoises in great danger right from the get-go.
On a somewhat positive note, army officials have—for the time being—halted plans for further relocation.
Obviously, we at PETA don't believe that any project that causes disruption and stress to a group of animals can be deemed a success. At least now, army officials have no choice but to consider the welfare of these desert tortoises and possibly to show them a bit of the compassion that they should have shown from the start.
Blind and sighted, man or macaque—we all celebrate in the same way. A recent study from scientists at the University of British Columbia and San Francisco State University shows that the "victory dance"—arms raised, chest puffed out—is an instinctive trait of all primates.
You mean I have something in common with Michael Phelps? All right, then!
It turns out that the victory dance closely resembles the dominance displays of chimpanzees and monkeys—"Yes, I'm strong, and I'm bigger than you"—and is universal among all athletes, from all cultures, including blind Paralympians. Since the blind athletes couldn't have learned this behavior from others, the victory dance has to be innate.
Similarly, poses of defeat—heads down, shoulders slumped—are also the same for all primates (and not only primates), with the exception of some sighted athletes from the U.S. and Western Europe. The lead author of the study speculates that "the athletes were intentionally hiding their feelings—consciously overriding their innate urge to signal defeat—because losing is so stigmatized in their cultures." Tellingly, blind athletes from the same countries did exhibit the same defeat poses as other primates—showing again that this is innate behavior.
More and more studies confirm what we already know—that we are all one under the skin. Hopefully, these studies will bring humans one step closer toward having respect for all primates.
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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