PETA Europe did a little trick or treating yesterday at a Burberry store in Manchester to encourage the chain to stop with the fur already. Great demo guys.

Show me any animal, and I’ll show you someone who’s found a way to systematically torture and abuse them. For sharks, it’s the finning industry, which kills an estimated 100 million sharks a year, usually by simply hacking off the fins and tossing the animals back into the water to die. And sharks have an additional strike against them in the form of a widespread myth that they’re evil, man-eating monsters, which makes it exceptionally difficult to get anyone to pay attention to their plight. Which is why Sharkwater—a new documentary opening this Friday which debunks the negative myths about these amazing animals and exposes the cruel industry that’s threatening their existence—is such an important film.

Of course, that’s not the only reason I’m psyched about this movie. Anyone who’s watched as many shark-themed TV shows on the Discovery Channel as I have will know that these animals are, to use a technical term, totally effing rad. Here’s a little teaser for the film, and you can check Sharkwater’s site for showtimes.

The Avon Foundation, a cruelty-free charity focused on breast cancer research and awareness, recently named Reese Witherspoon its first-ever global ambassador and honorary chair. She is also the newest face of Avon cosmetics, and recently shot a new commercial for the cruelty-free company. How fitting that the actor who introduced the issue of animal testing to scores of people in her role as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde II is now working with a leading animal-friendly company like Avon. Way to go Reese.

News flash! New Zealand has just banned the live export of animals from the country. This announcement comes only a few months after New Zealand farmers announced that they were ending the archaic practice of mulesing, which is a procedure where large chunks of flesh are cut from sheep’s hind quarters with no painkillers to prevent flies from laying eggs in their wrinkly skin. Kudos to New Zealand for taking the lead on both of these issues and setting the wool industry animal welfare bar a little bit higher.

Now it’s time for the Australian wool industry to pull its head out of the sand and get with the program. If New Zealand can make these two important changes in its entire wool industry in a matter of months, certainly Australia can follow suit. You can help make that happen by clicking here.

If you’re new to the blog or to this issue, there is a great overview of both mulesing and live export here.

After I posted a recent interview featuring PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, a lot of people have been asking how she ended up with a cast on her arm. When I asked her how it happened, she told me she’d broken it while disciplining her assistant, Starza, but—difficult as Starza can doubtless be sometimes—I suspect that the truth isn’t quite so dramatic. The closest I could get to full disclosure was an article that came across my desk a few days later that’s slated for the next issue of PETA’s quarterly magazine Animal Times. It’s a great little piece, so here it is for anyone who’s curious about how Ingrid ended up with that cast. Warning: this is a classic bait and switch—she’s going to turn the tables on you and make you think about, like, animal suffering—but as I say, it’s a great little piece.

"Just as I was setting out to launch my new book, Let’s Have a Dog Party!, I met a wet floor and went splat, neatly snapping the bones in my wrist. Ooh, the pain! Thank goodness for IV drips. Lying on the emergency room gurney, I thought of a seagull I had seen with a broken wing who was being tormented by boys, of the fox in our fur-farming video with a broken leg, and of the monkey who caught his arm in a laboratory cage and broke it. How had they coped without pain relief of any kind? And not just with the screaming pain of their injury, but with the simultaneous fear of attack by the humans who were clearly out to harm and even kill them? Even though they may try to hide it, animals feel pain just as much as humans do.

While researching our Animal Liberation Display, we found that during the days of human slavery, whites claimed that blacks did not experience pain as acutely as whites did. Blacks’ stoicism in the face of total domination, like that of animals today, was taken as positive proof that they were almost immune to physical pain. The same mindset allowed families to be torn apart because Africans were also, most conveniently for their owners, thought not to have the same emotional and familial ties. Some mothers walked a dozen miles every night, after a day of hard field work, to glimpse or hold a child sent to another plantation.

Families are still being torn apart. Chimpanzees used in “cute” ads like those for computer supply company CDW, which earned this year’s top Litterbox Award, are just babies, torn away from their mothers and forced to dress up in silly costumes and grimace for the camera (minus their canine teeth, which are always pulled). By the time they are 8 years old, they are too strong to be managed and are “retired” to filthy, depressing roadside zoos or laboratories, never to see their families again.

Times change and victims’ identities shift, but old, worn-out, flawed arguments remain. Please join us in vigorously bursting these balloons that drift everywhere around us. Every word spoken, every myth challenged, and every pamphlet posted and video link shared puts a pin in them. Thank you."
-Ingrid Newkirk

A little light relief for you all this morning: A man in Tama, Iowa, was out pheasant hunting with his dog this week, when the mischievous little canine stepped on the hunter’s gun, shooting the man in the left leg. True story. The hunter, James Harris, is apparently recovering in an Iowa hospital, and, hopefully, having a long hard think about things like poetic justice, irony, and why it sucks to get shot at by another animal. There’s no word yet on whether the dog is being charged with the shooting.

4peaks/Creative Commons

Those overeducated academics over at peta2 have just released their annual list of the top 40 vegetarian-friendly colleges in the United States, so if you want to show a little love for your alma mater or your hometown school, you can cast your vote here. The school with the best vegetarian options will be announced in the second week of November, so there’s still a bit of time to vote. The contest has already been getting some good press in college newspapers across the country, including this piece in Yale’s newsletter, and this little vignette from ASU.

My school a) didn’t have a cafeteria to speak of, and b) wasn’t in the U.S., so I went ahead and voted for Berkeley—because Berkeley is beautiful, and they have vegan chicken nuggets. You can vote for your favorite here.

Ah, MySpace. It can be so tacky, so infuriating, so unutterably ugly. But there’s no denying that it’s also completely addictive. And the good news is that it’s turned out to be a really powerful tool for activism—helping to encourage a sense of community among activists, and keeping people up to date on breaking news and campaigns. Which is why we’re very excited to announce the launch of the official PETA MySpace page. (Yeah, I know—those trendsetting hipsters over at peta2 have had their MySpace page since it was in Beta. We just took our time with this one.)

So for my fellow MySpace junkies out there, you don’t have to admit that you sometimes spend your Friday nights sending out bulletins about, like, what you ate for dinner, but please do take a moment to check out PETA’s MySpace page, and maybe even add us as your friend. Kthxbye.

Or maybe it’s fox. Either way, a whole lot of them had to die so that the aging Stone could wear her desperation on her sleeve on the red carpet yesterday. I hate to give this photo any ink at all, as I’m sure the only reason Stone wore the hideous wrap was because she’s having trouble getting any meaningful attention these days. And because she’s total trash.

And fyi, it’s not just that Stone is uneducated on this issue. She knows that animals suffer horribly when they are killed for their fur. We’ve written, called, sent videos, you name it. She just doesn’t care. She is, as my friend Joel puts it, just a horrible human being.

MSNBC/Creative Commons

Oh, so about the fur thing. Westwood came to her compassionate decision after meeting with members of PETA Europe and learning about the suffering of animals raised and trapped for fur. The last of Westwood's furry items were eight rabbit-fur handbags, which the company allowed PETA Europe to donate to a wildlife sanctuary. Apparently, the bags will be used to comfort orphaned baby animals.*

The list of progressive fur-free designers is getting longer every day. Westwood joins Ralph Lauren, Betsey Johnson, Stella McCartney, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Comme des Garçons, Marc Bouwer, and others who have banned fur from their designs. It’s high time for Michael Kors and other furry designers to get their heads out of the sand and evolve. Seriously, it’s 2007 already. Get over it.

*Wow. I never thought I’d use the words “orphaned baby animals” and “Sex Pistols” in the same blog entry. Wonders never cease, I guess.

Since the Halloween season is upon us and all that, I wanted to share this bit of Halloween trivia with you. Zombies hate KFC. Seriously, they hate it. In fact, they hate it so much that they held a protest at a KFC in Moscow, ID, with signs reading “I’d Rather Be Dead Than Eat at KFC”. Unfortunately for this group of zombies, their photographer only got shots of their signs reading “Aurgh Graun Uargh”. But you get the idea. If you’d like to do your own zombie-themed KFC demo, click here.

And since you asked . . . No, I am not dressing up for Halloween. In fact, I’d rather go naked than dress up for Halloween.

Much as it hurts my pride to get scooped by The Dog Blog on a topic, I’m man enough to admit when I’ve been beaten to the punch. PETA’s resident dog blogger, KP, just posted a great entry about a series of ads put out by the Southern Hope Humane Society in Georgia. The campaign, called “Don’t Get a Dog,” has the simple message that if you can’t take care of an animal, you shouldn’t frickin’ have one. It’s nothing short of tragic that this point isn’t immediately obvious to some people, but I’ve seen enough dogs chained in backyards or crated inside someone’s house that I’m very aware of just how important these ads are. Good stuff, Southern Hope.

You may remember that a couple of years ago, we went after Cindy Crawford for agreeing to appear in ads wearing fur. Doing furry ads is bad enough, but Crawford had actually once posed for PETA’s Fur Campaign and even signed a statement declaring that she would speak up for animals by refusing to wear fur. Shortly after we raised a stink, Crawford crawled back under her rock and we hadn’t heard from her since. Actually, nobody had heard from her; it’s not like there’s much decent work for morally bankrupt washed-up former models out there.

Well it looks like Crawford finally scored another gig. She just showed up on the cover of the November issue of Russian Vogue wearing what appears to be an entire family of dead animals on her back. Since Crawford is so desperate for her mole-ridden face to be seen, maybe it’s time to bring back the poster we used last time . . .

Oklahoma ranks close to the top nationally in the number of breeders currently doing their dirty work in the state, and The Tulsa World recently featured a fascinating investigation into Oklahoma’s culture of breeding, from the hideous puppy millers to the other vile breeders, who parade their sickly “pedigree” animals around and worry about their posture, while they completely ignore the fact that the miserable animals are languishing in hutches and cages not fit for a rock, let alone a living, breathing animal. Much like the shelter animals down the road from them, who will die because these people have chosen to make their living bringing more dogs into a country that has millions more than it can handle.

It’s all a little depressing, but definitely worth checking out—particularly this video, which shows the legal conditions that licensed breeders keep their animals in, because the USDA has told them it’s “acceptable.”

On a much more positive note, The Chicago Tribune is holding a contest to pick Chicago’s most beautiful dog. If you’re a dog lover, a Chicagoan, or just someone with an interest in canine aesthetics, you can go check it out here, but be sure to vote for a mutt. Because everybody loves a mutt.

As I mentioned before, we're pretty effing displeased with Denny's restaurants at the moment, since the company has jumped into bed with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, who, in addition to being documented animal abusers, are seriously among the sleaziest bunch of people anyone could ever hope to do business with (for a little background on that claim, check out this recent article from the Huffington Post).

But yeah. The point is that Denny's needs to find themselves another corporate partnership ASAP, and until they do, we'll be letting them know about it on the daily. Here's a pic from a recent demonstration in New York. Thanks to all the activists who came out!

Remember Dan Mathews’ trip to Australia for the launch of his book Committed: A Rabble Rouser’s Memoir there? Well, here’s a great profile that came out yesterday from a huge Australian gay and lesbian website called Same Same. There's a kickass video at the end too.

The folks at the Hamptons International Film Festival just announced that "I Am an Animal," the forthcoming documentary about PETA and Ingrid Newkirk, has been named Best Documentary! It's not actually coming out on HBO until next month — and I haven't seen it, so I can't tell you all that much about it — but I can definitely recommend checking out this interview with Ingrid and the film's director, Matthew Galkin. It looks like it's going to be a hell of a film. The HIFF people certainly seemed to think so anyway.

Ladies and gentlemen: DeFlocked.

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

UCHSC/Creative Commons

• Failing to provide veterinary care or euthanasia in emergencies
• Failing to properly train animal care employees
• Improperly reviewing experimental procedures
• Skimping on anaesthesia during painful surgeries
• Leaving a monkey with a prolapsed colon to suffer for hours
• Killing a conscious rabbit with a heart puncture

And the list goes on—to the tune of a 30-page complaint that we just submitted to the NIH, gently suggesting that they have a look into the way these people are spending their money.

Rabbit with skin lesions

Hey, I didn’t write the title for this post, so don’t take it out on me. It’s actually a reference to a feature that appeared in everyone’s favorite quarterly publication, Animal Times, this fall. And I thought it was pretty damn cute.

For most of the regular commenters, this quiz isn’t mandatory—feel free to just skim through and look for the funny parts. But Halo Snipe, the bad Steve, Dr. C, and Mars: I’m expecting you all to post your scores. I’m guessing you four aren’t PETA members already, but if you’ve just been waiting for that extra incentive, Animal Times comes free when you donate $16 or more.

Anyway here it is. No cheating (answers after the jump).

Do you know everything there is to know about what’s happening in the finned, feathered, and furry world of animals? To find out, put on your thinking cap (synthetic, of course) and use your primate prowess to answer the following questions:

1. According to a 2006 Harvard study, people who frequently eat chicken have a 52 percent greater chance of developing what disease?

a. Bird flu

b. Impotence

c. Bladder cancer



2. The stress of captivity sometimes causes dolphins to:

a. Kill their trainers

b. Obsessively watch Gilligan’s Island reruns

c. Commit suicide



3. In Anna Wintour’s closet, you might find the skins of:

a. Former assistants

b. Cats and dogs

c. Leopards

d. All of the above



4. Which of the following cosmetics companies still tests on animals?

a. Revlon

b. Estée Lauder

c. Clinique

d. CoverGirl

5. Which of the following animals have brains similar to humans’ and are able to remember 50 faces from photographs for up to two years?

a. Sheep

b. Dolphins

c. Ted Nugent

6. Former US Vice President Al Gore could save more water by not eating a pound of beef than by:

a. Disabling the irrigation system at his Tennessee mansion

b. Not showering for a year

c. Cutting back to six lattes a day

7. Which country has a political party dedicated to animal protection?

a. The Netherlands

b. Tonga

c. India

8. Which celebrity had a change of heart about wearing fur after being named on PETA’s 2006 Worst-Dressed list?

a. Lindsay Lohan

b. Christina Ricci

c. The GEICO cave man



9. Animals at The National Zoo in Washington, D.C., have died after:

a. Eating poison put in their enclosure to kill rats

b. Their infections went untreated for weeks or months

c. Being crushed by a hydraulic door

d. All of the above

10. The president of which country is a vegan whose Easter message encouraged people to spare animals from “our lust for meat”?

a. Serbia

b. Slovenia

c. Sweden

Veterinarian Paul Armbrecht during testimony in which he asserted that hanging animals from a forklift does not constitute cruelty

During an undercover investigation conducted by the Humane Farming Association at Wiles Hog Farm in Creston, Ohio, employees were caught killing sows by fastening a chain around their necks and attaching it to a front-end loader, which was hoisted into the air, strangling the animals to death over a period of four to five minutes. In addition to testifying that this was a reasonable form of "euthanasia," the doctor opined that Wiles Farm's practice of dragging, kicking, and dropping sows off a 4-foot ledge was an acceptable method of transporting the animals to their deaths.

Along with five other major animal protection organizations, we have asked the Iowa Veterinary Medical Association to immediately investigate this pathetic excuse for a veterinarian. The Iowa Veterinary Practice Act explicitly prohibits "knowingly making misleading, deceptive, untrue, or fraudulent representation in the practice of the profession," and if his testimony is shown to have violated this clause, we're asking them to immediately revoke his vet's license.

As PETA VP Bruce Friedrich puts it, "Dr. Armbrecht's testimony directly contradicts industry guidelines, which provide only the bare minimum of protection for animals. Giving the okay to a killing method that causes animals to slowly strangle to death makes Dr. Armbrecht a disgrace to the veterinary profession, and it opens the door for even more widespread abuse of animals."

It's a little tough to watch, but here's some video footage of the practices that Dr. Armbrecht recently defended as being "humane."

Please click here to contact the Iowa Vet Board about this issue now.

Lindsay and Nicole, a couple of die-hard anti-KFC campaigners, completed the Louisville Half-Marathon in KFC’s hometown yesterday. So what, you ask? Well, they did the whole thing with “Boycott KFC” and the like written on their bodies, and the pair reported that they got tons of support from the crowd and even talked to several Yum (KFC’s parent company) employees along the way, including one particularly chatty woman who wanted to debate around mile six. Of course, she couldn’t defend KFC, since you can’t really defend a company that refuses to take even the smallest steps towards improving the miserable lives and deaths of the animals killed for its products, despite the fact that its own animal welfare advisory board recommends the changes, and other industry giants like McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy’s, and scores of others, have already taken similar action.

Congrats Lindsay and Nicole!

And on a totally unrelated note, Wu Tang Clan member RZA walked away with the crown in the Hip Hop Chess Federation’s first annual Chess Kings Invitational. Lucky for RZA that I didn’t know about it in time to enter!

We got an e-mail the other week from a student named Christopher Leeman, who had taken the time to create these unique web banners to help promote our wool, fur, and leather campaigns. I liked them so much that I figured I'd post them on the blog (with Christopher's generous permission) for anyone who's looking to spice up their website or myspace page with some artistic, anti-fur bling. Feel free to use the code provided to post these on your site, and if web banners is your thing, there are a bunch more at http://www.peta.org/actioncenter/banners-clothing.asp.

Of course, if you don't have your own website, blog, or myspace page, these aren't going to be much practical use to you beyond maybe providing a bit of inspiration, but they're pretty to look at. Thanks, Christopher!

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Australian singer, actress, and long-time vegetarian Sophie Monk is as compassionate as she is beautiful, which is why she jumped at the chance to star in this beautiful ad promoting vegetarianism.

Sophie is super hot right now, and not just because she’s lying on a bed of chili peppers. She was in Date Movie and Click last year, she’s set to star in Scary Movie 5, and she absolutely killed it in a guest spot on Entourage last season. And I’d be remiss not to mention her amazing cover of the classic Salt ‘n’ Pepa track “Push It.” The video for “Push It,” directed by Sophie’s fiancé, Good Charlotte guitarist and fellow animal rights supporter Benji Madden, became an online hit almost immediately.

Check out what Sophie has to say about being vegetarian, animal testing, and other animal issues in this exclusive behind-the-scenes video from the photo shoot:

Right now, anyone who wants can walk into any Petland store in America and buy an animal with a credit card as if they were picking up the latest Britney Spears single. What ends up happening is that, much like the new Britney joint, these animals get discarded, cast aside, or returned to the store at the earliest opportunity. With more than 6 million cats and dogs turned in to shelters every year in the U.S., stores like Petland are already an unpleasant example of ethics and social responsibility taking a back seat to making easy money, but the very least that they can do is implement some basic, commonsense policies that will help to prevent the animals they sell from ending up with someone who’s going to neglect them, dump them at a shelter, or worse.

We’re asking the company to ban the use of credit cards to purchase live animals, implement a 24-hour waiting period on live-animal purchases, and spay or neuter puppies and kittens before release. If you’d like to contact Petland yourself about these issues, you can do so here. It’s not a lot to ask of a multi-million dollar corporation, but it will make a world of difference for the animals.

Well, we took a week off last week ’cuz, to be frank, researching these people can really ruin my Fridays sometimes—and if there was ever a man who could suck all the fun out of your weekend, it’s our latest winner (by a margin of 15-1!), Hagai Bergman, who enjoys romantic movies, long walks on the beach, and drilling holes into monkeys’ brains while they scream for mercy.

While Hagai shuffles into his rightful place as this week’s Vilest Vivisector, it’s time to turn our attention to the new blood. This week, we’ve got two researchers for you from the Yerkes Center at Emory University who are studying the psychology of despair the only way they know how … by inflicting it! So here it is—a PETA Files exclusive sneak peek into the very darkest reaches of two twisted human souls … it’s time to cast your vote for the next Vivisector of the Week!

Stuart Zola, Emory University. Emory/Creative Commons For the past 3 years, Stuart Zola, who is the director of Emory’s Yerkes Primate Research Center, has been refining his theories about what makes baby monkeys suffer the most. He’s tried slicing into their brains, and he’s tried tying them to restraint chairs for hours on end. He’s even spent some of the $2.2 million in taxpayer money he’s received for these experiments to turn the young primates into drug addicts in the hopes of finding out whether drug-addiction has adverse effects on the memory (yes, Stuart, it does). But Zola’s curiosity about early-life trauma in monkeys knows no bounds! If you’d like to see this relentless dedication to sadism given its due, be sure to cast your vote for Stuart Zola now!

Maria Sanchez, Emory University. Emory/Creative Commons Maria del Mar Sanchez has the dubious honor of being our first female candidate for Vivisector of the Week, and—doubtless mindful of the weighty implications that this carries for her gender—she’s gone out of her way to show that natural compassion and maternal instincts mean absolutely nothing to her. A mother herself, Sanchez conducts experiments in which infant primates are taken from their mothers again and again, giving rise to extreme depression in the monkeys. Baby monkeys taken from their mothers are so desperate that they will cry out more than 200 times in 30 minutes. To elect our very first female Vivisector of the Week, cast your vote for Maria Sanchez!

Will Mrs. Sanchez’s diabolical role as a parent who has devoted her life to wrenching infants from their mothers be enough to edge out the sadistic brain butcher Stuart Zola? Find out next week* when we crown the very latest Vivisector of the Week!

*The PETA Files cannot guarantee that they will remember to do this next week.

Well, for now anyway. The Ellen DeGeneres puppy story has been all over the news lately and a lot of people have been asking us for our stance on the issue, but I have to say I was pretty surprised by the reaction after I posted PETA’s statement on the subject yesterday. Comments ranged from complaints that we were being too soft on her to admonitions that we were being too hard on her to some very impassioned attacks against both Ellen herself and the shelter involved.

But this just isn’t a black-and-white issue. There really are two legit sides to the story, and I honestly can’t understand why anyone would paint either Ellen or Mutts & Moms (the shelter that confiscated her dog) as a villain here. For one thing, the shelter has rules in place for a very good reason—to protect the animals. It seems like in this case they really could have taken the time to make a more thorough evaluation in the hopes of avoiding another traumatic move for the animal (there are certainly plenty of suitable homes for animals with kids in them), but you can’t fault a shelter for enforcing the rules it has in place to prevent animals from ending up in bad situations.

Now as far as Ellen is concerned, she screwed up by not reading what happened to be some really important fine print, but that doesn’t make her a bad person. On the contrary, with so many vapid celebrities running around with puppies under their arms that they picked up from some Hollywood pet store without so much as a passing thought for the millions of homeless animals in shelters, Ellen’s choice to adopt was commendable, and I hope that message doesn’t get lost in all the partisan ranting about this story that’s going on in the media.

Honestly, I’m a sucker for pretty much any crime drama. As long as there’s gunplay, a car chase or two, and maybe a bit of double-crossing, I’ll watch the damn thing. But from everything I’ve seen, Gone Baby Gone looks like it’s a cut above. The reviews have been stellar, and all indications are that this is going to be something special.

I mention all this because Gone Baby Gone (which comes out today) is set to establish my boy Casey Affleck as one of Hollywood’s elite leading men, and the value of having someone as well-spoken, thoughtful, and passionate about animal rights as he is in the public eye is pretty much inestimable. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the video Casey made for us about why he’s vegan. There are no car chases or anything, but it’s extremely compelling stuff.

TimeInc/Creative Commons

An awful lot of people have been contacting us to find out where PETA stands on the issue, so I figured I’d share our official statement on the subject, since there really is a bunch going on with this story. Here it is:

At a time when so many people in Hollywood—like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton—are making impetuous "pet" purchases, PETA commends Ellen DeGeneres for adopting a homeless animal from a shelter rather than buying a dog. Every purchase of an animal from a pet store sentences to death an animal who is desperately waiting in an animal shelter for a home. We know that Ellen was trying to do the right thing in finding the dog a new home. She just missed a step in neglecting to contact the agency first.

PETA does think that the agency's policies of doing home checks and not allowing people to transfer animals to others are good rules that protect animals. Ellen was just trying to do the right thing—she is a huge animal lover—and she surely has learned from this experience.

So there you have it. It really sucks that Ellen had a bad experience after doing the compassionate thing and adopting from a shelter, but you can’t really fault a shelter for going the extra mile to make sure everyone who ends up with one of their animals is likely to be a responsible guardian. I guess we just see both sides of the story on this one.

These brave PETA members took a completely new tack with the “Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” rallying cry yesterday, demonstrating for passersby that they would rather be naked, dead, and in downtown Reno than wear fur. I think it’s fair to say that there are simply no circumstances under which these young ladies would consider wearing fur. Which is the way it should be. Check out the pic below, and some coverage in The Reno Gazette here.

This week's Deflocked is one of my favorites so far. I've never understood how companies that sell meat products can use images of happy, smiling animals in their packaging and marketing materials. You'd think they'd want to avoid conjuring up images of cute chickens frolicking and generally having a nice time when they're trying to get you to purchase a body bag full of their remains as a light snack. But the mental disconnect that a lot of people have between their love for animals and their understanding of what meat is made out of is so strong that some folks can feel all warm and fuzzy about an adorable cartoon chicken in an ad for chicken nuggets and just never even think about how fundamentally disturbing that is.

Incidentally, there's a great blog that's devoted entirely to this topic called Suicide Food, which is definitely worth browsing through. And for an example of a chicken who's actually outraged about the whole nugget situation instead of blithely accepting his gruesome fate as if it were the happiest day of his life, check out this little guy.

As usual, Jeff Corriveau says all these things a lot funnier than I do (and with a lot less ink). Here's DeFlocked.

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To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

SportsResourceZone/Creative Commons

Some people do it to stop cruelty to animals, some for the environment, and others to fight world hunger. And some eat veggie meals purely out of self interest. Whatever, I still think it’s pretty cool that Joe Cool is eating veggie burgers these days.

Here are some of our favorites, Joe.

What’s the best way to draw attention to the suffering that fish are forced to endure when they’re yanked out of their natural environment and impaled on the end of a hook? It’s a very dangerous question to ask at a PETA brainstorming meeting. Because some of us are literalists, here at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

With that having been said, here are some stunning pictures from our latest anti-fishing demonstration in San Diego. There were a lot of media-type folks at the event, and you can read some of the coverage here.

This video is truly amazing. Since this is PETA’s blog and all, I guess I should say something like “Animals can teach us so much about tolerance . . .” but to be honest, all I’m really thinking is “WTF, there’s a hippo walking through the house!”

Take a peek at this.

Saturday night, PETA campaigner Matt Rice was in Louisville, KY, with a giant crippled chicken to protest at a Yum Brands (the parent company of KFC) fundraiser at CEO David Novak’s house. The shindig was supposedly to fight global hunger, which is totally laughable. Global hunger isn’t laughable of course, but KFC pretending to give a hoot about it is. Let’s be real here: since it takes several pounds of wholesome grain to produce a single pound of unhealthy chicken meat, KFC does more to contribute to global hunger than it does to stop it. KFC holding a fundraiser to fight global hunger is like Marlboro holding a fundraiser to fight lung cancer. The WorldWatch Institute puts it like this, “[M]eat consumption is an inefficient use of grain—the grain is used more efficiently when consumed directly by humans. Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat-eaters and the world’s poor.”

Oh yeah, we were also there to remind consumers to boycott KFC until it takes the advice of its own animal welfare panel to end the worst abuses of chickens by its suppliers.

Here are a couple of photos from the evening.

Powerlineblog/Creative Commons

Apparently, after receiving a letter this week from PETA Asia Pacific’s Jason Baker, which explained (in gory detail) exactly how fur coats are made, Miss Universe, aka Riyo Mori, has agreed to stop wearing the stuff. We’re still waiting for confirmation from her that she’s gotten the message loud and clear, but this news sounds really promising.

Now, if the woman officially recognized as the hottest chick in the entire universe can do her stuff without draping herself in dead animals, you’d think a cheap fur-hag like Beyonce could figure out that you can have a killer look without actually killing anything. You’d think.

Anyway, just thought I’d share that piece of good news from The Philippines. I’ll let you know once we get confirmation from Miss U that she really has given up fur for good.

I know. I know. Steve-O would rather go naked than do just about anything. But it’s still cool that wearing fur makes that very long list. In fact, Steve-O feels so strongly that killing animals for their fur is just plain wrong that he jumped—literally—at the chance to star in these new ads.

While Steve-O is famous for putting himself in all sorts of painful situations, he’s totally clear about what he thinks of hurting animals. "Abuse yourself all you want," he says, "just leave animals out of it. Don't wear fur." Check out what else Steve-O had to say in this video from the photo shoot.

So, after years of hard work by animal protection advocates exposing the extreme cruelty involved in these operations, some of the last horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. were shut down. But the folks in the horse-racing and horse-carriage industries still need to do something with the thousands of horses who are rendered useless to them every year due to old age or outright abuse. So they’ve been sending these animals across the border to Mexico, which has even more lax regulations for its slaughterhouses than the abysmal standards in the U.S.—and the results are positively gruesome.

The good news is that there’s a bill on the table that would ban the export of horses to foreign slaughterhouses called the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, and we’re pushing hard right now to help get it passed. You can click here to learn more about the act and write to your Representatives through our online form to ask that they support the new bill to protect horses.

Pink got the party started in a big way for the launch of PETA President Ingrid Newkirk’s new book, Let’s Have a Dog Party, with a bash at her Los Angeles home on Saturday afternoon.

The book will ensure that every Fido has his fiesta, every Lassie has her luau, and every Bingo has his bark mitzvah. Step-by-step instructions include ideas for Halloween Howl-a-thons, rolling out the barrel for a Dogtober Fest and Mexican fiestas complete with treat-filled piñatas. Ingrid says "Face it, we say they are spoiled, but most dogs are bored stiff. They don’t want to eat off fancy china and don’t care if we buy them more sweaters than J. Lo. What they need is our undivided attention, love, long romps off the leash, and steamed veggies and peanut butter to replace that dull daily dollop of ‘dog food. Oh, and every dog deserves a party perfectly designed to fit their particular personality and temperament!"

The launch party included more than a dozen dogs (including Pink’s pups) tearing apart piñatas, jumping in the pool, and slurping (nonalcoholic) pink champagne, and in addition to Pink, attendees included Kevin Nealon, Bill Maher, Jorja Fox, Carey Hart, Corey Feldman, John Feldmann, and of course Ingrid Newkirk.

Here are some pics from the evening.

Bill Maher

Carey Hart and Corey Feldman

Jorja Fox and Kevin Nealon

Pink and Carey Hart

Pink and Ingrid Newkirk

Scribbulus/Creative Commons

Here’s a news story, and here are some pics of Sapphire enjoying her new home.

*For those that may not be aware, the dog racing industry is horribly cruel. Thousands of dogs are killed every year simply because they're not fast enough, and the ones who stay alive are warehoused in kennels barely large enough for them to stand up or turn around. Here’s our factsheet on greyhound racing, and for more information, including info on greyhound adoption here in the states, check out Grey2k USA.

Dan’s appeal is particularly timely because he is on his way to Australia for the Australian launch of his irreverent memoir, Committed, which will include book signings in Melbourne and Brisbane and a debate at The University of Sydney.

Let's hope Kylie is as receptive to Dan as others have been in the past. Similar appeals have resulted in designers such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren dropping fur from their collections, and stars such as Martha Stewart and Mariah Carey clearing their closets of it.

Here’s Dan’s letter to Kylie.

Dear Kylie,

Greetings from PETA, the world's largest animal rights organization, with more than 1.8 million members and supporters. I am PETA's senior vice president-and also one of your loyal gay American fans (going back to "Step Back in Time").

As an entertainer who has overcome major personal obstacles, you have shown that you are unafraid to address serious issues. I'm writing to you today about cruelty to animals. You were recently photographed clutching a bag made of python skin, and as a result there has been a flurry of interest in the bag from both followers of fashion and those who are painfully aware of the excruciating ways in which these exotic animals are skinned.

Every year, millions of snakes—an integral part of jungle and forest ecosystems—are snatched by the greedy international skin trade. The animals are often impaled on hooks or nailed to trees by their heads and skinned alive. Large snakes like pythons may have a hose inserted into their mouths and be pumped full of water to loosen their skin, so it will cut away more easily. The animals' peeled, writhing bodies are then discarded, and it can take days before the animals die from the effects of shock and dehydration.

And it's not just in places like Asia and Africa where reptiles are tormented—PETA has conducted undercover investigations at American farms where alligators are bludgeoned in the head before hammers and chisels are used to sever their spinal chords. These methods only paralyze the animals—they, too, are often conscious during skinning. But exotic animal farms are rare—90 percent of these fascinating beings are wild-caught. Those who are "farmed" are usually confined to areas of wilderness that have been fenced off, but because mortality rates are so high, many wild—caught animals are tossed in with them for breeding. The endangered species of tomorrow can be seen in the fashion magazines of today.

Kylie, you are such a compassionate person—I can't imagine you'd wish to contribute to this hidden suffering, especially for something as frivolous as a fashion accessory that can be replicated with no bloodshed. These days, it's easy to have a look that kills without killing, with fake snake, mock croc, python pleather, and other designer items that pay tribute to the beauty of these animals without massacring them. Won't you assure us—and those who follow your fashion lead—that you'll no longer sport exotic skins?

Kindest regards,
Dan Mathews
Senior Vice President

When our Campaigns department heard about a bull run taking place in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, they sprung into action, immediately firing off a letter to the Mayor asking him to cancel the event permanently. Well, I’m happy to report that the city has agreed to do just that! Way to go R&I.

For those of you who read Spanish, you can check out the letter from San Miguel de Allende Mayor Jesús Correa Ramírez below. Thank you Mr. Ramirez!

And just a quick note to the city of Pamplona: The world is changing and you’re getting left behind . . .

Here’s the letter.

Photo Credit: Star Max Inc.

The award was announced just this morning, and PETA Prez, Ingrid Newkirk, immediately sent a letter to Gore offering congratulations on his great accomplishment, but also asking Gore to do more.

Gore is Chairman of the Board for the Alliance for Climate Protection, where he will be donating half of the $1.5 million prize money. They have created a 7-point pledge that offers a list of steps people can take to help reduce their negative impact on the Earth. We would like for Gore and the Alliance to add an 8th point—to go vegetarian.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you already know that going vegetarian is the best thing one can do for the environment. According to the U.N. itself, Gore’s partner in winning the Peace Prize, raising animals for food generates almost 40 percent more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined.

Follow Ingrid’s lead and send a letter of your own to Gore, c/o the Alliance for Climate Protection, and ask him to add this essential 8th point to the pledge.

Write to Gore now!

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan has been the hottest ticket in India for a long time. He's been in about a hundred movies, many of which are among the top-grossing Indian films of all time, and he's reported to be working on a new film called Shantaram, starring Johnny Depp. He also happens to be an outspoken vegetarian and a longtime supporter of PETA India's work on behalf of animals. So a couple of my pals from PETA India did something special for his birthday this week to thank him for everything he's done. Here's a pic:

Time for a little Deflocked, people.

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

I get to write about this because Thom Yorke, in addition to fronting the greatest band in the history of the world, is an ethical vegan. So take note — go vegan and your band could be the next Radiohead (there may be a few steps in between.)

Anyway, in case you missed it, the amazing new Radiohead album came out yesterday, and their innovative approach to releasing it (you can download it for any price you care to pay for it on their website) has people in the Marketing world talking up a storm, (and a few record industry execs getting pretty nervous). Maybe there is something to the theory that vegetarians are smarter . . .

I've been annoying my colleagues all day talking about this album, so I'll let the subject go for the time being and leave you with this excerpt from a video that Thom Yorke made a while back to encourage young people to think critically about the ethics of what they're consuming. You can download the whole documentary that this was a part of here.

A couple of weeks ago, The Daily Mail reported on the bloody reality behind the sick new trend in the fashion industry of wearing reptiles on the runway, with the headline "Pythons Skinned and Left to Die." The article describes the procedure that monsters like Naomi Campbell are trying to make popular as follows:

"Blood-stained hands untie a wriggling sack and pull out a ten-foot long python. The snake is stunned with a blow to the head from the back of a machete and a hose pipe expertly forced between its jaws. Next, the water is turned on and the reptile fills up — swelling like a balloon. … Then its head is impaled on a meat hook, a couple of quick incisions follow, and the now-loosened skin peeled off with a series of brutal tugs."

To help draw attention to this industry, the beautiful Lisa B unveiled her new ad for PETA UK today. Check it out — it really is something special.

Check out the letter PETA Asia-Pacific sent the new Miss Universe, Riyo Mori, this morning urging her to stop with the fur already.

Riyo Mori
c/o Miss Universe Japan Office
5F Kitae Bldg.
5-9-13 Jingu-mae, Shibuya-ku
Tokyo 150-0001

Dear Ms. Mori:

Many of our members have contacted us to express their shock and disappointment over your use of fur. Perhaps you are confused about what is expected of you now that you have been crowned Miss Universe. Let us help you: As an ambassador of goodwill, your job is to promote peace, not pieces of tortured animals.

Animals trapped in the wild may suffer for days before dying from blood loss, infection, or attacks by predators. Some, especially mothers with babies to feed, chew off their own limbs in an attempt to escape. On fur farms, animals spend their lives pacing in tiny wire cages until they are killed by being anally electrocuted, gassed, or having their necks broken. Sometimes these methods only stun the animals, who often “wake up” while they’re being skinned. As you will see if you watch these videos, there is nothing upscale or elegant about how the original owners of the furs you flaunt met their gruesome deaths:

• Investigation of China’s dog and cat fur farms: http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=fur_farm
• Exposé of the fur trade, narrated by Pamela Anderson: http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=pam_anti_fur

A recent investigation of fur farms in China, which is now the world’s largest fur producer, revealed that animals, including dogs and cats, are being bludgeoned, hanged, bled to death, strangled with wire nooses, and skinned alive. Cat and dog fur is often deliberately mislabeled as fur from other species, so it’s impossible to tell which type of animal a pelt is from. The ugly truth is, no matter whose back it was ripped off, the fur that you’re profiting from came from animals who suffered miserable lives and unimaginably cruel deaths.

As Miss Universe, you are expected to be a positive role model who sets a good example. All eyes are on you. By choosing to wear fur, not only are you directly responsible for the deaths of dozens of animals, you’re also sending a clear message to everyone who sees you that animals’ lives are less important than fashion—you validate the fur industry, and you validate cruelty. Prove that your beauty is more than skin deep. Please do the decent and compassionate thing and stop wearing fur.

PETA is famous for pulling out all the stops to protest celebrities who wear fur; just ask Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé. Having animal rights activists protest outside events you attend will do nothing to help your image. That said, there is nothing that we would like more than to sing your praises for being a compassionate trendsetter who chooses to go faux. Many entertainers and designers, including Sir Paul and Stella McCartney, Maggie Q, Charlize Theron, and Mariah Carey, have already shunned fur.

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to your response so that we can inform our members of your decision.

Sincerely,

Jason Baker

PETA Asia-Pacific

Last month, I talked a bit about PETA's contest asking for submissions in our first-ever "blog ad" contest, and even created my own little ad for The PETA Files, which, sadly, we will not be running on any blogs, as it was—according to my friends Joel and Allie who are in charge of these things—"egomaniacal in the extreme." But we will be running one of the submissions that we did get, and this is your chance to vote for the winner. I've posted a couple of my favorites below, and you can see the rest of the finalists here. Enjoy!

Anyone catch Bones last night? If so, you probably saw the nice plug for vegetarian eating at the end, when Temperance “Bones” Brennan (played by Emily Deschanel, a real-life vegetarian) briefly talks about the environmental effects of meat. It was a cool little surprise.

You can watch full episodes of the show here.

Emily Deschanel with CSI star and fellow vegetarian Jorja Fox

We've just learned that the Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) and its commissioner, Tommy Irvin, have been found in contempt of court by Judge Tom Campbell of Fulton County Superior Court. This ruling comes after a more than seven-month legal battle that began when PETA received reports that dogs and cats were being cruelly and illegally gassed to death by various pounds and shelters in Georgia and that the Georgia Department of Agriculture was not upholding a 17-year-old law, the 1990 Humane Euthanasia Act.

The lawsuit was filed by Law firm Schiff Hardin LLP in Atlanta on behalf of two plaintiffs: a former Clayton County Humane Society employee—whose dog was hit by a car and then killed in one of the gas chambers—and former state representative Chesley Morton, who introduced Georgia’s Humane Euthanasia Act in 1990. PETA sent a cease-and-desist letter to Cobb County on April 5 requesting assurance that the shelter would comply with the law, but the letter and subsequent communications were simply ignored on the basis of a "grandfather clause," which the county incorrectly claimed gave them an exemption from using humane methods of euthanasia.

It is simply incredible that private citizens had to go to court to get the department to abide by the very laws it is charged with enforcing, but the recent announcement that the GDA is finally being held accountable for their actions is a major victory, and hopefully it will help to shed some light on the brazen disregard for the law and for animal suffering that places like Cobb County have been getting away with for years in a crude attempt to deal with the cat-and-dog overpopulation crisis. Euthanasia is a tragic necessity while 6-8 million animals are abandoned in shelters in the U.S. alone every year and breeders continue to manufacture more for profit, but unwanted animals discarded by society must be offered a dignified, humane exit if death is the best we can offer them. There is no excuse for employing inhumane methods which simply prolong and intensify the suffering of these unwanted animals.

You can click here to see footage (taken in Yadkin County, North Carolina), which shows the horrific practice of using carbon monoxide gas chambers to kill animals. The GDA has simply ignored an act which prohibits this kind of "euthanasia" method in contempt of the law and in a complete violation of the public trust.

Lori, Senior Legal Counsel

Our International Grassroots Campaigns department recently put together a cool little feature about what it’s like to work in that part of the organization, so if you’re a front lines kind of person, check that out here. But if being out on the street protesting isn’t your thing, don’t fret. Believe it or not, that’s not what most of us here at PETA do every day!

Kelly, Finance Manager

So, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work here or what qualifications we look for in prospective employees, give this page a peek, then send in your résumé.

And after you get hired, stop by my desk to say hi!

boisestate/Creative Commons

“Gloria Steinem expressed her severe discomfort at participating at an event for [a local human services agency] sponsored by Covance after she was alerted to the fact that thousands of animals suffer in the Covance laboratories. She stated, ‘Animal abuse is so connected to domestic abuse -- literally in a household, but societally in a more general way, too.’ Using one's power to harm others is contrary to Ms. Steinem's life's work and Covance was dropped as a sponsor for the event.”

What I love about this story is not just the big black eye to Covance's PR machine in Madison (where the company has a high profile due to its massive animal-experimentation lab outside the city), but the fact that Steinem explicitly puts animal rights in the wider context of social justice. She situates the issue, as it should be, alongside the broader issue of fighting the oppressive mentality that companies like Covance share with domestic abusers or any perpetrators of violence who believe that "might makes right."

Hopefully, this will be food for thought for all the people who comment on this blog wondering why animal rights people don't do more to fight other forms of oppression. The point is that people who care about animal rights, like Gloria Steinem, just have a better view of the big picture. Injustice and violence needs to be stamped out wherever it crops up—and no matter who the victims are.

Remember the TV show Blossom from way back in the day? Well, the little sister on the show, Courtney Chase, reportedly took part in a pretty amazing animal rescue last week.

Last Monday, when Courtney and her older sister Ashley saw their neighbor allegedly trying to drown his eight month old Shih Tzu in a tub for defecating on the carpet, the sisters intervened. Reportedly, they entered the neighbor’s apartment, grabbed the dog, gave him mouth-to- mouth resuscitation, and rushed him to the vet, where he is recuperating.

Felony cruelty to animals charges have been filed against the neighbor and he faces up to three years in prison. I’ll keep you posted if more info becomes available.

Courtney Chase then	Courtney Chase now
ChildStarlets/Creative Commons	imdb/Creative Commons

Way to go Courtney and Ashley!

3dimages/Creative Commons

"This is very much a first in the UK. We are the first council to take such a stand and we will be sending out the message loud and clear that York is a foie gras-free zone."

Unfortunately, this doesn't amount to an outright ban on foie gras sales in the city, but it's a hell of a good start. Most of the foie gras in England is imported from France, which has declared the product "part of the cultural and gastronomic patrimony" — a very sophisticated French way of saying "we don't give a crap about anything". The good folks in PETA Europe are working hard to push other cities to follow York's example, so I'll keep you posted on how that goes, and we'll see what the French foie gras producers have to say about their ludicrous "gastronomic patrimony" once compassionate people throughout Europe send their sales plummeting.

Congratulations to York and to everyone who helped to work on this campaign!

Brattleboro, Vermont, is well-known for its “unique” public nudity laws, so a couple of brave PETA members went down there last week to test them out with a “Bare Skin, Don’t Wear Skin” demonstration. Check out the great pics below, and, as soon as you (a) turn 18 and (b) get home from work, click here to check out the demonstration from, um, behind.

There aren’t many folks in America who don’t at least know there’s controversy surrounding circuses that use animals. So it always surprises me when a company like Denny’s jumps into bed with the animal abusing freak show that is Ringling Bros. circus. But, it surprised me even more when Denny’s CEO Nelson Marchioli refused to even talk with us about the issue, despite having been provided with an abundance of documentation, including videotapes, government documents, and testimony from former Ringling employees.

We wrote, we called, we called, and we called again, but Mr. Marchioli just wasn’t interested in joining more compassionate companies like General Mills, Burger King, Liz Claiborne, MasterCard, Visa, Ford Motor Company, and Sears, Roebuck and Co., all of whom ended their sponsorships of circuses that use animals. So, we’re proud to launch our new Web site: DeadlyDennys.com. Apparently Marchioli is OK with the beatings, neglect, confinement, and death that go on behind the scenes at Ringling, but I have a feeling his customers and investors won’t take too kindly to Denny’s family-friendly image being associated with such abuse.

So, check out DeadlyDennys.com, and be sure to share it with everyone you know. And oh, here is the link to contact Denny’s directly, to let them know what you think of their support of cruelty.

We've got a couple of doozies for you this week. These guys are so nasty that they make some of our previous contestants look like lightweights—amateur torturers. Mere Igors to their Frankensteins. But first, a word on our latest winner: After taking a commanding lead early on, Robert Rucker beat out his colleague by a margin of 11 votes to 5 to become this week's Vivisector of the Week! Let's hope this rout at the polls doesn't cause a rift between the two UC Davis colleagues. The pair of them are obviously insecure enough as it is, given that they both feel a need to spend their days picking on helpless mice...

But onward and upward! This week's theme is "craniotomies," and we've got two contenders for you who share a lust for drilling into live animals' skulls. So hold your breath, shield your eyes, and get ready to cast your vote for this week's Vilest Vivisector! [Warning: Do not read this entry while eating your lunch]

Jeffrey Schall, Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt/Creative Commons We talked a bit about Jeffrey Schall yesterday, but his truly extensive experience abusing animals makes him a perfect choice to represent his kind in this week's showdown. According to our sources, Schall's résumé includes such noteworthy achievements as drilling into monkeys' skulls without anaesthesia, and threatening individuals on his university's staff for reporting veterinary emergencies in his labs. In addition to these little bouts of sadism, Schall likes to withhold water from his victims—which proved to be the end of one monkey named Lil' Wayne. For his troubles, Schall has been cited for 13 different violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Cast your vote now to add one more accolade to Jeffrey Schall's foul record!

Hagai Bergman, Hebrew University. Hugi/Creative Commons It'll take a real nasty piece of work to beat out Jeffrey Schall this week, but Hagai Bergman and his team are up to the job. One of the HU vivisectors summed up their work torturing a monkey named Malish with this touching sentiment: “We did all kinds of nonsense, simply so we can do something." This "nonsense" involved drilling holes into monkeys' skulls, dripping oxygen water into them, fixing their heads to chairs, and keeping them standing for a whole day after surgery. The only good news is that Malish himself is now recovering from his ordeal in a sanctuary, but Hagai Bergman is still busy as ever with his drill! If you're not sure whether Hagai deserves your vote, check out the video footage of his handiwork here.

That's it for this week. Don't forget to cast your vote, and check back with us next time* when we'll be looking at a pair of young scholars who were positively born to maim!

*The PETA Files cannot guarantee that they will remember to do this next week.

Update: There was a great investigative report on this issue that was on KHOU-TV this week. Check it out here.

Our Captive Animals department has been working overtime on a case involving two elephants named Tina and Jewel. The elephants belong to Cole Bros., a circus that was assessed a $10,000 penalty by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for abusing elephants with bullhooks. To make a long story short, after confirming a whistleblower report stating that Jewel was emaciated, we filed a complaint with the USDA, leading to the removal of both elephants from the road. But now they are being housed at an unapproved facility in TX, and according to one recent inspection, an elephant expert “determined that both elephants showed an alarming amount of weight loss.”

Cole Bros. is leasing the elephants to the family that formerly operated the King Royal Circus, until its USDA license was permanently revoked when a young African elephant named Heather was found dead in a crowded, overheated trailer. Lovely.

Please help us convince the USDA to confiscate the elephants and relocate them to The Elephant Sanctuary, where they can receive proper nourishment and veterinary care from qualified elephant caretakers. You can take action here.

When historians finally compile the collected correspondence of Ingrid Newkirk, Britney Spears, and Kevin Federline into a bound, faux-leather 3-volume set, this one's going to be one of the highlights, in my humble opinion. Yesterday, PETA's president faxed the following missive to K-Fed asking him to please remember that Britney's unlimited capacity for neglect extends to canines too.

As I may have mentioned before, Britney has an extremely unpleasant habit of stopping by the pet store on the way back from the wigmaker's (or wherever it is she spends her time these days) to pick up new puppies, drag them around until she gets sick of them, and then abandon them. Well, since she hasn't exactly been taking good care of her children either, we think it's only reasonable that she let them bring their companion animals along when they go to K-Fed. You can read Ingrid's letter below.

msnbc/Creative Commons

October 4, 2007

To: Kevin Federline, c/o Nina Nisenholtz, N2N Entertainment
From: Ingrid E. Newkirk, PETA

Dear Mr. Federline:

We know that this is a particularly difficult time for you and your children. We are writing to you today to urge you to amend your filing with the court to also seek consideration for your children's bond with the companion animals they have come to know and to request that the judge also grant you custody of these animals.

It is no secret that Ms. Spears' impetuous "pet" purchases and lack of caretaking skills have been a serious concern of ours, in addition to being a source of public criticism. In 2006, Ms. Spears was "the overwhelming choice" for worst celebrity dog owner in a poll conducted by The New York Dog and The Hollywood Dog magazines. This past summer, Ms. Spears bought a Yorkshire terrier puppy from a pet store on impulse, only to casually tote the pup-London-around like an accessory. In recent weeks, the Los Angeles SPCA has investigated reports of Ms. Spears' failure to provide adequate veterinary care for the tiny dog after he apparently suffered a fractured leg after being stepped on.

As a father, your main concern is the comfort and stability of your children. London and the other animals whom the boys consider to be a part of the family have provided that comfort and stability. The companionship of beloved companion animals can make a world of difference for the boys during this difficult time, and being separated from the animal friends whom they share a bond with is undoubtedly traumatic for them.

For the sake of your children and the animals who are at risk while in Ms. Spears' custody, we hope that you will do the right and best thing for all involved and pursue a custody order for the animals so that your sons can continue to have the company of the animals they've grown to adore. If you have any other thoughts, we stand ready to assist you in placing the animals in a loving environment.

Sincerely,

Ingrid E. Newkirk

President

Update: Click here to read PETA President Ingrid Newkirk’s Op-Ed in The Virginian Pilot about why PETA brought Vick into the office.

Contrary to recent news reports, there is absolutely no agreement with Michael Vick to appear in a PETA public service announcement. However, we are in discussion with his representatives to do a PSA that would take the issue of dogfighting head on, dogfighter to dogfighter. But it would be under the strictest of guidelines. The script we discussed was:

“Look at me. I have lost everything—my career, my income, respect, friends. I’ve hurt my family, and I am an object of scorn. My life is ruined. I have gone from being a star to the gutter, and now I’m going to jail. Don’t be a loser like me. If you fight dogs, stop. And if you don’t, don’t start.”

If Vick were to do this, we would be very pleased. Short of that, it’s not happening. But what do you think? Should Michael Vick do a PSA directed at potential dogfighters to send the message that if you fight dogs, you will lose everything?

In 2006, a whistleblower at Vanderbilt University tipped PETA off to reports that a Vanderbilt experimenter named Jeffrey D. Schall was performing brain surgery on unanesthetized macaque monkeys. The whistleblower also forwarded us an email that had been sent to the department that included what was essentially a friendly reminder to researchers not to forget about anesthesia before drilling into these terrified animals' heads.

Vanderbilt has been on our radar for a long time, and Schall has long been known in the animal protection community as one of the most vile torturers in the business. In 2005, Vanderbilt was cited for 13 violations of the Animal Welfare Act, and Schall was suspended for a month after performing an unauthorized surgery and withholding water from a monkey. One monkey, called Lil' Wayne, died after seven days without anything to drink. In a separate incident, Schall threatened an animal care technician for reporting to the university veterinarian that an animal's collar had become entangled with the bottom bars of the cage, where he had become trapped.

We have been working for some time now to expose Vanderbilt's abysmal animal welfare record, and I will keep you updated as this case progresses. In the meantime, please take a moment to contact Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos at this e-mail address to request that Schall be be asked to resign. It won't solve all the problems at Vanderbilt, but it’d be a start.

Click here to read more about this case in Vanderbilt's paper.

It's high time for a little Deflocked, if you ask me. For some context, this one refers to ongoing concerns in the animal protection community about the disastrous effects of Navy sonar equipment on marine mammals. Except Jeff says it funnier than I do. Enjoy!

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

Rawr!

Remember what Pam Anderson said a few months ago about the whole Uggs craze?

"I feel so guilty for that craze being started around Baywatch days - I used to wear them with my red swimsuit to keep warm - never realizing that they were SKIN! Do NOT buy UGGs! Buy Stella McCartney or Juicy boots - I'm looking for alternatives myself for my boys and the men in my life! I'm designing some right now for my family and will try and have some available on my Web site soon."

Well, Pam dug the original Uggs out of her closet and offered them to us to help draw attention to the cruelty involved in the Australian wool industry (Uggs are made of Australian sheep skins), and this is where you come in. We want to hear your best ideas on how to use them to bring attention to this important issue. Feel free to post your ideas as comments or send them to me directly. We’ll announce the best idea on the blog in couple of weeks.

Here are a couple of my own ideas to get you started, though admittedly these aren’t the most exciting.

1. Offer them to the Hard Rock Café to be displayed along with Pam’s quote.
2. Use them in some kind of demo with the slogan being “Give Cruelty the Boot”
3. Use them in an ad saying “Uggs . . . Australian for Cruelty”

Well to be fair, this is more of a Part 1-revisited, so if you totally understood the story the first time, feel free to browse through the archives (maybe cast your vote for this week's Vivisector of the Week), but if you had some questions about the whole thing, here's a quick guide to PETA's reasoning behind providing Michael Vick with information about why animals deserve respect, and some key facts about how it all went down:

1. PETA believes that almost anyone can come to understand that animals are capable of suffering and deserve respect, if given a chance. If we didn't, we'd have a pretty hard time getting up in the morning. Only time will tell whether Michael Vick ends up being one of those people.
2. We made it clear both to Michael Vick and the judge that, given the crimes Vick has admitted to, he needs to serve hard time and be banned from any contact with animals. We're glad he paid attention when we gave him information about treating animals with kindness, but the guy still needs to go to prison.
3. This is not a race issue. We don't care if he's orange.
4. This is not a race issue. White people who fight dogs need to fry.
5. This is not a race issue. Are you deaf, or just desperate?
6. We need to give offenders a chance to open their hearts, eyes, and minds to the suffering they've caused. We would not be doing our jobs properly if we spent all day preaching to the choir.
7. Vick is working with children. This makes it all the more important that we arm him with facts about respect for animals and how to treat them.
8. After he took the course, Michael Vick pointed out that NFL players have a bad record of violence and said that he wished he'd taken it years ago. So do we. That's why we're pushing the NFL to include a similar course in empathy for animals for all of its new players.

I hope that clears a few things up. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions at all.

It’s not like we need another reason to boycott the Australian wool industry, what with mulesing and live export and all that already. But as if those things aren’t bad enough, I just learned that to keep the wool very fine and soft, some Australian farmers actually keep their sheep inside giant warehouses in individual pens that are kind of a cross between veal crates and battery cages.

Here’s a story about it, if you’re interested reading more. And more importantly, here is a link to our campaign to clean up the Australian wool industry once and for all.

I have a feeling that a lot of people would have been pretty surprised if they'd seen Michael Vick walking into PETA's offices recently—not once but three times. You'd think that would be the very last place on Earth he would consider spending time. But it happened, and here's how it came about: After Vick pleaded guilty to dogfighting charges, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk—a great believer in hammering away at the seemingly impossible—contacted him to ask him to hear about animals’ feelings, needs, and desires, and to hear firsthand why people are so outraged by the suffering of the dogs fought and killed in Bad Newz Kennels dogfighting pits. Vick confirmed our belief that he had never before been exposed to this kind of information, and, after a formal preliminary meeting at PETA HQ—during which we reiterated that we're still seeking a strong jail sentence and a lifetime ban on contact with animals—he left with study materials. He returned on September 18 to take an 8-hour course in empathy and animal protection. No cell phones allowed, no going out for lunch, just learning.

The full course that Vick took, which includes homework, workshop outlines, videos, and supplemental course materials, as well as the exam questions Michael Vick returned to answer under his tutor’s watchful eye, is available here. The class included scientific evidence that animals are thinking, feeling beings, capable of a range of behavior and emotions; presentations on the specific needs of dogs; and information about the well-documented link between acts of violence against animals and crimes against humans, which PETA shares with law enforcement officers every week.

I know people can see red when it comes to any mention of Vick, so I do want to be extremely clear about our position here: While we’re pleased to have been able to show Vick facts about animals—many things he’d certainly never heard before in his life—we are in no way going to bat for him. He may have passed our empathy course, but we have asked the judge to send him to jail and bar him from ever possessing or having contact with animals. We believe anyone who might consider abusing animals should see exactly how much a known animal abuser stands to lose.

We've also sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell urging him to make our “Developing Empathy for Animals” course a requirement for all NFL players. To help persuade Goodell to make humane education a part of the NFL's basic training for players, please click here.

Following Houston's decision to ban Alicia Silverstone's sexy pro-vegetarianism PSA, one PETA Lettuce Lady took it upon herself to make a personal plea to Texas Governor Rick Perry to encourage Texans to go vegetarian. When the top "fattest cities" in America were announced this year, Texas had four cities in the top ten, so if there's anyone who needs a bit of urgent advice about a healthy diet, it's the good folks in the Lone Star State.

Texas, you've been a very naughty state. But nobody wants to hear that kind of talk from me when they can get it from a lovely Lettuce Lady. Check out the amazing video that the wonderful Nicole Matthews sent to Texas' governor today. How can you say no to this one, Rick?

Now that you've watched the video, please click here to sign our petition asking Governor Rick Perry to get on board with our "Go Veg Texas" Campaign.

I just saw this great story from Time Out New York about which Big Apple residents are currently in our crosshairs. Some, like Ringling, won’t be much of a surprise, but some of the others, well . . . I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so you’ll have to check out the article for yourself. Here's the link again.

If you're looking for a good time, or maybe just an entertainment center, Craigslist is usually a great place to start. But there's a really worrying side to the online community that has directly facilitated a number of extremely disturbing cases of cruelty to animals.

Craigslist's "free to a good home" ads seem innocuous at first glance, but the fact is that giving away animals over the Internet to anyone who so much as expresses an interest is just unbelievably irresponsible, and Craigslist's ads have resulted in such hideous animal abuse cases as the recent torture and mutilation of three gray tabbies in Austin, including a 3-year-old cat named Taylor (pictured), who were evidently obtained through one of these "free to a good home" ads.

PETA has been begging the company for years to implement a policy prohibiting these ads for exactly this reason, but thus far Craigslist has done nothing beyond posting a mild warning about giving away animals on their site. So we're stepping it up a notch. If you have a moment, please click here to tell Craigslist to immediately ban these ads from its site before the company sees another incident like the Austin case.

Newsday/Creative Commons

As soon as we were tipped off to Bengal Stadium's cruel pigeon-control "solution," PETA sent an urgent letter to Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, asking the city to reject the Bengals' request and consider one of the many humane alternatives available instead. The good news is that the city immediately responded by telling Paul Brown Stadium's manager that he needs to get his finger off the trigger and start actually trying some sensible pigeon-control methods first. We're keeping our eye on the situation, and we’ve offered to help the team with developing some humane solutions to their problem that are actually going to work. I'll let you know how it all goes.

I'm excited to let everyone know that following negotiations with PETA Europe representatives, UK-based luxury department store Harvey Nichols has ended foie gras sales at all of its stores. For you non-British readers out there, Harvey Nichols is a super posh chain of stores, kind of like Barney’s or Bergdorf Goodman in the US, so this is a very big deal.

This happened a few weeks ago, but I never gave PETA Europe props for it. Better late than never I guess. Anyway, PETA Europe isn’t resting on its laurels after this victory. They’re already targeting another big UK chain, Selfridge’s, and you can help by clicking here.