OK, there are tons of perks when it comes to working for PETA. I'm talking cool coworkers, a kick-ass cause, a vegan vending machine, and a multi-office building with lots and lots of windows overlooking the Elizabeth River. But as is often the case, every perk comes with a price. And I'm not just talking about the small fortune I've invested in Twizzlers (I wish I could quit you, vending machine!). I'm talking about having HUGE windows. Honestly, we love birds, but we really, really don't want them to literally crash our meetings.

You see, we PETA folks like our views, but unlike a lot of other offices, we also care about how our feathered friends view us. Luckily, some of those cool coworkers I was bragging about earlier have come up with some pretty tight tactics to keep birds from colliding with windows, and we urge you to implement them not only at home (if there's a problem there) but also at work (if there's a problem there):

1. Play detective. Are there certain windows in your home or office that attract more collisions than others? A little detective work goes a long way in helping you determine which windows to focus on.

2. Stop being so transparent. Find ways to avoid or minimize the reflectivity and transparency of glass windows and doors. Building a home or replacing windows? Use skylights, lattice windows, and materials that are nontransparent and minimally reflective.

3. Decorate with decals. We highly recommend clear decals that reflect ultraviolet light, which is visible to birds and allows them to steer clear and stay safe. If you're more of a DIYer, bust out some "MacGyver" ingenuity and use tape, adhesive film, or other items on your windows to make them more visible.

4. Explore all your options! Look for ways to cover the maximum amount of surface area outside your window. We went with window tinting after putting interns on our balconies with glow sticks didn't pan out (they left work and went dancing instead).

5. Avoid a "dine and crash" situation. Place birdfeeders and nest boxes at least 30 feet away from windows or within 2 to 3 feet of them.

6. Help our feathered friends. If you find a bird who is dazed and confused (face it, we've all been there), put some gloves on and place the bird somewhere safe and quiet to recover for an hour or two. According to our wildlife expert extraordinaire Tori, they can normally be cleared for takeoff after a brief rest and quick eval.

7. Be prepared if the birdie doesn't bounce back. If your patient requires more medical attention, call animal control (have the number handy BEFORE something happens, and know what action to take for after-hours emergencies). If animal control can't help, they should be able to refer you to a wildlife center, rehabber, or veterinarian who can. And remember, it's illegal in most states to try to rehab a wild animal yourself, so you MUST take him or her to one of these places.

Posted by Amy Elizabeth

Killer birds from PetSmart. It sounds like a reimagined version of Hitchcock's The Birds or maybe Troma's follow-up film to Poultrygeist, but it's a true, tragic story. A bird-loving family from Corpus Christi, Texas, reportedly lost their beloved father—and the daughter almost lost her life—after they both contracted psittacosis from a cockatiel whom they had purchased at PetSmart and named Peachy. Check out the Associated Press Article here if you don't want to take my word for it.

Peachy, who also died, allegedly from this "parrot fever," was bred at Rainbow World Exotics, a breeding mill that PETA recently investigated, where we found rampant abuse and neglect of small animals and exotic birds. Bird-breeding facilities such as Rainbow World Exotics are no different than puppy mills—they're massive animal factories that crank out birds with no regard for their health, happiness, or individual best interests. It doesn't just hurt the birds when unsanitary, inhumane conditions are the norm.

The good news is that this heroic and forever scarred family is now standing up to PetSmart and demanding an end to the sale of all birds. And you can help them succeed!

And please read this important info about how to keep you and your bird safe.

Angel's Story: Another PetSmart Casualty

—Joel

Posted by Joel Bartlett

This thing's off to an amazing start, if you ask me. Here's the first installment of 10% Wool. With that in mind, don't forget to call your newspaper and ask them to carry DeFlocked! For more details on that, check out last week's post, in case you missed it.

Click for a larger version

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

Update: You can watch the Today Show segment about this investigation here.

As you may have noticed from the front page of our site, PETA released the details today of a major investigation into a PetSmart supplier in Texas. You can learn more about that investigation on our brand-new PetSmart Campaign website. The whole thing is pretty disturbing, but the footage depicting the treatment of a baby Goffin’s cockatoo named Angel is utterly devastating. From the beginning of Angel’s “life,” which was spent in solitary confinement, until an agonizing death after four months wasting away from an untreated disease, Angel’s experience was characterized solely by suffering. It’s difficult to watch, but this video should be mandatory viewing for anyone who has ever considered buying a bird from a pet store.

You can contact PetSmart and ask them to immediately end all animal sales through the web form here.

It’s too bad that it required an outbreak of a disease that’s contagious to humans for PetSmart to make this decision, but this is something we’ve been asking the pet store chain to do for a long time now. According to The Huntsville Times PetSmart has stopped selling birds in all of its stores for the moment while it looks into the outbreak of psittacosis that has affected the birds it gets from various suppliers. And now that they’ve taken this step of removing these animals from the sales floor, we want to do everything we can to make sure things stay that way. One has to wonder what is happening with all of the sick birds as we speak?

Like all animals exploited by the pet trade, exotic birds sold at pet stores like PetSmart are raised in conditions that are designed to be the most profitable for breeders, which means that they are often crowded inside sheds, barns, and garages without any regard for their basic needs or the dangers of spreading infection and disease. No one should be surprised when this sort of thing happens in a pet store. It should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about birds—the very symbol of freedom—that keeping them confined in cages is cruel in the extreme, and PetSmart should never have been selling these wild animals in the first place. You can click here to learn more about our campaign against PetSmart and contact the company about its lousy track record of animal sales.

According to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, 20 different Petsmart stores in 11 Seattle counties may have sold birds with avian chlamydiosis, which can pose a serious health risk to people who are exposed to the animals.

The threat of a nasty disease is a pretty great reason not to buy a bird from Petsmart, but it’s not the main reason. People shouldn’t buy birds from Petsmart because birds don’t belong in cages. All caged birds were either captured or captive-bred. In the wild, they spend their entire lives with their flockmates, and many species mate for life and share parenting tasks. Considering that some parrots fly 30 miles a day in the wild, it’s no surprise that these animals often develop severe behavioral problems when they’re stuck in a cage for life.

Click here to tell PetSmart to just stop it already.

I honestly don't know how these people get their licenses, but a Florida avian veterinarian named Susan Clubb has just made the astounding decision to auction off 600 exotic birds she's been using for breeding. Apparently (I wish I were kidding about this), Dr. Clubb is selling the animals because she “needs the money” as a result of a divorce. Leaving aside for a second the question of why anyone would consider divorcing a woman who likes to exploit sick birds and sell them to the highest bidder, we need to get this auction stopped right now. You can learn more about the whole sordid affair here, and we've included contact information so that you can ask her to reconsider this supremely lousy idea. Please be polite if you do decide to contact her—the goal here is to help these abused animals, not to antagonize someone with an obvious compassion deficit.

Did you know that this is Be Kind to Animals Week?� Well, it is. So each day this week I’m going to do one entry dedicated to simple, easy things we can all do in our everyday lives to help animals.

Today I want to talk a bit about wildlife. Spring is a particularly important time of year for wildlife because that’s when baby birds are learning to fly and other animals are just learning their way around, so it’s super important to know what to do if you come across any of these little guys that appear to need help. It happens more often than you’d think. In fact, not a day goes by that we don’t get numerous calls from people all over the country who have stepped in to help wildlife in their area.

I’ll admit that this topic was kind of new to me. In fact, all I really knew was the whole thing about “if you touch a baby bird her mother won’t take her back into the nest because she will smell like a human,” which I learned is totally false anyway. So I guess I knew absolutely nothing useful about the topic beforehand! Luckily we’ve got a great online guide that will help you determine if the animals actually need help, and if so, what you should do and what supplies you need to help them.

The thing that most surprised me is that more often than not (unless the animal is in imminent danger), the right thing to do if you do come across any baby animals who may need some help is to take a wait and see approach to “rescuing” them. Often, Mom and Dad are nearby and the best thing to do is usually to leave the animals alone and let their parents take care of them.

Anyway, check out the guide, it’s great info, and of course, if you have any questions, you can always give us a shout.