There are two things I really like about the story that hit the wires this week reporting New York’s recent ban on anal and genital electrocution of animals for fur. The first thing’s kind of obvious: Animals on fur farms in New York won’t be electrocuted any more (they’ll still suffer, but their deaths will now, hopefully, be just a bit less painful). In case you haven’t kept up to date on electrocution techniques, this isn’t like sticking your finger into a wall socket: The fur farmers attach one electrode to the fox’s or raccoon’s ear or muzzle and stick the other one in the animal’s anus or vagina. The result is a dagger-like heart attack without loss of consciousness. On one fur farm we investigated, the farmer plugged the chinchillas into the wall socket and timed it by listening to a song on the radio—then skinned them without checking to see if they were dead.

But the thing that should be really remarkable for most people reading this story is not the fact that New York has banned electrocution—but the implication that this is still legal everywhere else. That’s right. New York is now the only state where anally and genitally electrocuting fur-bearing animals (fur farmers do it this way so they won’t damage the pelts) could get you into trouble.

As my friend Melissa put it when she was interviewed for the AP piece, "Anal electrocution is common practice in fur farms across the world. A lot of these methods aren't effective and these animals will wake up while they are being skinned."

That’s all. I just wanted to drive home that point. It’s awesome that New York is leading the way here, and hopefully other states will soon follow suit. But this is also a good opportunity to store away that little tidbit about anal and genital electrocution being 100 percent legal in 49 out of 50 states—just in case anyone ever tries to tell you that wearing fur is anything other than reprehensible.

Earlier today, I brought you an image of a giant dinosaur attacking DC to help end animal testing. I’m no mind-reader, but I’m fairly confident that the following, word for word, is exactly what went on inside your heads when you saw that picture:

“This is the greatest thing that I have ever seen. Ever. It will be literally impossible for Jack to top this in a subsequent PETA Files entry.”

Well, you were wrong, people. You were wrong. Because, difficult as it may be for you to imagine, there is one thing that's even better than a giant dino rampaging through our Nation’s capital. And we pulled it off yesterday afternoon in Times Square: The first-ever girl/girl shower demonstration. The purpose of the demo was to remind passersby and the media—just in time for Earth Day—that if they’re worried about the environmental devastation caused by wasting water, they should cut it off at the source … by going vegetarian. Just to spell this point out, it takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce just one pound of meat. Which is roughly equivalent to about a full year’s worth of showers (depending on how clean of a person you are).

Now that you’ve patiently sat through the math lesson, here are some pics of two girls and a naked cowboy in a shower. Yup, the naked cowboy himself (who is normally very territorial about his space in Times Square) was gracious enough to hop in with these kickass activists, telling reporters that he was doing it “for the animals — like me.” Glorious.

Some traditions, regardless of how much fun they may have seemed a hundred years ago, need to just go ahead and die. And any “tradition” that involves beating and abusing living beings needs to do so sooner rather than later. Of course that doesn’t always mean you have to stop doing something you were way into—it just means you have to stop doing the part of it that was stupid and ill-thought-out in the first place. People who can’t live without old-timey rides in New York City, for instance, can still have them after we win our campaign to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city. As this recent article in The New York Post explains in more detail, we want the city’s politicians to replace the carriages with "green" replicas of antique cars like the Ford Model T. I’m way into the idea. What do you think?

EverettCurrierFarm / CC

Two PETA carriage horse monitors—who had been watching Central Park carriage drivers to document any cruelty to horses—were recently attacked by a man who shoved them and struck one of them on the head as they videotaped the hack line on Central Park South. We’re still waiting to find out whether the individual involved in the attack was a carriage horse driver himself or whether he’s just, like, a really big fan of their work, but I’ll post an update if we get any more information from the NYPD.

In the meantime, here’s your standard shaky-camera, profanity-laden youtube video of the encounter. For more information about the carriage horse industry and to find out what you can do to help carriage horses in New York, click here.

There was yet another carriage-horse fatality in New York today. How many more horses have to die before New York realizes that this industry has no place in a civilized city? The following is PETA’s official statement on the incident.

PETA has just learned that a horse used to pull carriages in New York City died this afternoon at the Clinton Park Stables. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the horse died of colic, which causes severe abdominal pain. PETA is investigating the circumstances of the horse’s death and reminds New Yorkers as well as tourists that these horses should be in pastures, not locked in dark, damp stalls in warehouse buildings. We renew our call to New Yorkers to help put an end to this inhumane and unsafe industry and to support City Council Member Tony Avella’s proposal to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city.

First of all, Happy New Year! Joel’s reign of terror over this blog has officially come to an end now that I’m back from vacation, so the PETA Files will be starting off the New Year with a return to the high-brow intellectual discussions, the lyrical prose style, and the rigorous grammatical standards that you may have missed in my absence.

I had actually been planning a whole long post devoted to making fun of Joel, but while I was skimming through his entries in search of material, I came across this little masterpiece, which made me change my mind. It may well be the most insightful, eloquent, and informative entry to appear on the PETA Files all year. So a big thank you to Joel for running the show last week—I should probably take vacations more often.

In other news, if you’re in New Year's resolution mode like I am, you should definitely check out PETA’s New Year's pledges to help animals. Whether it’s making an effort to buy cruelty-free products, taking more time to get active for animals, or cutting the eggs and dairy out of your diet, every little thing you do can make a big difference—and now is the perfect time to make the changes that you may have been putting off. For my part, I’m going to set aside more time to hang out with my friend Princess Cuteyface. And be nicer to Joel.

-Jack

Now I know why my friends Allie and Virginia came into the office this morning a slightly different color than normal (respectively, a sort of off-yellow and a nice olive green). Pics from this beautiful demonstration in Times Square have been circulating around the ol' blogosphere today—the girls were outside the M&Ms World store to let passersby know that Mars Candy performs cruel tests on animals. In violation of its own written policy, the candy company is currently funding a study at UC San Francisco in which rats are force-fed by having plastic tubes shoved down their throats, then cut open and killed. In addition to our boycott of the company, PETA is filing a legal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over Mars' false statement.

Anyway, enough of the depressing stuff for now. Check out the great pics below, and if you feel like helping out with our campaign, I’ve also posted the code for our anti-Mars Web banner for anyone who wants to put it on their site. You can learn more about the campaign here.

<a href="http://www.marscandykills.com"><img border="0" alt="xmas_mnm.gif" src="http://blog.peta.org/archives/xmas_mnm.gif" width="405" height="105" /></a>

Blogs that have covered this story

Faded Youth
Celebrity Mound
All that’s Fab
Jonathan Jaxson

The ASPCA was founded in 1866 because of overworked horses in New York City. You have to figure that if the ASPCA’s founder, Henry Bergh, were alive today, he would have made damn sure that his group took some enforcement action last weekend, when New York was hit by a major storm that brought bitterly cold temperatures to the city and filled the streets with ice. But the ASPCA of today seems to have pretty much forgotten the city’s horses.

Donny Moss, an enthusiastic young New Yorker who has just made a documentary (Blinders) about the shady, cruel carriage-horse business, was out on the streets last weekend, taking photos and documenting the miserable conditions that the animals were forced to suffer through while their handlers wrapped themselves tight against the biting cold. Have a look at his photos and compare his descriptions to the ASPCA chief’s statement: "Our agent ... does not agree with Donny's opinion of the conditions." Was their agent in the Bahamas, or was he just not looking out the window at the time?

Please take a moment to let Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Quinn know that you would like them to support the proposed ban on the carriage horse trade, a sleazy cash business that sends the horses to the glue factory after they’ve slipped on the ice, collided with motorized vehicles, collapsed from the blazing heat of summer, or, in one case last year, endured a public beating. This cruel business needs to stop now, whether the “A” (which gets an “F” on this one) chooses to do something about it or not.

Donny Moss reports that the water troughs were kept empty except for unbroken ice for the horses, despite their being worked hard to maximize tourist dollars and trips.

The drivers were wearing face masks, hats, hoods, knee blankets, etc., because of the cold. The horses trudged on with no protection, no water, no concern whatsoever

I can’t think why, but apparently, the good folks at New Hampshire Community Technical College-Manchester have grown unhappy with their institution’s name. I guess it’s possible that they thought it was a bit on the boring side. Or perhaps just a teensy bit unwieldy?

Either way, as of last week, their long wait for an exciting new moniker is over, since the kindhearted souls in PETA’s Vegan Campaigns Department had a little brainstorming session and decided to offer them this striking suggestion:

It has a real ring to it, doesn’t it? Something about the alliteration, maybe. If they like our idea, not only will NHCTC students be able to hold their heads high with the knowledge that their school finally has a genuinely interesting name, but they’ll be sending a strong message that their progressive institution opposes cruelty to animals in all its forms. Plus, in case they need an incentive beyond the good they’ll be doing for the chickens abused for KFC’s restaurants, I can assure them that name changes like that tend to get a whole lot of publicity …

You can read our letter to the school here. We haven’t heard back from them yet for some reason, but I’ll let you know when we do.

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.

I’ve never understood the whole carriage horse attraction. Setting aside the animal rights thing for a second, I just don’t get how people could possibly construe riding around a loud busy city in a non-air-conditioned buggy while smelling horse crap the whole time as even the slightest bit romantic. I’ve always found it totally absurd. But believe it or not, that’s not what this post is about . . .

Fund4Horses/Creative Commons

Last week a spooked horse used for carriage rides collided with a taxi cab in NYC, injuring the horse and taxi driver. Sadly, this isn’t an isolated incident. Carriage and car collisions and other such accidents have occurred in nearly every location where horse-drawn carriages are allowed. The last one I heard about was last year when a horse was euthanized after bolting from his carriage and slamming into a station wagon—the driver received a fractured skull and a medically induced coma. You may remember that case because Martha Stewart’s daughter, Alexis, jumped on it and brought some much needed attention to the issue. The same year, two other people were seriously injured in collisions, and one horse was repeatedly whipped after collapsing in Central Park—she died in her stall the next morning. Anyway, this latest incident—there have been more than 20 in the past 10 years—happened on July 4th, when a horse became spooked and ran into a taxi cab, resulting in lacerations of the horse’s leg and hospitalization of the cab driver.

The harsh reality here is that as long as horses are forced to work in loud and busy city environments, these accidents will continue to happen regularly. And in addition to the clear danger it poses to people, the horses’ hooves and legs suffer from constant pounding on hard pavement and the smoke and exhaust fumes from urban traffic can make them ill.

So, please take a moment to click here to join us in urging the New York City council to ban the outdated and cruel horse-drawn carriages that endanger animals, drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. Palm Beach, Fla., London, Paris, and Toronto have all banned carriage horses because of cruelty to animals, and it’s time for New York City to join them.

IneTours/Creative Commons

And don’t worry about the tourists. They’ll be fine. If they insist on sticking out like a sore thumb they can still take one of the super cheesy roof-top bus tours . . .

Check out this photo from yesterday's demonstration outside the New Zealand Consulate-General's office in Sydney, Australia. The demo was humming along nicely when lo and behold, former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr (Note to Americans: New South Wales is a state in Australia and a "Premier" is, like, a governor) walked up. You can tell from the photo that the girls were enjoying themselves and the coy smile on Mr. Carr's face tells me that he quite enjoyed the surprise of seeing the demonstrators, who were wearing only giant cardboard hearts, to thank New Zealand farmers for ending the practice of mulesing. For those not familiar with it, mulesing is the hideous procedure where farmers force live sheep onto their backs, restrain their legs between metal bars, and, without any painkillers whatsoever, slice chunks of flesh from around their tail area.

Anyway, for New Zealand farmers to stop mulesing altogether is a huge step forward and is a clear signal to neighboring Australian farmers that it’s time for them to do the same thing or get left in the dust . . .

Dulary arrives at the sanctuary

Some great elephant news on two fronts for you today, as two famous elephants have found new places to live. The first, an elephant named Dulary from the Philadelphia Zoo, has been released to a sanctuary to spend the rest of her life following the zoo's decision to close down its elephant exhibit for good. It's amazing to me to think that before I got involved in animal rights, it never even occurred to me that there was something monumentally screwed up about keeping elephants (who walk up to 30 miles a day in the wild) in tiny enclosures in places like Philadelphia for people to gawk at. Anyway, awesome work The Philadelphia Zoo for figuring that out too. You can read the full story here.

Ella PhantzPeril

The second elephant to find a home is a beautiful little anti-circus sculpture who goes by the name of "Ella PhantzPeril" (yeah, I know. Kill me.) Ella, a shackled, weeping pachyderm who wears a sign that reads, "Shackles, Bullhooks, Loneliness — All Under the Big Top" has been the subject of a few legal troubles over the past few years, even getting the ACLU involved when DC balked at displaying her as part of a citywide exhibit of elephant and donkey sculptures. Now, after a whole lot of back and forth with the New York City Parks Department, the New York Post has reported that the city has finally agreed to allow her a spot in Union Square Park this summer. So take that, circuses.