A Christmas gift just isn't a Christmas gift if it's not sealed with a kiss, which is why our snuggly seal jumped aboard a float at Toronto's Santa Claus Parade:

Follow the lead of Santa's surprise helper and urge Prime Minister Harper to end the seal slaughter.

Posted by Logan Scherer

Oof.

I imagine this is what a certain fur hag might look like on a "good" day.

PETA's "Grim Reapers" recently greeted tourists at a crowded tour-bus stop in Toronto to reveal frightening facts about Canada's shame: the cruel slaughter of baby seals for their fur. Their scary outfits didn't stop tourists from high-fiving them—and tour bus operators were eager to point out our demonstrators to their passengers.

I'm dying to know: Which fugly fur wearer does our "Grim Reaper" most remind you of?

Posted by Karin Bennett

You have to wonder why the seal slaughter is allowed to continue even though almost everyone is opposed to it, including most Canadians. Helpless baby seals are beaten to death while their mothers scream in anguish. The babies are dragged across the ice with boat hooks, and some are even skinned alive.

So you see why we're doing all we can to stop the massacre, right? And we're definitely not alone in this fight. This week, U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Susan Collins introduced a resolution asking the Canadian government to put an end to the seal slaughter. Hooray! We'll keep you updated on the resolution's progress. In the meantime, try sending a letter to Canadian officials urging them to stop the seal slaughter (and asking your friends to do the same), signing our petition (and asking your friends to do the same), and posting our alert on your Facebook page (and asking … well, I think you get the idea). We need the support of everyone we (and you) can possibly contact to stop this slaughter.

But before you get started calling, e-mailing, and IMing your friends, check out these pictures from PETA's protest in Toronto this week:

Don't do it! You don't want their blood on your conscience.

I bet the kids on those buses have already posted our alert on their Facebook pages!

Posted by Lianne Turner

She's blue about being pimped out to a circus and a zoo! Meet Sydney—the pachyderm protagonist in Sanctuary Song, a new opera opening this summer in Toronto. A dynamic combination of song, dance, and theater, this ele-friendly opera follows Sydney as she recounts her life during a journey to a sanctuary in Tennessee. Discussing her abduction by poachers and her years spent in a circus and a zoo, she relives the fond memories of her friends and family as well as the fearful memories of captivity. Will Sydney be reunited with her childhood friend in the last act? No spoiler alert here! Like they say, it's not over until the elephant sings.

cityparent / CC

Can't make it to Toronto to see Sanctuary Song? Put on your favorite aria, and check out the lovely ladies at this real-life Tennessee sanctuary.

─Jen

Posted by Jennifer Cierlitsky

This was a big one. The photos were taken after the peta2 Take Action Conference in Toronto last week. More on that on peta2’s blog (fair warning: my peta2 colleagues tend to use a lot of hip, slangy, young-people lingo, so try not to let it get you down), and there are plenty more pics on this Flickr photostream. Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is that’s a lot of people protesting that one little Toronto KFC. I bet they were pretty surprised. Nice work, peta2. You guys are, like, totally rad.