It was a cagey scene outside NASA headquarters in D.C. yesterday when our primates urged NASA to scrap its misguided $1.75 million plan to torment monkeys in radiation experiments. The demonstration was out-of-this-world spectacular, prompting NASA employees to approach our volunteers for some dynamic discussions. No one could walk by these guys without stopping to have a second look:

Photo | Kenneth Marty

The more than two dozen monkeys in NASA's crude experiment will be zapped with a massive dose of radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York, and then spend the rest of their lives condemned to a laboratory at Harvard's McLean Hospital where they'll be enlisted in a never-ending series of experiments to assess how the radiation devastates their brains and bodies. NASA has admitted that the radiation is "going to cause some cellular damage." What they really mean is that the monkeys may likely suffer from brain damage, cancer and premature aging.

It goes without saying that you should urge NASA to abandon these abhorrent experiments ASAP.

Posted by Logan Scherer

thespoof / CC

Well, after learning that live pigs are reportedly being shot and stabbed in a California avocado grove owned by police officer David Bishop—all as part of trauma training exercises conducted by Washington-based Deployment Medicine International (DMI)—we were outraged. Not only is it unnecessary to mutilate and kill pigs—or any other animals—for trauma training, but to do so in an avocado grove may be illegal.

That's because Bishop's land isn't zoned for trauma or medical training exercises under the County of San Diego's zoning ordinances. Since San Diego County allows the director of its Department of Planning and Land Use to penalize zoning violators, we've fired off a letter to the current director, Eric Gibson, asking him to investigate Bishop and DMI for illegal activity.

Stabbing and shooting pigs to train medical personnel how to treat human injuries is positively medieval. With all the non-animal methods that are readily available, there are better models of human anatomy and physiology than pigs. Don't animals—and trauma victims—deserve better?

Posted by Jeff Mackey

Here's a lovely follow-up to a story we mentioned earlier this year: The Cle Elum Seven are now honorary citizens of Cle Elum, Washington.

The Cle Elum Seven are chimpanzees who were living out life in a laboratory, until we helped them gain their freedom and they were given a home at the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in Cle Elum, Washington. As you might expect, the chimpanzees have thrived in the new setting, and their neighbors are clearly pleased. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the chimpanzees' residency, the City Council unanimously issued a proclamation that made the chimpanzees honorary citizens. The proclamation also commends Cle Elum's human residents for donating toys, food, blankets, and time to the sanctuary.

All together now: Awww!

It's beginning to look like a very positive trend is emerging for great apes. Perhaps some day soon, the abuse of chimpanzees and other apes in laboratories and in Hollywood will be a horror of the past.

Posted by Jeff Mackey

rss.msnbc.msn / CC

Today, Benton County law enforcement officials seized more than 400 dogs from a puppy mill owned by 66-year-old Ella Stewart in what they are calling "one of the worst cases" of animal abuse the state has ever seen.

All the dogs reportedly require medical treatment for a variety of ailments, including malnutrition, overgrown nails (which can cause painful foot injuries), and urine burns.

Urine burns! That's because all these pups were found living in makeshift crates (including shopping carts) that were caked with feces and soaked with urine.

You can bet that this isn't an isolated incident. Puppy mills, from which almost all pet stores buy their dogs, are breeding grounds (no pun intended) for disease and neglect. The animals who are unfortunate enough to be housed in these hell holes are viewed as commodities, not as living beings who require exercise, love, and care. They are crammed together into cages that they can barely turn around in, they are fed barely enough to survive, and when they suffer from injuries, their wounds go untreated.

So, the next time you're in the mood to bring a cute, dreamy-eyed pup home, don't support the Ella Stewarts of the world. Stop by your local animal shelter instead.

Posted by Shawna Flavell

boeing / CC

When thinking airplane safety, most airports don't do a whole lot to take into consideration all the birds who are forced to share their airspace with us—which results in 7,000 to 8,000 bird strikes (i.e., dead birds) reported to the Federal Aviation Administration every year. Seattle-Tacoma airport is doing its part to reduce those numbers. And, no, this isn't because of that famous splash-down on the Hudson.

Seattle-Tacoma uses several techniques in its fight to keep birds (and humans) safe. A staff wildlife biologist, who has been there for 30 years, uses radar to detect birds who may intercept flights. Once birds are detected, the airport uses lasers to try to scare them away, and if the lasers don't work, it uses "thunderclap" fireworks. With an animal-friendly lightshow like that, it's no wonder that we're awarding Sea-Tac our Most Progressive Airport Proggy.

This has me thinking about other ways that airports can save animals. Don't you think that they should take PETA up on some of our ideas?

Posted by Shawna Flavell

The Washington Post has just released an investigation into the shocking lack of progress that exists in U.S. government policies on animal experimentation. The Washington Post began its own investigation after PETA presented evidence of government negligence. As the article points out, hundreds of millions of animals in this country are still being killed in gruesome ways to test substances like Botox, even though there are modern, non-animal methods available. Part of the problem is a categorical failure by the agency that’s charged with reducing the use of animals in toxicity testing—the folks over at ICCVAM (who I’ve talked about a bit before on this blog)—to actually do their jobs. As the Post article puts it:

"The controversy over the Botox test highlights the slow pace of government efforts to replace or reduce the large numbers of animals used by pharmaceutical companies, chemical manufacturers and consumer firms to ensure that their products are safe for people. A decade after Congress created a panel to spur the development of non-animal tests, only four such tests have been approved out of 185 reviews, according to the panel's records."

During the same period of time, ICCVAM’s European counterpart has recommended more than two dozen non-animal tests, and the U.S. continues to lag well behind Europe in adopting modern alternatives to animal testing, which—in addition to causing unnecessary suffering and death for countless animals—poses a significant threat to human health.

There is a bit of good news, though, in the form of a landmark report by the National Academy of Sciences, which indicates that the United States may finally be ready to start catching up to other nations by adopting modern testing methods. But this isn’t going to happen while groups like ICCVAM are allowed to stand in the way. We’re currently calling for a congressional investigation into ICCVAM's negligence, and asking that a new entity be created to oversee the implementation of the NAS recommendations. If you’d like to help out by contacting your members of Congress about this issue, you can do so through the webform here.

And definitely check out the Post article. This issue is monumentally important, but doesn’t get a lot of ink, so it’s great to see a publication like The Washington Post giving it its due.

Update: Please click here to take action on this issue.

I wish I could say that the title of this entry were anything other than a simple statement of fact. But according to shocking allegations made by a former animal technician at Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories (SNBL), the recent boiling of a live female macaque monkey—who was evidently placed inside a giant rack washer inside her wire cage and killed during the 180 degree, 20-minute cycle—was just one in a long list of egregious animal welfare violations at the animal-testing facility.

The whistleblower, whose employment was terminated shortly after she complained about these apparent violations, told reporters that SNBL’s reaction to her inquiry about the incident with the macaque was to complain about the additional paperwork that it was generating.

"When I inquired about it,” she told a Kiro TV reporter who investigated her allegations, “the reply I got back was 'Oh, dear.' Think of the paperwork. That just upset me to my soul because no animal in there should die because of somebody’s mistake or negligence or lack of compassion. "

Last week, PETA sent the whistleblower a $1,000 check and a basket of groceries to thank her for standing up for the animals abused in this lab despite the fact that her decision to do so likely led to her firing. As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk puts it, “Her ‘reward’ for revealing SNBL’s callous and vicious treatment of monkeys was unemployment. But in our book and that of all primates, she’s a hero.”

The USDA is currently investigating this incident, so there’s a chance that the lab will be held accountable for this horrific negligence, but there isn’t much hope that those responsible will be charged with cruelty to animals. As the Seattle television station which has been covering this story pointed out, although causing unnecessary suffering or death to an animal is illegal in the state, there’s an exemption for this on the books in cases where the cruelty is connected with “any properly conducted scientific experiments.”

As horrific as this story is, it would never even have come to light in the first place had it not been for the whistleblower’s willingness to speak out, and we are extremely grateful to her for her bravery. You can watch investigative footage of this lab here, and for more information about what you can do to help animals suffering in laboratories, click here.

I just found this speech by PETA President Ingrid Newkirk on YouTube. It's pretty old—an address she gave in Washington a few years ago—but it's cool to see some of the old campaigns PETA was working on back then. Plus, she's a hell of a speaker, so it's worth checking it out, even if you don't have 20 minutes to spare for the whole thing.