Kategorie: Animals

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New PETA Virtual Reality Experience Promises Close Encounters at Yale University

In a bid to encourage empathy for animals who are mutilated and killed in university laboratories, on Monday PETA will have its Yale University launch of Abduction, a unique virtual reality experience that will land on college campuses across the country. In the eerie experience, visitors will enter a mysterious truck and put on a virtual reality headset. They’ll seemingly find themselves stranded in the desert with a couple of fellow humans, abducted by aliens, taken aboard a spaceship, and subjected to a terrifying experience similar to what animals endure in laboratories. They’ll watch as others are subjected to experiments—inspired by real tests done on animals—knowing that they’ll be next.

When:       October 24–28, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Where:     At the intersection of York Street and Alexander Walk, near Yale Law School, New Haven

Watch the trailer here. Broadcast-quality footage of the Abduction virtual reality experience is available upon request. Images from the first day of the Yale Abduction stop will be available tomorrow.

At Yale, experimenters subject infant monkeys to “early life adversity”—including permanently removing babies from their mothers—to then study how it affects the animals’ behavior and social ranking. Other experimenters subject monkeys to brain surgeries in which they carve out a portion of the skull to implant instrumentation so that they can hold the monkeys’ heads stock-still for tests. Then they inject neurotoxins into the monkeys’ brains to inflict permanent and devastating brain damage.

“Many students don’t know that on their own college campuses, frightened and confused animals are being tormented, mutilated, and killed in cold, barren laboratories, with no way to escape or even understand what’s happening to them,” says PETA Senior Director Rachelle Owen. “PETA is on a mission to open young people’s eyes to this cruelty, help them understand what it feels like, and motivate them to join our call for a switch to superior, non-animal research.”

Studies show that 90% of all basic research—most of which involves animals—fails to lead to treatments for humans, which is part of why PETA is pushing universities to pivot to sophisticated, human-relevant research methods.

Abduction—which was filmed in VR180 with assistance from the virtual reality creation studio Prosper XR—will stop at several other college campuses from coast to coast, including Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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New USDA Report: Miami Seaquarium Just Keeps Getting Worse

PETA just received the newest USDA inspection report the infamous Miami Seaquarium, owned by The Dolphin Company, and things just keep getting worse. Since its dismal last inspection, the Miami Seaquarium has continued to fail the animals it holds captive as well as its staff and the public, with mounting safety issues it chooses to ignore.

To force the dolphins to perform, the facility reduced their food intake by 60%. Imagine having to stretch your breakfast to last you all day. The staff member in charge of the food refused to increase the dolphins’ intake unless there was a plan to force compliance—which is to say, the staff knew they were starving the dolphins into submission.

As a result of their meager portions, the dolphins are emaciated, regurgitating excessively, and attacking humans out of stress. They’re biting the public during encounters, an act of aggression that should stop an encounter then and there—but trainers have pressed on with the shows, even with prior signs of aggression on display. When it comes to staff endangerment, things are even direr: A trainer was rammed in deep water by a dolphin, who then didn’t respond to redirection or distraction. Situations like this are preventable and unnecessarily risk the safety of the staff and the dolphins.

Finally, the layout for guest interactions at Miami Seaquarium was changed without any oversight, in a way that forces the dolphins to look directly into the sunlight. Whoever came up with this change doesn’t have the dolphins’ best interests at heart, as looking into the sun will damage their eyes over time, a danger that the Miami Seaquarium was cited for last year. This change was in direct violation of instructions issued with the previous citation.

It’s clear that the dolphins at the Miami Seaquarium are being pushed to a breaking point by the facility. These sensitive animals should be in a seaside sanctuary instead of being starved, degraded, blinded, and forced to perform degrading shows for the public while in failing health. For the good of all, the cruel Miami Seaquarium must be shut down. It has proved repeatedly that it can’t be trusted to care properly for the animals it forces to perform, and now it’s risking the safety of humans, too. The facility mustn’t be allowed to harm animals any longer.

Even though her performances have stopped, Lolita the orca continues to be kept captive at the Miami Seaquarium, in the oldest and smallest orca tank in the world. Lolita, who was violently torn away from her family, still languishes in a tiny prison without the companionship of another orca. Despite the myriad issues at the Miami Seaquarium over the years, the USDA has no interest in protecting Lolita and has even exempted her from protection, as she doesn’t perform, effectively relinquishing any means it had to help her.

In their natural homes, highly social cetaceans can swim up to several dozen miles a day and dive many feet below the surface of their native waters, but Lolita and the other dolphins at the Miami Seaquarium can do none of that in their tiny tanks. The Dolphin Company should release them to seaside sanctuaries where they could live out the rest of their lives in comfort, which would be a measure of justice after a lifetime of trauma for each of them. Please urge The Dolphin Company to begin the process of moving these animals to sanctuaries where they can finally find peace.

The post New USDA Report: Miami Seaquarium Just Keeps Getting Worse appeared first on PETA.

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Photos: Police Arrest ‘Husky’ Mascot at PETA Protest Over F1’s Iditarod Ties

At today’s protest at Circuit of the Americas over Formula 1’s (F1) ties to the Iditarod dog-sled race—in which more than 150 dogs have died—police detained three of PETA’s protesters, including one in a husky dog costume, and removed them from the property in a golf cart. Photos are available here.

The protesters were issued a trespass warning and prohibited from returning to the Circuit of the Americas, but the rest of this weekend’s protests will go full steam ahead on the public property in front of the racetrack’s entrance. Further details about the protests appear in the media alert below.

Protesters to Descend on Formula 1 Over Ties to Iditarod Dog-Race Deaths

What:    This weekend, a PETA “husky” mascot representing the 150 dogs who have died in the Iditarod dog-sledding race will lead other animal defenders as they gather outside the Formula 1 (F1) Grand Prix with signs reading, “Formula 1: Cut Ties With Iditarod Cruelty!” PETA wants F1’s owner, Liberty Media, to permanently put the brakes on its support of the notorious race and the dogs’ suffering and abuse both during and after the race, as reflected in this damning video footage. PETA has already persuaded Millennium Hotels and Resorts, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, Alaska Airlines, and Wells Fargo to pull their sponsorships.

“The Iditarod forces dogs to cross nearly 1,000 grueling miles of ice and wind, causing them to suffer from bleeding ulcers, heart attacks, pneumonia, and frostbite and to die from inhaling their own vomit,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on F1 to stop propping up this blood-soaked race.”

Where:    Circuit of the Americas, 9201 Circuit of the Americas Blvd. (near the intersection with Elroy Road), Austin

When:    Friday, October 21, and Saturday, October 22, at 12 noon and Sunday, October 23, at 10 a.m.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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Victory! Alameda County Bans ‘Wild Cow Milking’ Contests

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously (5-0) to prohibit “wild cow milking” contests—timed competitions in which frantic, lactating mother cows are released into an arena to be chased down, roped, wrestled to the ground, and forcibly milked. Thank you to everyone who spoke up for these animals. The new law is set to take effect in November in unincorporated Alameda County.

The post Victory! Alameda County Bans ‘Wild Cow Milking’ Contests appeared first on PETA.

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Austin Restaurant Takes Foie Gras off Menu After PETA’s Pitch

After hearing from PETA that ducks used for foie gras are force-fed until their livers bloat and are then slaughtered, Nido at The Loren just confirmed that it has pulled the cruelly produced product from its menu ahead of its opening weekend. Video footage of the process is enough to make anyone lose their lunch.

“Nido made the right call in refusing to serve the diseased livers of birds who were painfully force-fed,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on other eateries that still offer this grotesquely vile dish to follow suit and urging diners to speak up for ducks if they see foie gras on offer anywhere.”

During foie gras production, several pounds of fat and grain are pumped into birds’ stomachs every day through tubes shoved down their throats, causing their livers to swell to up to 10 times their normal size. A PETA investigation into a foie gras producer in New York found that a single worker was expected to force-feed 500 birds three times each day, a head-spinning pace that frequently left birds injured and suffering. So many ducks died from ruptured organs due to overfeeding that workers who killed fewer than 50 birds a month were given a bonus. Other investigations into farms in the U.S. and Europe have revealed sick, dying, and dead animals, some with holes in their necks from overfeeding injuries.

Foie gras production is outlawed in more than a dozen countries as well as in California, and numerous companies, including Costco, IKEA, Sam’s Club, Target, and Whole Foods, refuse to sell it.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. The group’s letter to Nido’s chef Brad McDonald is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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