Kategorie: Animals

Loretta Lynn was never big on being bound. She wouldn’t be bound by her impoverished upbringing in an Appalachian hollow in Kentucky. She wouldn’t be bound by the radio stations that banned her women’s empowerment anthems. The sassy singer-songwriter who wouldn’t be held back released 24 number one hits, becoming the most-awarded female woman recording artist in country music. And she wouldn’t let animals be bound, either. She donated her 1971 hit “I Wanna Be Free” to PETA for a video to help get dogs off chains and indoors—where family members belong.

The video likely prevented many dogs from enduring a lifetime of suffering on a chain. And a quick glance through Petfinder shows that many deserving rescued dogs bear the moniker “Loretta Lynn.”

Among her countless accolades, Lynn was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 by President Barack Obama for “courageously breaking barriers.” Now, she’s flying free once again. And PETA will continue to break chains in her honor.

 

Ahead of a controversial fundraising raffle at Tug Valley High School—in which the winner will decide whether to “save or slaughter” a pig—today, PETA fired off a letter to the principal, Dr. C. Douglas Ward, pointing out that schools “should be teaching students that it’s important to have empathy for all, not that it’s OK to gamble with the life of another sentient being” and urging him not to allow the animal to be slaughtered. But if he and the winner insist on slaughtering the pig, PETA has an unusual request: Do so in full view of students so they can understand the devastating moral cost of eating meat.

“We hope you’ll give your students a lesson in compassion and not allow the pig to be harmed, but if the winner of the raffle decides that the animal should be slaughtered, we urge you to allow the entire student body to witness firsthand the fear and torment that pigs endure when they’re killed for food,” writes PETA Senior Director Marta Holmberg. “It’s easy to forget where meat comes from when you see it in neatly wrapped packages at the supermarket, but the animals don’t go peacefully.”

PETA notes that pigs feel pain, empathy, and love; form complex social structures; and are protective of their young. Yet pigs killed for food are confined to filthy enclosures so small that they can barely turn around. Workers chop off piglets’ tails, cut their teeth with pliers, and castrate the males—all without pain relief. At the slaughterhouse, workers hang pigs upside down (sometimes while they’re still conscious), slit their throats, and bleed them to death. Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year, reduces their own risk of suffering from heart disease and cancer, and helps prevent the next pandemic. SARS, swine flu, bird flu, and COVID-19 all stemmed from confining and killing animals for food.

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

Viewers of Netflix’s Dahmer series are apparently going vegan, claiming that watching the series’ display of murder and cannibalism has turned them off from eating other animals.

this jeffrey dahmer doc is gonna turn me vegan

— m (@aliengirl321) September 25, 2022

After watchin Dahmer think ima be a vegetarian or vegan

— Here For The Comments (@arealshaqwill) September 30, 2022

After watching #Dahmer I think imma gone head and become a vegan.

— #Before CENSORSHIP (@Ms_Elle_A_) September 29, 2022

One good thing about this new Dahmer series is that I think I'm vegan now.

— Dana (@zuulmarsh) September 28, 2022

Dahmer also shows the subject’s compulsion to hack other animals apart—a common behavior of serial killers—before he goes on to kill humans.

We get it—watching the monstrosities committed by a serial killer and cannibal will understandably horrify many viewers and persuade them to go vegan. However, you certainly don’t need to stream Dahmer to know that flesh shouldn’t be food. Plus, the obscene acts of cruelty on farms and in slaughterhouses in the U.S. have been extensively documented in PETA undercover investigations for decades.

PETA’s own investigators have exposed deplorable conditions on farms, from cows’ confinement to feces-caked pens to workers’ acts of cruelty to turkeys, including viciously stomping on them and even mimicking sexual acts with them. At slaughterhouses, workers slit animals’ throats, often while they’re still conscious. Many can still feel when workers plunge them into the scalding-hot water of the “defeathering” tanks or while their bodies are being skinned or hacked apart.

PETA is always looking for ways to turn cruelty on its ugly head. In 2014, after Jeffrey Dahmer’s childhood home was put up for sale, we called for the site to be turned into a vegan restaurant—to transform the building’s sordid past by urging visitors to practice compassion while eating.

Making the ethical choice to go vegan isn’t just about the egregious animal suffering that occurs every day in the meat, egg, and dairy industries, either. Our fellow animals aren’t here for us to kill and eat.

Pledge to Go Vegan

For our fellow animals, the planet, and your own health, pledge to go vegan today. To get started, order PETA’s free vegan starter kit:

Because Virginia Beach has issued a state of emergency and evacuation orders have been issued in Chincoteague, animals could die if left outside or left behind during floods.

Never leave animals outdoors, tied up, crated, caged, in hutches, or confined in any other way, as they will be unable to flee rising waters. Anyone who sees animals in distress and is unable to help should note their locations and alert authorities immediately.

Anyone who evacuates and intentionally abandons animals to fend for themselves may be prosecuted.

PETA has released a natural disaster–preparedness PSA featuring Dean Winters. It will remind everyone to make plans to ensure the safety of their animal companions. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.