Kategorie: Animals

As wildfire season reaches its peak, raising the likelihood of evacuations—like the ones in 2020 due to the Creek fire—PETA has placed a sky-high message in the area urging residents to make sure their evacuation plans include all family members, from hamsters to horses.

“Because animals left behind face agonizing injuries or death during a wildlfire, the time to include them in worst-case scenario plans is right now, before disaster strikes,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “The climate catastrophe has made a protracted, more intense fire season the new norm, and PETA urges everyone to prepare for evacuation now and be ready to flee flames with the whole family.”

PETA offers the following urgent reminders during wildfire season:

• Companion animals should never be left behind to fend for themselves during evacuations. They are no better equipped to survive a disaster than humans are, and anyone who evacuates and intentionally abandons animals to fend for themselves may be prosecuted.
• Be prepared. Put together an animal emergency kit in advance, with food, water, carriers, leashes, veterinary records, and anything else you need to keep your animals safe and comfortable during an evacuation. Make sure they’re wearing collars or harnesses with identification.
• Confined horses and other animals can’t outrun wildfires. They should never be locked in their stalls or confined in any other way that would render them unable to flee. Anyone who sees animals in distress and is unable to help should note their locations and alert authorities immediately.

The billboard is located at 4046 N. Barton Ave. in Fresno.

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

The post Peak Wildfire Season Prompts Urgent Plea From PETA: Leave No Animals Behind appeared first on PETA.

This morning, PETA called on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to investigate the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) review process following the agency’s award of a nearly $13 million annual infrastructure grant to the Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC) at the University of Washington (UW)—in addition to tens of millions of dollars in 2022 to fund experiments on monkeys. NIH was aware of the facility’s admitted destruction of data, appalling and unexplained primate death rate, and multiple violations of animal protection laws and state health and veterinary regulations in addition to rampant disease and toxic waste exposures at its breeding facility in Arizona.

In October, PETA provided Becerra with evidence of unethical and illegal actions by the WaNPRC that have endangered primate and public health, as documented by state and federal agencies as well as UW’s own records and testimony.

“If violations of the law, destruction of data, failure to prevent zoonotic disease outbreaks, and monkeys who died of starvation aren’t enough for NIH to pull funding for the primate center, the future of American research is doomed,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on Secretary Becerra to launch an investigation into why NIH is funneling millions of taxpayer dollars into an operation with a demonstrable history of animal mistreatment, public endangerment, and illegal acts.”

In December, the King County Superior Court in Washington held the primate center liable in civil litigation brought by PETA based on its failure to turn over videos and photographs of monkeys. In a series of shocking under-oath admissions, the former director and experimenters there described routinely deleting data, making it impossible for UW to comply with not only the Public Records Act but also, apparently, the university’s own records retention duties as the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-supported funding from NIH.

A damning exposé by The Arizona Republic revealed that the WaNPRC and its breeding facility sent diseased monkeys to experimenters across the country and failed to prevent the introduction and spread of deadly diseases among monkeys. PETA obtained records showing that the center failed to comply with state laws requiring that monkeys harboring certain pathogens be reported.

Additional information about UW and the WaNPRC’s lengthy history of documented violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act is available here.

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.

The post NIH Under Fire From PETA for Renewing Multimillion-Dollar Grant to Dysfunctional Primate Center appeared first on PETA.

How does that old saying go: “A fool and his money are soon parted”? Well, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) just played us all for fools, separating the public from tens of millions in taxpayer dollars and scattering it at the feet of the demonstrably inept, cruel, and pointless Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC) at the University of Washington.

NIH chose to spit on sound science, public health and safety, financial stewardship, and animal welfare by throwing nearly $13 million annually at the WaNPRC for infrastructure, in addition to tens of millions of dollars to continue experimenting on monkeys. In doing so, NIH ignored the center’s failure to prevent zoonotic disease, its violations of state health and veterinary regulations, and its environmental racism, not to mention its toxic-waste exposures, its apparent financial mismanagement, an appalling and unexplained death rate among monkeys, and multiple violations of animal protection laws.

Bankrolling the WaNPRC’s orgy of violence and buffoonery sends a clear message—and it’s not a good one. This country’s preeminent health agency has solidly endorsed and encouraged more law breaking and more bad science, since the WaNPRC has shipped animals with infectious diseases to other laboratories around the country—in apparent violation of state and federal regulations—jeopardizing public safety and potentially compromising other federally funded research.

This is the same primate center, by the way, that the King County Superior Court in December 2021 held liable based on its policy of intentionally destroying public records—an apparent violation of state law—after the former interim director and the current associate director for research admitted to it under oath.

Read that again: It was the WaNPRC’s policy to destroy its own data—records that would presumably back up its research and, perhaps more to the point, records that could have shown in greater detail the horrors that monkeys there endure.

The WaNPRC is happy to take your money but is demonstrably averse to showing you what it does with it. And NIH apparently thinks all this is OK. More than that, the agency thinks you’re foolish enough to believe the WaNPRC is worth tens of millions of your dollars.

Show NIH that you aren’t: Join thousands of PETA supporters in calling for the immediate closure of the WaNPRC and the release of the monkeys to reputable sanctuaries where they’ll be afforded the safety and dignity that they deserve for the rest of their lives.

Take Action Now!

The post Condemn NIH’s Appalling Decision to Bankroll WaNPRC’s Orgy of Violence appeared first on PETA.

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“Cruelty Doesn’t Fly: EGYPTAIR, Ban Monkey Shipments!” That’s the can’t-be-missed message PETA supporters will unfurl at the counter of EGYPTAIR at John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport tomorrow, following reports that a shipment of hundreds of laboratory-bound monkeys are en route from Cambodia.

When:    Thursday, June 23, 3 p.m.

Where:    JFK International Airport, Queens, EGYPTAIR terminal

In just three months, the airline has reportedly flown more than 4,000 monkeys into JFK, posing a grave, potentially fatal public health risk and causing immense suffering to the animals, who are packed into small wooden crates and locked inside cargo holds. PETA notes that nearly every major airline in the world has stopped transporting monkeys to laboratories and that JFK is the only U.S. airport to which EGYPTAIR ships primates.

“The monkeys who survive the grueling days-long journey in cargo holds and trucks end up being mutilated and killed in laboratories,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on EGYPTAIR to join other airline industry leaders in banning the shipment of suffering, lab-bound primates.” 

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—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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