Kategorie: Animals

Veröffentlicht am

‘Revamp Like Ringling!’ PETA to Trumpet at State Agency Meeting

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus recently made history by announcing an animal-free comeback, yet the Wisconsin Historical Society is still forcing ailing elephants to perform in the Circus World Museum’s summer series. So on Friday, PETA supporters will clamor outside the entrance to the state agency’s board meeting and, during the public comment portion, call on the board to follow in Ringling’s footsteps.

When:    Friday, June 3, 8 a.m.

Where:    The Ingleside Hotel, 2810 Golf Rd., Pewaukee

A PETA investigator documented that two elderly elephants, Isa and Viola, were forced to perform grueling tricks in shows twice a day, seven days a week at the last summer series, even though their feet were chronically swollen and they showed signs of other painful foot and joint problems—which are among the leading reasons why captive elephants are euthanized.

“While Ringling listened to today’s kind public and dropped the animal acts, Circus World remains an elephant-abusing holdout,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Debbie Metzler. “PETA is calling on audiences to stay away from Circus World until the Wisconsin Historical Society stops engaging in cruel practices of a bygone era.”

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.

The post ‘Revamp Like Ringling!’ PETA to Trumpet at State Agency Meeting appeared first on PETA.

Veröffentlicht am

Andover’s Ora Inc. Cited by USDA: PETA Statement

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna regarding federal documents that reveal serious animal welfare violations in the laboratories of Ora Inc. According to just-posted federal inspection reports obtained by PETA, three rabbits “died acutely” after they were placed in a restraining device with a hood that was lowered over their heads. This device is used for “both rodents and rabbits,” but experimenters had failed to adjust the equipment to “accommodate the larger body size of rabbits”—and it appears that the rabbits’ necks may have been broken. In another experiment, the lead experimenter and staff members failed to follow the approved experimental protocol and failed to take appropriate action when rabbits were “observed in pain and distress.” Other experimenters applied experimental contact lenses to both eyes of 12 rabbits but failed to euthanize them when “symptoms of ocular pain [became] so severe” that the animals couldn’t open their eyes, as was required. Four rabbits exhibited “severe conjunctival swelling and redness” but were permitted to experience “unrelieved pain and distress.” In yet another test, experimenters injected chemicals into the eyes of rabbits without first searching for alternatives to this procedure, as required by law.

Injecting chemicals into the eyes of rabbits is business as usual for Andover-based Ora Inc., but incompetence and a culture of disregard add to the animals’ suffering. It’s a nonstop horror show for the rabbits trapped inside the company’s laboratories, as scalpel-wielding experimenters routinely flout minimum animal welfare laws and treat the animals like test tubes with tails. In 2021, Ora used 378 rabbits in experiments—animals who feel pain and value their lives just as much as any of the company’s executives do—so Ora would do well to modernize its testing program by leaving archaic and cruel animal tests behind and using only sophisticated, human-relevant testing methods.

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

The post Andover’s Ora Inc. Cited by USDA: PETA Statement appeared first on PETA.

Veröffentlicht am

Uvalde Shooter and Others Share a Common Trait: Cruelty to Animals

If reports are true that Uvalde shooter Salvador Ramos appeared in videos holding a bag of dead cats before he opened fire on defenseless children, it would come as no surprise to PETA. The FBI has identified cruelty to animals as a warning sign of more violence to come, and amid an epidemic of youth violence, PETA urges everyone to report every act of cruelty and calls on authorities to take every animal abuse claim seriously—for the sake of the animal victims and the many other lives that may depend on it.

In just the past few weeks, the media have covered cases of similar youth violence toward animals.

Teens in Colorado allegedly flushed a live squirrel down a toilet, a Tennessee teen reportedly posted a video of another teen beating a dog to death, and in Florida, a group of students allegedly gutted a shark and hung the animal from the school rafters. In each of these cases, TeachKind—PETA’s humane education division—contacted local school districts in order to provide them with our compassion-building curricula.

Many school shooters and serial killers have a history of abusing animals.

Payton S. Gendron—the 18-year-old accused of fatally shooting 10 people in the racially motivated shooting spree in Buffalo, New York—reportedly had a history of violence toward animals. Prior to the shooting, he allegedly wrote in an online journal entry about chasing and stabbing a homeless cat for an hour and a half, grabbing him by the tail, smashing his head into a concrete floor, and slashing at his neck repeatedly until he was completely beheaded.

Oxford, Michigan, school shooter Ethan Crumbley reportedly tortured animals, once “leaving a baby bird’s head in a jar on his bedroom floor, which he later took and placed in a school bathroom.”

Parkland, Florida, school shooter Nikolas Cruz is said to have talked about using animals, including lizards, squirrels, frogs, and a neighbor’s chickens, for target practice before he massacred 17 people at his former high school. He also reportedly sent his dog to a neighbor’s house to attack the pigs there.

Youth violence toward animals is a prevalent issue, and educators have the unique opportunity to help students develop compassion for all animals—including humans—and detect early warning signs of violence before it takes place.

Every single case of cruelty to animals needs to be taken seriously. Many lives may depend on it.

The post Uvalde Shooter and Others Share a Common Trait: Cruelty to Animals appeared first on PETA.