Kategorie: Animals

Although many residents of Taos, New Mexico, are up in arms over the construction of a new slaughterhouse funded in part by taxpayer dollars, PETA fired off a letter to the city’s mayor, Pascualito Maestas, in support of the project—if the facility is built with a glass wall and broadcasts livestream video footage from the kill floor.

About 900,000 cows are killed every single day worldwide, and PETA investigations into slaughterhouses have exposed immense animal suffering, human health problems, disgraceful conditions for workers, and filth.

PETA is urging Taos Mayor Maestas to be transparent with his constituents and embrace a slaughterhouse with a glass wall.

Taxpayers in Taos have the right to see what they’re paying for. A slaughterhouse with a glass wall would not only provide a degree of accountability but also allow everyone to witness the terror and torment that animals endure during the killing process.

If slaughterhouse operations were made public, the scenes of terrified, screaming animals stunned with a captive-bolt gun, strung up, and slashed across the throat would persuade anyone to go vegan.

Meat production is widely recognized as environmentally destructive, hideously cruel to animals, and a human health hazard. Animal agriculture is rightly condemned for contributing mightily to greenhouse gas emissions, and slaughterhouses, which consistently rank among the most dangerous workplaces, aren’t safe for employees.

It’s easy to forget where meat comes from when it’s in neatly wrapped packages at the grocery store, but it didn’t get there peacefully. Animals tremble in terror as they smell the blood and hear the cries of those ahead of them in the kill line.

Every animal is an individual. Cows are curious and clever, sometimes going to extraordinary lengths to escape slaughter.

They understand cause-and-effect relationships and become excited when they figure out how to do something, such as operating a water pump with their horns. They’re gregarious, forming intense friendships and holding grudges against herd members who have treated them badly.

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While the U.S. is still the land of rodeos, trophy hunters, NRA “sportsmen’s clubs,” bounties on wildlife, and many other archaisms that reduce other species to their utility to humans, Germany’s parliament may just take the lead by recognizing who these “others” are and granting fundamental rights to animals. This week, PETA Germany marked its 30^th anniversary by rallying outside the New Palace in Stuttgart to call on the Bundestag to change the constitution to recognize animals as individual persons with the right to life, liberty, physical integrity, and the free development of personality. Photos are available here, and video is available here (please drag the video into your web browser for quick playback).

In the U.S., PETA is preparing a new lawsuit designed to challenge the status quo. This follows earlier civil suits, including its novel 13^th Amendment lawsuit, which sought to free orcas from bondage at SeaWorld; its groundbreaking “monkey selfie” copyright lawsuit, which sought to establish the right of Naruto the macaque to own and profit from his own creation; and its first-of-its-kind lawsuit challenging a loophole in the federal Animal Welfare Act allowing for the unconstitutional death sentence of barn owls. PETA’s lead counsel, Jeffrey Kerr, is inspired by the words of civil rights attorney Phil Hirschkop, who said, “First you lose, and lose, and lose, and then you win.”

“Animals aren’t things like pieces of furniture—they’re individuals like us who feel pain, fear, and love and value their lives, and simply because humans can dominate them doesn’t mean that we should,” says PETA President and founder of PETA Germany Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA entities are urging the legal system to recognize that all animals are living, feeling beings who deserve appropriate legal rights and protections for their own sake and not in relation to how they can be exploited by humans.”

The push to establish personhood for animals comes as society’s fundamental understanding of animal sentience is rapidly evolving, with studies revealing the individuality and specific talents and abilities of all species. For example, geese fall in love and stay with a partner for life, even at great personal risk; squirrels bury nuts by the position of the stars; pigeons navigate by low-frequency radio waves; fish “sing” underwater; and elephants use their trunks to send subsonic signals, alerting herds a mile or more away to danger or a source of water.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.

The post U.S. Lags Behind While PETA Entity Pushes Germany to Grant Rights to Other Species appeared first on PETA.

Earlier today, in an action to mark PETA Germany’s 30^th anniversary, dozens of PETA members and supporters descended on the New Palace in Stuttgart—dressed in formal attire, carrying briefcases, and wearing animal masks—as they called on the country’s parliament to change the constitution to legally recognize animals as individual persons and grant them basic rights. This includes the right to life, liberty, physical integrity, and the free development of personality. Photos are available here, and video is available here (please drag the video into your web browser for quick playback).

Society’s fundamental understanding of identity is rapidly evolving, with gender-neutral driver’s licenses offered in several U.S. states, an orangutan legally recognized as a “person” in Argentina, and legal personhood granted to rivers around the world. PETA entities worldwide are pushing forward this evolution and asking courts to recognize the personhood and legal rights of other animals. In the U.S., PETA’s 13^th Amendment lawsuit sought to free orcas from bondage at SeaWorld and its groundbreaking “monkey selfie” copyright lawsuit sought to establish the right of Naruto the macaque to own and profit from his own creation.

“Animals aren’t things like pieces of furniture—they’re individuals like us who feel pain, fear, and love and value their lives. Simply because humans can dominate them doesn’t mean that we should,” says PETA President and founder of PETA Germany Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA Germany is urging the legal system to recognize that all animals are living, feeling beings who deserve appropriate legal rights and protections for their own sake and not in relation to how they can be exploited by humans.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.

The post Photos: PETA Germany Asks Parliament to Grant Personhood to Animals as Understanding Evolves appeared first on PETA.

A troop of PETA “monkeys” dressed in prisoner garb will make a splash outside a local Whole Foods store on Sunday as they dump fake blood from spoof Thai coconut milk cans emblazoned with “Cruel Foods” labels to call out the grocery giant for its sale of coconut milk from Thailand—which it continues to stock even though it knows the country’s coconut industry is driven by the forced labor of endangered pig-tailed macaques.

Where:    Whole Foods Market, 4315 Arden Way, Sacramento

When:    Sunday, February 25, 11 a.m.

 “By continuing to sell Thai coconut milk, Whole Foods is signing off on the abuse of an endangered species, willfully propping up an industry that kidnaps monkeys, chains them, and treats them as nothing more than coconut-picking machines,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Whole Foods to prove it’s not morally bankrupt by selling coconut milk only from countries where monkey labor isn’t used, such as India and the Philippines.”

Many monkeys exploited in Thailand’s coconut industry are illegally snatched from their natural habitat as babies, fitted with metal collars, whipped, and forced to climb trees to pick heavy coconuts. Their canine teeth are often pulled out in order to leave them defenseless. Because the industry and the Thai government lie about their systemic reliance on forced monkey labor, it’s impossible to guarantee that any coconut milk from Thailand is free of it. Multiple companies that produce coconut milk sold at Whole Foods were named by industry workers in a PETA Asia investigation as having used coconuts obtained via monkey labor. HelloFresh, Purple Carrot, and Performance Food Group have stopped sourcing coconut milk from Thailand following PETA’s exposé, as have international companies such as Aldi, ASDA, and Lidl.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness.

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

The post ‘Blood on Your Cans!’: PETA to Rattle Whole Foods Over Ties to Thai Monkey Abuse appeared first on PETA.