Kategorie: Animals

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna regarding two separate citations posted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture against MRIGlobal, a contract testing laboratory in Kansas City, Missouri, after staffers failed for hours to monitor an anesthetized “minipig” whose body temperature dropped. In the second citation, staffers kept guinea pigs in “beddingless” enclosures known to cause leg injuries. Two of them had broken legs, a third sustained a knee injury, and a fourth developed lameness. All required euthanasia.

The incompetence at MRIGlobal, a scalpel-for-hire laboratory that experiments on animals for the highest bidder, has resulted in the deaths of four animals because staffers there either cannot or will not rise even to the mediocrity required of the lowest federal standards of animal care.

It’s unacceptable that staffers can’t bother to monitor an animal whose body temperature plummets dangerously while under anesthesia—and the company doesn’t deserve another penny of federal funding. PETA has filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health, urging it to bar the company from future federal contracts.

MRIGlobal should get out of the business of tormenting animals and redirect its resources toward modern, non-animal research methods that will actually help humans, and we urge officials there to adopt PETA’s Research Modernization Deal.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—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 Feds Cite MRIGlobal After Animal Welfare Violations and Deaths; PETA Calls For Investigation appeared first on PETA.

To encourage empathy for animals suffering in university laboratories, peta2—part of PETA’s youth division—is visiting the University of Central Florida (UCF) today and tomorrow with Abduction, an award-winning virtual reality experience landing on college campuses across the country. In this eerie experience, visitors will enter a mysterious truck containing a mobile virtual reality studio. The students will seemingly find themselves stranded in the desert with a couple of fellow humans, abducted by aliens, taken aboard a spaceship, and subjected to a shocking experience, similar to what animals endure in laboratories. They’ll watch as their friends are subjected to painful tests—knowing that they’ll be next.

When:    Wednesday, February 21, and Thursday, February 22, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

Where:    Memory Mall (near the Student Union), University of Central Florida

Watch the trailer here. Broadcast-quality footage of the Abduction virtual reality experience is available upon request.

At UCF, experimenters have purposely bred rats to have neurodegenerative disease, leaving them to suffer with limb paralysis and atrophy of their skeletal muscles for more than nine months before killing them and cutting up their spinal cords. Experimenters have also killed mice after infecting them with Lyme disease and irradiated mice to death before taking bone marrow from them. Other mice have been infected with a virus that caused them to experience weight loss, a hunched posture, ruffled fur, and a lack of movement before experimenters killed them by breaking their necks.

“Many students don’t know that on their own college campuses, frightened and confused animals are being psychologically tormented, mutilated, and killed in laboratories, with no way to escape or even understand what’s happening to them,” says peta2 Senior Director Rachelle Owen. “peta2 is on a mission to open young people’s eyes to this cruelty, help students 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 why peta2 is pushing universities to pivot to sophisticated, human-relevant research methods.

Abduction—which was filmed in VR180 with assistance from the immersive content creation studio Prosper XR—has stopped at nearly 50 other college campuses over the past year, including Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California–Los Angeles, and the University of Texas at Austin. Abduction has won Gold and Audience honors from the 2023 Shorty Impact Awards.

peta2—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—helps young people make meaningful changes for animals in their everyday lives. For more information, please visit peta2.org or follow the group on TikTok or Instagram.

The post Newest Virtual Reality Experience From peta2 Promises Close Encounters at UCF appeared first on PETA.

After U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports revealed that monkey exhibitors featured as organ-grinder acts at Ohio’s Sandusky County Fair have racked up numerous violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA)—including multiple incidents of children being bitten by monkeys—PETA fired off a letter this morning to Sandusky County Agricultural Society President Bob Lagrou urging him to commit to ending the use of monkeys and other wild animals in exhibits at the fair.

Monkeys are sensitive, highly intelligent individuals. It’s never acceptable to chain them up and parade them around in front of noisy crowds. PETA is urging fair organizers to relegate these cruel and ridiculous organ-grinder acts to the history books, where they belong.

Cruel Organ-Grinder Acts at Ohio’s Sandusky County Fair and Elsewhere

According to one USDA report, a former monkey exhibitor at the Sandusky County Fair, Norris Welch, was cited for 11 violations of the AWA, including keeping a white-faced capuchin monkey named Jo Jo alone in a tiny wire cage, where inspectors observed him “showing signs of psychological distress” by “consistently rocking.” After Welch lost his USDA license, another exhibitor, Desie Armstrong, unlawfully acquired Jo Jo.

According to another USDA report, Armstrong was also cited for 11 AWA violations, including removing the teeth of a capuchin monkey named British because she intended to use him as a photo prop. Monkeys bite when they’re frightened or stressed, which is inevitable when they’re forced into public interactions. Even without teeth, their jaws or sharp nails can cause serious injuries, including to fairgoers.

Monkeys are highly curious, social animals. According to primatologists and veterinarians, those used in cruel stunts like organ-grinder acts exhibit signs of fear and anxiety and show a blank facial expression of resignation, indicating a condition referred to as “learned helplessness.”

What You Can Do to Help Monkeys Exploited for Entertainment

Displaying monkeys and other wild animals at public venues, which is extremely stressful to them, is a form of speciesism—a human-supremacist worldview.

In the Banana Derby, a demeaning and cruel event that travels to fairs across the U.S., capuchin monkey “jockeys” are strapped to dogs who are forced to run around a racetrack at high speed. Please speak out against this abuse:

Help End the Banana Derby

The post PETA Urges Ohio’s Sandusky County Fair to Ditch Law-Violating Organ-Grinder Acts appeared first on PETA.

The post ‘Basic Rights for Animals!’ PETA Germany Marks 30th Anniversary With Demands to Parliament appeared first on PETA.

The post Louisiana Jockey Charged With Cruelty as Black Market Horse Races Exposed appeared first on PETA.