Kategorie: Animals

Today, the 19^th Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge ruled that Louisiana State University (LSU) must turn over to PETA all the records that the group had requested related to LSU experimenter Christine Lattin’s taxpayer-funded experiments on sparrows.

PETA filed its lawsuit in December 2020 after the school refused to release public documents, including veterinary care records and videos recorded by Lattin, whose experiments involve trapping sparrows, pumping them with sex hormones, exposing them to terrifying calls from predators, and then killing them. After PETA filed the lawsuit, LSU provided the group with just some of the documents—now, it must provide them all.

“LSU was happy to spend tax dollars on killing birds, but it fought tooth and nail against releasing videos of their torment,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “With these records in hand, PETA looks forward to showing the public exactly how small birds live and die for Christine Lattin’s pointless experiments.”

In recent years, Lattin has tested birds’ fear of unfamiliar objects (“neophobia”) by withholding food from them for 15 hours and then putting random items—such as blinking lights, pink puffs, and a blue cocktail umbrella—near their food dishes to see how readily the birds would approach. Lattin then killed them and examined their brains.

PETA along with local counsel—Alysson Mills and Kristen Amond of Mills & Amond LLP—filed the lawsuit against the LSU Board of Supervisors and Thomas Galligan, individually and in his capacity as then-president of LSU, as the school’s designated records custodian under Louisiana law.

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 or click here.

The post Complete Legal Victory! Judge Rules LSU Must Hand Over Bird Experiment Records to PETA appeared first on PETA.

Please see the following statement from Dr. Alka Chandna, Ph.D., vice president of laboratory investigations cases at PETA, regarding the first heart transplant from a genetically altered pig.

Animal-to-human transplants are unethical, dangerous, and a tremendous waste of resources that could be used to fund research that might actually help humans. The risk of transmitting unknown viruses along with the animal organ are real and, in the time of a pandemic, should be enough to end these studies forever. Animals aren’t toolsheds to be raided but complex, intelligent beings. It would be better for them and healthier for humans to leave them alone and seek cures using modern science.

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 First Heart Transplant From Genetically Altered Pig: PETA Statement appeared first on PETA.

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding federal documents that reveal serious animal welfare violations—including an incident in which a monkey’s tongue was bitten by another monkey—at the University of Maryland–Baltimore:

The University of Maryland–Baltimore’s (UMB) carelessness amounts to animal abuse and must not be allowed to continue. According to a just-posted federal inspection report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture obtained by PETA, a monkey at UMB escaped from his cage and most of his tongue was bitten off by a stressed monkey in an adjacent cage. This injury will mean that the monkey will experience considerable pain and distress for the rest of his life.

The university was also cited for failures of its oversight committee to review proposed experiments on baboons adequately. The committee approved experiments in which experimenters would cut babies out of pregnant baboons multiple times over three years, in violation of regulations.

In addition, UMB was just cited in September 2021 after a monkey in its laboratories died of thirst in what must have been an excruciatingly painful and terrifying death. Last year, the university received $223,277,586 from the National Institutes of Health—and about half of that money was directed toward experiments on animals. Enough is enough. UMB should shut down its animal laboratories and ban the use of animals entirely.

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 Animal Welfare Violations at the University of Maryland–Baltimore: PETA Statement appeared first on PETA.

This morning, at approximately 10:30 a.m. EST, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and officials from surrounding counties entered the property of John D. Jones, a breeder operating under the name JRT John’s Jack Russell Terriers, and removed 34 adult dogs and seven puppies, many of whom were left outside in pens as temperatures dropped to minus 5 degrees this week. Video footage of authorities leaving the property with the dogs is available here.  

The action is a result of PETA’s four-day sit-in at the office of Missaukee County Sheriff Wil Yancer and a recent PETA undercover investigation into JRT revealing extreme abuse, neglect, and apparent violations of state law.

PETA presented video footage and documentation from the investigation to the sheriff’s office on December 3 and repeatedly offered to assist in removing or rendering aid to the dogs. This week, nearly 20 women traveled to Michigan from as far as Arizona and Washington, D.C., to appeal to the Michigan sheriff—they protested outside the sheriff’s office and held a sit-in in the foyer of the office. Photos and video footage of the sit-in, which began with a protest outside the sheriff’s office on Tuesday, are available here and here.

This morning, their wish came true. Around 10 a.m. EST, seven animal transport trucks pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office and—along with representatives from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and a team from the sheriff’s office—made their way to JRT John’s, 8376 N. Pioneer Rd., Lake City, Michigan, to rescue the dogs.

All 41 dogs are now in a safe, warm place with ample food, bedding, water, toys, and the care that they deserve.

In the state of Michigan, it’s illegal to deny animals adequate care and to mutilate them, both of which PETA’s investigation discovered were being done at JRT John’s.

“PETA is rejoicing that Sheriff Yancer did his job and thanks the animal control agencies for seeing the rescue operation through,” says PETA Vice President Dan Paden. “PETA hopes anyone moved by the dogs’ plight will avoid buying from a breeder and adopt from a shelter instead.”

PETA is now calling for cruelty charges to be filed against Jones and urging the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development to investigate him and bar him for life from being licensed to breed dogs.

For more information, visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The post Saved! Breaking News: Freezing Dogs Removed From Michigan Breeder After PETA Sit-In appeared first on PETA.

Thirty-four-year-old Salt Lake City resident Amy Meyer is on her way back home after celebrating a victory for dogs in Michigan, where she helped lead a four-day sit-in of the Missaukee County Sheriff’s Office that prompted officials today from three other counties and the sheriff’s department to rescue all of the dogs whose suffering was exposed in a PETA undercover investigation into an area puppy-breeding operation.

Photos and video footage of the sit-in, which began with a protest outside the sheriff’s office on Tuesday, are available here and here.

Meyer was one of nearly 20 PETA supporters who traveled to Michigan from across the country after Missaukee County Sheriff Wil Yancer refused to act on PETA’s video footage and photos of Jack Russell terrier breeder John D. Jones severing puppies’ tails with forceps and without anesthetics or pain relief as the animals screamed in pain. Dozens of dogs were confined to small cages outside, where they shivered in the rain and snow. The night before the dogs’ rescue, the temperature dropped to minus 5 degrees.

“Thanks to Amy Meyer’s courage and selflessness, today, we can celebrate that these dogs have finally been rescued from the freezing cold,” says PETA Vice President Dan Paden. “PETA hopes anyone moved by their plight will never buy from a breeder and always adopt from a shelter instead.”

Animal control agencies in Clare, Roscommon, and Wexford counties and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources removed the dogs from Jones’ property. PETA is now calling for cruelty charges to be filed against Jones and urging the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development to investigate him and bar him for life from being licensed to breed dogs.

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 on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The post Dozens of Dogs Rescued After Salt Lake City Woman’s Sit-In at Michigan Sherriff’s Office (VIDEO) appeared first on PETA.