Kategorie: Animals

As reported in the New York Post this week, a new PETA undercover investigation reveals that workers kicked, stomped on, and beat turkeys sold by companies with “humanely raised” labels—so now, PETA is taking aim at another turkey-related sham. The group sent a letter this morning to President Joe Biden asking him to call off the annual presidential turkey “pardon,” noting that it’s a showcase for factory farmers and that the birds “spared” by former President Donald Trump have ended up sorely neglected and confined to barren stalls at Virginia Tech and Iowa State University.

“When birds are treated like footballs, it’s cruel for the White House to promote factory farming,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is asking President Biden to reject this stunt, in which turkeys are used as props to advertise a cruel industry that makes a mockery of American values.”

PETA’s investigator worked on farms supplying Plainville Farms, a Pennsylvania-based supplier to top grocers, including Publix, Harris Teeter, and Whole Foods. PETA’s investigator found that  workers routinely kicked and stomped on scores of turkeys, including those who were sick, injured, and unable to walk. Workers tried and failed to break turkeys’ necks and left them to convulse and die in agony on the floor. Instead of trying to stop this abuse, one supervisor kicked turkeys, too, and berated PETA’s investigator for not doing the same.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to Biden follows.

August 13, 2021

Dear Mr. President:

Greetings from the largest animal rights organization in the world, with more than 6.5 million members and supporters. Please see photographs of the plight of four turkeys former President Donald J. Trump “pardoned” in White House ceremonies designed to kowtow to the meat industry, undignified events that make a laughing stock of the president’s role and result in immense suffering for birds. Before plans get underway for this year’s fiasco, we have a request: Do not do it, please. The turkey industry is badly tarnished. Just this week, PETA revealed that workers kicked, stomped on, and beat turkeys sold by companies with deliberately deceptive “humanely raised” labels.

Factory farming is a filthy business that contributes to water and land pollution, and the antibiotics given to birds on these farms create antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. The industry is implicated in the spread of zoonotic diseases, including avian influenza and cryptosporidiosis, as well as being deeply offensive to the millions of Americans who will celebrate ThanksVegan this year for humane, environmental, religious, or health reasons. Already, 9.7 million Americans are vegan, and sales of vegan meat have surged since the pandemic began, as have vegan search terms. Google Trends data show that vegan living is twice as popular as it was only five years ago and is growing exponentially.

Past years’ “pardoned” turkeys shame the presidency. Confined to barren stalls at Virginia Tech, they’re deprived of any sort of meaningful or fulfilling life. They are depressed and dirty from their living conditions, and they’ve pulled out many of their feathers because of stress.

Mr. President, please promote kindness and healthy living by eliminating the outdated and absurd ritual that is the presidential turkey “pardon.” Turkeys have committed no crimes that require them to be “pardoned.” They are gentle birds, who are slaughtered when they’re still just babies, between 12 and 26 weeks old. They are hung upside down by their feet from metal shackles and dragged through an electrified bath, often remaining conscious while their throats are slit. Then they’re dumped into the scalding-hot water of defeathering tanks, sometimes alive.

This Thanksgiving, we hope you’ll enjoy a ThanksVegan feast and encourage other Americans to do the same. You’ll be known as the president who started a new tradition—one that saves lives and protects the planet.

Thank you, and our best wishes to you and your family.

Very truly yours,

Ingrid Newkirk

President

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Don’t let your school be fooled into spending American Rescue Plan funds on these
“humane education” scams.

 

Learn more!

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A whistleblower has reported to PETA that Olymel’s failure to resolve its local slaughterhouse strike has led farmers to dispose of pigs in the pork company’s backed-up supply chain by cutting off the sheds’ ventilation systems, causing thousands of pigs to die slowly from heatstroke and suffocation. PETA has fired off a letter today to Réjean Nadeau, Olymel’s president and CEO, and to David Duval, president of the Quebec pig-breeders association, calling on them to act immediately to prohibit the killing of pigs by any form of “ventilation shutdown.”

“PETA has been told that hundreds of thousands of other pigs are at risk of being roasted alive in stifling sheds,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch. “After years of profiting from pigs’ misery, the least Olymel and its suppliers could do is give these animals the least painful and least cruel death possible—and if they’re not doing that, they need to be charged with cruelty to animals.”

In the meat industry, workers chop off piglets’ tails, cut their teeth with pliers, and castrate the males—all without any pain relief. At the slaughterhouse, workers hang pigs upside down, sometimes while they’re still conscious, and bleed them to death. As a vegan organization, PETA is opposed to slaughtering animals for food—but points out that piling one form of cruelty on top of another by subjecting pigs to slow, terrifying deaths is unacceptable.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The post Are Olymel Suppliers Roasting Pigs Alive? PETA Wants to Know appeared first on PETA.

When PETA’s fieldworkers first spotted Misha, the beautiful brindle was sprinting at the speed of light and dodging traffic on a rural road in North Carolina. Whether she had just been ghosted or was getting out of a toxic relationship, staffers weren’t sure, and Misha didn’t have tags, a collar, or a microchip to provide any clues. So they offered her a place to crash at PETA’s shelter while they tried to help her get in touch with family. They reported her as “found” to the local animal shelter, posted her photo on social media, and searched for “lost” reports—all to no avail. As time passed with no responses, it became clear that Misha was a single girl looking for love. Her new friends promised to help her find it.

Misha is a great roommate, always up for walks, thorough sniffs, and outdoor recreation, and is content just to hang out and relax.

She’s well-mannered and housebroken. She can be a little anxious, but we hope she’ll settle down when she finds the right person she can trust. The consummate lady, Misha hasn’t revealed her exact age yet, but vets suspect that she’s around 1 or 2 years old.

Misha is looking for a serious relationship with someone who’s patient enough to understand that her previous experiences weren’t ideal and that she has to work through a few things. She would love to meet a guardian who will help her build confidence. She would like for her matches to be dog-experienced, respectful, and responsible so that she can feel and be safe. While she may do well with older, gentle children and easygoing dogs, she tends to swipe left on people with cats or small children.

Do you “super like” Misha? Want to find out whether the feeling is mutual? DM her on Tinder Contact her at Adopt@peta.org.

Learn more about Misha and other adoptable animals

The post Brindle Beauty Ready to Find ‘the One’—Must Love Giving Chin Scratches appeared first on PETA.

Firefighters and police recently rescued a dog left inside a hot car in Miramar, and similar reports nationwide are rolling in at an out-of-control rate. For some dogs, including a K-9 who recently died after being left behind in a patrol car, help comes too late. This year, 28 dogs have been reported dead from heat-related causes. (Figures are far likely higher, as most heat-related companion animal deaths go unreported.)

This week’s high temperatures put dogs at a high risk of enduring heat prostration and dying, so PETA is issuing an urgent warning to anyone with a dog: Never leave them inside vehicles, and please be sure to do the following.

• Touch the pavement before walks to ensure that it won’t burn dogs’ foot pads.
• Be alert to a long, curled-up tongue and heavy panting, as dogs cannot sweat as humans can and heat builds up inside their bodies.
• Walk only in the shade or on earth or grass, and never leave animals alone (On Memorial Day weekend, PETA fieldworkers discovered the body of a dog who had died after being left chained up in the hot sun.)

PETA thanks firefighters, police, and other rescuers in Miramar for taking action and urges everyone to support the Hot Cars Act of 2021, which would require automakers to install technology in vehicles to detect the presence of an animal or a child and alert drivers when someone is in the backseat.

Anyone who leaves animals in hot cars or outside to suffer in severe weather may be prosecuted for cruelty.

The post Nationwide Crisis as Dogs Are Left in Hot Cars in Florida—PETA Provides Urgent Tips Here appeared first on PETA.