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PETA Calls Out Starbucks’ Earth Day Money Grab ‘Green Washing’
Starbucks has ramped up its vegan messaging and promotions ahead of Earth Day (April 22), but the company faces accusations of “green washing” from PETA, which argues that the whopping surcharge added to nondairy milks discourages customers from choosing sustainable options year-round. Please see the following statement from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk:
Starbucks’ empty pledge to help save the planet is soured by its greedy decision to milk its eco-minded customers by charging them extra for nondairy drinks on Earth Day and every other day. The dairy industry is contributing to the climate crisis while taking calves away from their loving mothers, and Starbucks is ignoring appeals to drop its vegan milk surcharge.
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.
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A ‘Public Nuisance’ for Humans, Hell for Animals: PETA Sues Pymatuning Deer Park
This morning, PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania against Pymatuning Deer Park in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. The suit alleges that this notorious roadside zoo’s mistreatment of big cats, lemurs, and other animals violates the Endangered Species Act (ESA). PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund believe that Pymatuning’s mistreatment of animals—including Bosco the bear, who shows signs of arthritis and has been kept in an antiquated concrete pit for decades—constitutes a public nuisance under Pennsylvania law. The groups are asking the court to order that the animals held at Pymatuning be transferred to reputable facilities.
What Animals Allegedly Endured at Pymatuning Deer Park
PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s lawsuit examines U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection reports that document, among other incidents, that Pymatuning failed to supply appropriate veterinary care for a tiger who was shot to death without receiving a physical exam. An injured young lion was trapped in an adjacent dark, squalid holding area when the three gunshots were fired. He was held there for two months after he was attacked the first of multiple times by another lion and now suffers from impaired coordination and muscle wasting.
This disgusting facility has shot animals, let them die in a fire, and caused scores of others to suffer—and this must stop. The plaintiffs look forward to bringing Pymatuning Deer Park before a judge and getting the animals to suitable facilities where their lives can finally begin.”
—Brittany Peet, PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel for Captive Animal Law Enforcement
The lawsuit alleges that Pymatuning also holds emotionally complex ring-tailed lemurs in a small, barren enclosure, denying them the opportunity to forage, climb, and hide. The roadside zoo confines a highly intelligent macaw to a cramped cage with almost nothing to touch or do.
Pymatuning puts vulnerable baby animals, including bear cubs and kangaroo joeys who have been prematurely separated from their mothers, on display and allows the public to have unsupervised contact with various animals, including parakeets, in its “budgie barn.”
The animals exploited by Pymatuning, including endangered species, are kept in conditions that are unacceptable and illegal. State and federal animal protection laws exist so that animals won’t be forced to live without adequate veterinary care in barren, depressing enclosures. We will seek to enforce these laws to allow them to engage in their natural behavior.”
—Stephen Wells, Animal Legal Defense Fund Executive Director
In the time since PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund notified Pymatuning of their intent to sue last December, a bearcat and an ESA-protected black-and-white ruffed lemur named Lola were killed in a fire that was reportedly caused by an electric heater. Prior to her death, Lola had been held in long-term solitary confinement, even though she was a member of a highly social species. She couldn’t see or hear another primate.
What You Can Do
Join tens of thousands of compassionate people today—including singer-songwriter Joan Jett, actor Michael Keaton, and late comedian Cloris Leachman—and urge Pymatuning to close its bear pit and surrender Bosco, the remaining bear it holds captive, to an accredited sanctuary, where he can live out his days free from concrete in a vast enclosure measured in acres rather than feet and get the care that he desperately needs.
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Feds See Pilgrim’s Pride Worker Throw, Kill Bird; PETA Seeks Criminal Probe
Armed with a damning U.S. Department of Agriculture report documenting that a federal inspector saw a worker at a Pilgrim’s Pride slaughterhouse in Ellijay “forcefully” throw a live chicken into a barrier, causing the bird to fall and “gasp for air” before dying, PETA sent a letter this morning to Appalachian Judicial Circuit District Attorney B. Alison Sosebee, asking her to review the matter and, as appropriate, file criminal cruelty-to-animals charges against the worker.
“If someone threw a puppy into a barrier so forcefully that she gasped and died, the culprit would face cruelty charges,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is calling for a criminal investigation and urging anyone disturbed by this chicken’s agonizing death to help prevent animals from being sent to slaughterhouses in the first place by going vegan.”
The federal report—which PETA just obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request—notes 11 more violations at other Pilgrim’s Pride slaughterhouses across the country, including one in Canton, where an agent found a live chicken in a barrel of dead birds.
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.
PETA’s letter to Sosebee follows.
April 14, 2021
The Honorable B. Alison Sosebee
District Attorney
Appalachian Judicial Circuit
Dear Ms. Sosebee:
I’m writing to request that your office (and the local law-enforcement agency, as you deem appropriate) investigate and file applicable criminal charges against the Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation worker responsible for fatally hurling a chicken against a barrier on April 9, 2020, at the company’s slaughterhouse located at 125 Industrial Blvd. in Ellijay. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) documented the incident in the attached report, which PETA just obtained via a public records request.
According to the report, a federal veterinarian saw the worker “forcefully” throw the “small live bird” into a barrier behind him, which caused the barrier to vibrate. The federal agent heard a “thud” when the bird struck the surface, then saw the bird fall to a grate, flap his or her wings, and begin “to gasp for air” before dying. The FSIS official notes that he or she had “discussed the issue of … employees forcefully throwing” chickens many times before with Pilgrim’s Pride management.
This conduct may violate Georgia Code § 16-12-4 (d) (1). The action from FSIS shows that this egregious cruelty doesn’t constitute agricultural or food-processing practices that are permitted under federal or state law, which are otherwise exempt from prosecution. Importantly, FSIS action doesn’t preempt criminal liability under state law for slaughterhouse workers who perpetrate acts of cruelty to animals.
Please let me know if I can assist you. Thank you for your consideration and for the difficult work that you do.
Sincerely,
Daniel Paden
Vice President of Evidence Analysis
Cruelty Investigations Department
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PETA Reminds Costume Designers to Design Vegan at 2021 Costume Designers Guild Awards
PETA worked with a cow, a sheep, and an ostrich couple to deliver a quirky public service announcement at the 2021 Costume Designers Guild Awards: “Design vegan! Dress vegan!”
When the cow asks, “Hey, who are you wearing?” he’s hoping the answer isn’t his friend. We want all costume designers to know that they have the power to change the world, simply by creating the same sort of stunning costumes they always have—but without using animals. Costume designers, actors, and the public alike are waking up to the abuse, mutilation, and slaughter behind leather, wool, down, and other animal-derived materials and are choosing ethical and more sustainable materials that save animals and reduce our impact on the environment.
Costume designers can make an important statement with the characters they help bring to life on screen: Have compassion.
The Costume Designers Guild is made up of more than 1,200 costume designers and illustrators working in motion pictures, television, commercials, music videos, and new media programs throughout the world. When you think of all the various projects and countless characters each of these artists has a part in creating, you can imagine how many animals could be spared if they were simply to use vegan materials—and how much a statement like this could influence and inspire the public as they follow what celebrities (and their favorite film and TV characters) wear and say.
Hollywood has already made progress.
Luckily, opting for vegan materials in costume design is easier than ever! Many actors and costume designers are aware that vegan materials are kinder to animals and to the environment.
One of this year’s Costume Designers Guild Awards nominees, Justine Seymour, put compassion into action with impressive faux-fur hats for Netflix’s Unorthodox. The design team didn’t sacrifice authenticity or animals’ lives for the hats, and viewers couldn’t notice the difference. The fur-free hats were already a winner in PETA’s eyes, and we awarded them accordingly!
PETA’s applauding @Netflix’s newest drama, “Unorthodox,” for saving animals by using entirely faux fur for the Hasidic shtreimel hats! Countless minks, foxes, or other animals have been spared from violent deaths.
Animals should never die for fashion or for TV. pic.twitter.com/trMImCmwGS
— PETA (@peta) April 2, 2020
We’re also swooning over Regé-Jean Page for wearing faux fur on Saturday Night Live:
And we’ve awarded other animal-friendly costumes, like the ones in Solo: A Star Wars Story and Rocketman as well as Ryan Gosling’s faux-shearling coat in Blade Runner 2049.
Calling all costume designers: PETA is here to help!
What characters wear onscreen matters. Designing vegan can help end animal exploitation in fashion and costume design. To find animal-friendly materials for your next project, e-mail PETA’s Animals in Film and Television division at AFTV@peta.org.
Not a costume designer? You can still make a huge difference!
Anyone watching the award show or reading this can take action, too. Never buy animal-derived leather, wool, fur, down, alpaca, cashmere, mohair, or silk—opt for the vegan versions instead. So many animal-friendly options for shoes, jeans, coats, and bags are available at most of the stores you already shop at, and if you see the “PETA-Approved Vegan” logo on an item you’re considering, you’ll know you’re good to go.
Whether you design costumes, wear costumes, or shop for clothing online, you can spare countless animals by remembering four simple words: “Design vegan. Dress vegan.”
Take Action for Animals Exploited in the Global Leather Trade
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