Kategorie: Animals

Over a decade of determined campaigning by PETA and grassroots activists has paid off: Saks Fifth Avenue is saying so long to its notorious “fur salons”! The department store will stop selling rabbit jackets, mink coats, fox puffer coats, and fur of any kind by the end of fiscal year 2022.

Saks’ decision follows a sustained siege by grassroots activists and the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade that included protests and disruptions inside and outside Saks locations, e-mails from more than 100,000 PETA supporters, countless calls to Saks executives, pressure on the store’s social media accounts, and online and in-person protests during PETA’s recent Canada Goose Week of Action. (Saks was a retailer for fur-trimmed and down-stuffed Canada Goose coats.)

New York City activist Rachel Levy Ejsmont leads the fight against Saks at their flagship location in Manhattan.As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk eloquently put it, “May Saks’ ‘fur salons’ rest in pieces, for they won’t be missed by today’s shoppers, who no longer find it acceptable to drape themselves in an abused animal’s stolen skin.”

Animals who are trapped in their natural homes for fur—like the coyotes who are killed for the fur used to trim Canada Goose jackets—may suffer for days with broken legs and bleeding wounds. Some have even been known to try and chew off their own legs in attempts to return to their young. Those who don’t escape are beaten or shot by trappers. On fur farms, animals are beaten, bludgeoned, electrocuted, and even skinned alive.

Saks joins a long list of retailers making the socially conscious choice to ban fur, including Nordstrom, Macy’s, TJX, Prada, Gucci, Coach, Calvin Klein, Topshop, Burberry, Michael Kors, Versace, Furla, BCBG, Diane von Furstenberg, INTERMIX, Gap Inc., H&M, Zara, Banana Republic, Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, Vivienne Westwood, and The Kooples.

This victory brings us one step closer to making the fashion industry entirely fur-free. Now, let’s persuade the few remaining holdouts to do the right thing!

Urge the Remaining Companies to Ban Fur

The post A Decade of PETA Pressure Pays Off: Saks Fifth Avenue Sacks Fur! appeared first on PETA.

Today, PETA—as a “next friend” to 30 barn owls being used in deadly brain experiments at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)— filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Administrator Kevin Shea alleging that the taxpayer-funded tests, conducted in a laboratory at JHU, are unconstitutional and seeking protection from harm for the birds under the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). PETA is joined as next friend to the barn owls by Evanna Lynch (the award-winning animal welfare activist and actor who starred in the Harry Potter franchise), Dr. Martin Wasserman (a former secretary of health for Maryland), and Lana Weidgenant (an animal rights and climate justice activist and a JHU senior).

PETA’s lawsuit takes aim at the 2002 Helms Amendment to the AWA, which was drafted by notorious civil rights and animal rights opponent Sen. Jesse Helms. It excludes birds, rats, and mice used in experiments from the same minimal protections afforded to other species under the AWA. Vilsack and Shea are named as defendants because they’re responsible for ensuring the enforcement of the AWA.

Since the barn owls used at JHU will ultimately be killed after their skulls have been cut open, the Helms Amendment acts as their death sentence. As PETA’s lawsuit points out, the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits congressionally imposed death sentences via the Bill of Attainder Clause. That the goal of the Helms Amendment is an unconstitutional death sentence was reinforced by Helms himself in a sarcastic floor speech in which he urged his fellow senators to “deliver a richly deserved rebuke” to the “so-called ‘animal rights’ crowd” and compared the animals he singled out to “food for reptiles” who merit “extermination.” PETA and the plaintiffs are asking for the Helms Amendment to be abolished and for the federal government to require rigorous inspections and humane treatment of the owls in JHU’s laboratory—and of the tens of millions of other birds, mice, and additional unfairly exempted animals used in laboratories across the country.

Because of the Helms Amendment, student experimenters—whose trial and error during invasive procedures on the owls are chalked up to being part of the “learning process”—will operate on the birds without having to adhere to any of the protections guaranteed by the AWA. The experimenters will also insert electrodes into the birds’ heads and restrain them so that they can’t move. The owls will then be bombarded with jarring sounds and images. When their brains have been damaged beyond use, they’ll be killed.

“Owls are being cruelly confined, tortured, and killed in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins with no federal oversight or protection because of an unconstitutional loophole to the federal Animal Welfare Act,” says PETA Litigation Manager Asher Smith. “PETA’s lawsuit seeks to prevent these living, breathing individuals from being denied the same basic rights afforded to others, including even inanimate corporations.”

The coalition of next friends—PETA, Lynch, Wasserman, and Weidgenant—have, among them, engaged in years of advocacy for these owls via methods including public demonstrations, regulatory complaints to state and federal agencies, publications, social media posts, and lobbying of public officials, JHU leadership, and the general public. The plaintiffs and next friends are represented by Bernard DiMuro and Jonathan Mook of DiMuroGinsberg PC as well as by litigators employed by the PETA Foundation.

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.

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Led by a costumed “bear” mascot and carrying signs that read, “Baby Animals Belong With Their Mothers,” PETA supporters will join forces with Utah Animal Rights Coalition on Thursday to protest a Yellowstone Bear World photo op event—hosted by the American West Heritage Center—that removes tiny bear cubs from their mothers and thrusts the frightened young animals into the hands of strangers.

When:    Thursday, April 8, 4 p.m.

Where:    Outside the American West Heritage Center, 4025 S. Hwy. 89-91, Wellsville

“Bear cubs stay with their mothers for up to two years, playing, exploring, and socializing, if allowed to be bears,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Debbie Metzler. “The American West Heritage Center and Yellowstone Bear World are in the Dark Ages, only interested in using these wonderful animals as selfie props.”

PETA notes that Yellowstone Bear World breeds baby bears and takes them from their mothers—when they are just weeks old and before they have even opened their eyes and seen their mothers—every year for use in public events. When the cubs have become too large for public contact, Yellowstone Bear World has had them shipped to other roadside zoos or exotic-animal wholesale dealers, including the notorious “Joe Exotic” of Tiger King. Within the last decade, Yellowstone Bear World has sent at least 60 cubs and 19 adult bears to Gregg Woody, an animal broker in Illinois known to send bears to slaughter.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.

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

The post PETA, UARC Blast Local ‘Baby Animal’ Event, Plan Protest appeared first on PETA.

After obtaining U.S. Department of Agriculture documents revealing that chickens, likely numbering in the thousands, were held on trucks without food or water for 37 hours at an Oklahoma slaughterhouse owned by Fort Smith–based OK Foods—and that a worker there threw chickens into a cage—PETA sent a letter this morning to Oklahoma District 16 District Attorney Jeff Smith requesting a criminal probe and charges under the state’s cruelty-to-animals law.

“If these workers had packed dogs onto trucks and denied them food and water for a day and a half, they’d face cruelty charges,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “Chickens experience hunger, thirst, and misery just as all animals do, and they’re protected by the same state law—so PETA is calling for a criminal investigation on their behalf.”

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 Smith follows.

April 7, 2021

The Honorable Jeff Smith

District Attorney

District 16

Dear Mr. Smith:

We’re writing to request that your office (and the local law-enforcement agency, as you deem appropriate) investigate and file applicable criminal charges against OK Foods, Inc., and the workers responsible for leaving numerous chickens without food and water for approximately 37 hours—and for throwing other birds into a cage—at its slaughterhouse located at 200 Industrial Rd. in Heavener. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) documented the incidents in the attached reports, which PETA just obtained via a public records request.

According to the first report, chickens from a Waldron, Arkansas, farm arrived at the slaughterhouse on January 15, 2020, when a water-related problem at the facility delayed slaughter operations. Rather than returning them to a farm, OK Foods staff allegedly left the animals—likely numbering thousands—on at least two trucks on its property before starting to slaughter them on January 17. In the intervening 37 hours, the chickens were deprived of food and water. It is unknown whether any birds died as a result and, if so, how many.

On March 30, 2020, a federal agent reported seeing an OK Foods worker throw approximately four live chickens, with a side-arm motion, into a cage. The federal agent wrote that an OK Foods supervisor was standing 6 to 8 feet away but took no action to stop the worker from throwing the animals.

This conduct may violate 21 Okl. St. Ann. § 21-1685. Although Oklahoma’s anti-cruelty statute doesn’t exempt industry-accepted agricultural practices from prosecution, the documented conduct violates the chicken industry’s standards and thus would not be protected from prosecution if such an exemption did exist. Please note that FSIS’ action doesn’t preempt criminal liability under state law for slaughterhouses or their workers who perpetrate acts of cruelty to animals.

Please let us know how we can assist you. Thank you for your consideration and for the difficult work that you do.

Sincerely,

Daniel Paden

Vice President of Evidence Analysis

The post Feds Saw Birds Thrown, Denied Food and Water; PETA Seeks Criminal Probe appeared first on PETA.

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding the California State Senate’s vote against the reappointment of Wendy Mitchell to the California Horse Racing Board:

I’ve never had a conversation with Wendy Mitchell, nor has PETA ever contacted her directly, but it has become clear to us in the last several months that the California Horse Racing Board has failed to bring about the promised changes to protect horses. The board has reneged on the whipping ban, failed to suspend racing at Los Alamitos as promised—despite multiple deaths—and taken no action to boot crooked trainers from racing. The board and, apparently, the California legislature remain beholden to the old guard in racing that considers abuse and death to be normal business practices, rather than listening to the public that has demanded change. PETA won’t sit by quietly while the body count mounts. Legislators can expect to hear from our 700,000 supporters in the state.

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

The post PETA Statement: Senate Rejection of California Horse Racing Board Appointee appeared first on PETA.