Kategorie: Animals

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club is still planning to use a live groundhog to “predict” the weather on February 2 at a virtual Groundhog Day event, so PETA is taking action. We’ve placed two billboards in the Punxsutawney area urging everyone to chuck the old tradition, as the woodchucks would if they could. Only a bona fide human meteorologist should be asked to predict the length of winter—and if it makes the event more exciting to have them dragged out of a hole, PETA will gladly start digging!

Punxsutawney Phil is a vulnerable individual, not a toy, and should be respected enough to be left in peace. 

Groundhogs are vulnerable prey animals who naturally avoid humans and enjoy digging, foraging, and hibernating in burrows that can span many acres, but the Punxsutawney groundhogs are displayed year-round in the basement of the local library. On February 2, they’re exposed to the lights of flashing cameras, human handling, confusion, and stress. At past Groundhog Day events across the country, terrified animals have been dropped or have bitten humans.

PETA is calling on The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club to switch it up with either a real meteorologist or an animatronic groundhog. If it can’t do either of those, it must end this tired old sideshow altogether.

You can do your part by never attending any event that uses live animals as cheap, fleeting entertainment.

PETA’s billboards appear in the following locations:

• 1099-757 S. Main St. Ext., near the PA 436 bypass
• 1085-1001 Colonel Drake Hwy., near the Punxsutawney Country Club

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After reality star Larsa Pippen was photographed swimming with juvenile and adult tigers at Myrtle Beach Safari—the roadside zoo operated by “Doc” Antle of Tiger King infamy—PETA fired off an urgent letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking it to hold Antle accountable for allowing members of the public to have direct contact with dangerous wild animals in apparent violation of federal law.

The stunt is nothing new for Antle: PETA previously alerted the USDA that rapper Lil Pump dangerously posed with juvenile tigers and that rapper Jin Gates held a full-grown jaguar on his lap at Antle’s facility. The agency generally considers tigers older than 12 to 16 weeks to be too big and too strong to interact with the public, as such encounters “cannot reasonably be conducted without a significant risk of harm to the animal or the public,” but Antle continues to allow these dangerous encounters to take place.

“Tigers used for photo ops are typically separated from their mothers as babies, robbed of everything that is natural and important to them, and constantly tormented by strangers,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Debbie Metzler. “PETA is calling on the USDA to stop standing by and letting ‘Doc’ Antle endanger vulnerable tigers as well as fame-hungry pseudo-celebrities and reminding everyone of the lesson that should have been learned from Tiger King: Stay away from roadside zoos.”

PETA further notes that Pippen’s interactions with the tigers put them at risk of contracting COVID-19. Captive tigers have tested positive for it, and the USDA has issued guidance advising that all hands-on encounters with big cats be suspended—but Antle’s big-cat photo ops have continued.

In October, Antle was indicted on one felony count of wildlife trafficking, one felony count of conspiracy to traffic in wildlife, and 13 additional misdemeanor offenses in Virginia.

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

The post PETA Tips Off Feds to Larsa Pippen’s Tiger Photos appeared first on PETA.