Kategorie: Animals

In the face of scorching-heat advisories, PETA warned Grants Pass Downs to suspend all races. Officials ignored our calls—now, two horses are dead.

PETA is demanding an investigation, since it appears that at least one of the deaths could have been heat-related.

One horse collapsed in Grants Pass the same day PETA called on officials to suspend racing due to the heat advisory.https://t.co/AHM4owwrHz

— MailTribuneCrimeBeat (@MTCrimeBeat) June 26, 2020

On June 23, after the fourth race of the opening day, 4-year-old Thoroughbred Hellagood collapsed on his way back to the stables. Temperatures that day soared to 101 degrees.

A day later, 3-year-old Hawks Main Interest broke his front leg after coming into contact with another horse. He was euthanized shortly afterwards.

PETA had sent an urgent letter the day before the first race calling on Grants Pass Downs stewards to suspend all races on June 23—and during every subsequent heat advisory this summer and beyond. The National Weather Service had issued a heat advisory for Grants Pass for that day.

Horses are pushed to the limit every time they race, and the additional stress of skyrocketing temperatures can cause brain damage, heatstroke, and death.

We had called on Grants Pass Downs officials to prevent tragedy by suspending racing whenever Oregon faces extreme heat. In the worst way, it looks like we were right. Officials put profits ahead of safety.

There is ample precedent nationwide for suspension of races because of heat. Last year, at PETA’s request, the $1 million Haskell Invitational was postponed for several hours when a 95-degree midday temperature was predicted.

Horses can learn symbols and use them to communicate desires, and they get visibly excited by their newfound skills. They feel joy, pain, fear, and all the other emotions that we do. In no world would these complex individuals choose to run themselves to death for human entertainment.

Right now, countless horses across the U.S. are suffering. They need your help.

An average of three horses die in racing every day, and extreme heat can easily add to this death toll. These majestic animals are forced to pull heavy carriages full of passengers through busy traffic in extreme weather conditions, and thousands are even shipped to foreign countries to be slaughtered for food every year. Click on the button below to complete multiple PETA action alerts to help them.

The post PETA Warned Grants Pass—Horse Dies After Racing in Deadly Heat appeared first on PETA.

Last week, Regan Russell was run over by a pig-transport truck while peacefully protesting the plight of pigs crowded together in a hot metal truck about to be slaughtered. The Toronto Pig Save activist and longtime PETA member opposed all forms of oppression and spent her last moments showing kindness to pigs whose own lives were about to be taken. The affection that she showed them as they were being trucked to their deaths was likely the only affection they ever experienced. In Regan’s honor, a PETA staffer persuaded a farmer in Iowa, the nation’s pork-producing capital, to spare two pigs from slaughter—and we’re retiring them for life.

The photo above shows the pigs, now named Regan and Russell, on their way to a new life at Arthur’s Acres Animal Sanctuary, where they’ll be fostered in the hope of becoming permanent residents. There, safe at last, their wretched ear-punch tags will be removed and they’ll be able to frolic, wallow, forage, and enjoy the companionship of other pigs.

We can all show kindness to pigs—who have been known to save the lives of others, including their human friends, and even have fun playing tricks on each other—and honor Regan’s memory by working hard to persuade people to stop eating them.

To thank the Iowa farmer for his kind act, we gave him a gift basket filled with vegan goodies, and we also pleaded with him to get out of the animal-killing business and get in on the booming market for vegan food, as an increasing number of others have. Recently, former pig-farm worker Justin Reineke from Manitoba, Canada, decided that he couldn’t witness pigs’ suffering any longer and is now helping others go vegan, too.

Whether you’re a farmer or a consumer, now’s the time to run from the cruel and filthy meat industry.

Regan knew how, in the pork industry, mother pigs are squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely larger than their bodies and kept almost constantly pregnant or nursing. Pigs’ tails are chopped off, their teeth are cut with pliers, and males are castrated—all often without any pain relief. On transport trucks, even on burning-hot days (like the day Regan was killed), pigs are “packed in so tight, their guts actually pop out their butts—a little softball of guts actually comes out,” a former pig transporter told PETA. Once at slaughterhouses, they’re hung upside down—some are still conscious—and their throats are slit, after which they bleed to death.

Each person who goes vegan saves the lives of nearly 200 animals each year. How many people can you help make that switch? It will happen if you set out to do it.

Save Pigs for Regan

We hope the loss of this wonderfully kind soul will bring more attention to the plight of the oppressed. But we must not just pay attention—we must act and quickly. Everyone can honor Regan and all the pigs who’ve been killed for food right now simply by taking any of the following actions:

• Buying vegan bacon for someone who isn’t vegan (yet)
• Giving a vegan cookbook to a nonvegan friend or acquaintance
• Putting a sign in your window or on your lawn or slapping a bumper sticker on your car urging folks to go vegan
• Taking a page from Regan’s book by speaking out against speciesism on social media
• Sharing this post on Facebook and Twitter—tell your friends not to allow Regan to have died in vain

Haven’t gone vegan yet? Click on the button below to order a free vegan starter kit that’ll help make it even easier than it already is.

Order Your FREE Vegan Starter Kit!

The post BREAKING: Pigs Rescued From Slaughter in Activist Regan Russell’s Honor appeared first on PETA.

The post PETA Answers: Which Foods Can Prepare You for COVID-19’s ‘Second Wave’? appeared first on PETA.

A concerned citizen has provided PETA with photos and video footage of young lions suffering from severe “flystrike” at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (G.W. Zoo), a roadside zoo operated by Jeff Lowe and formerly owned and operated by fellow Tiger King villain “Joe Exotic” Maldonado-Passage. Flystrike is a condition in which flies, usually drawn to animal waste, bite other animals and lay eggs on them and the hatched maggots feed on their skin—or biting flies feed on an animal’s blood and inflict relentless pain and discomfort. And according to veterinarians who viewed the documentation, it’s destroying the young tigers’ ears. See for yourself:

PETA is calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to confiscate these animals found to be suffering terribly and to revoke Lowe’s license to exhibit them.

Flystrike, which can occur at facilities with poor sanitation practices, is a painful condition—and photos of one lion’s ears show that they’re raw and bloody, with damaged tips.

Another image (below) shows a juvenile lion’s ears blanketed with flies. Veterinarians who observed the documentation have opined that the wounds would be extremely painful and that if the lions aren’t appropriately treated immediately, they’re at risk of suffering from infection, chronic inflammation, severe and permanent scarring, deformation, or even worse—the ear tissue could become so compromised that it dies (causing the lions to lose some or all of the affected ear).

We’ve urged the USDA, which has barely been operating because of the pandemic, to investigate reports of neglect and suffering at G.W. Zoo over the past several months. Because Lowe is a defendant in an ongoing PETA Endangered Species Act lawsuit challenging cruel big cat cub-petting encounters sold by his former business partner, Tim Stark—who sent the juvenile lions in these photos and video footage to Lowe, in violation of a preliminary injunction—we’ve filed an emergency motion with the court seeking sanctions against Lowe and Stark.

The USDA’s inaction allowed Joe Exotic to abuse and neglect animals for years, and so far, the agency has failed to help the big cats held by Lowe, too.

In the wake of Tiger King, the public eye is on the USDA to do its job and shut Lowe and his despicable roadside zoo down, pronto.

Jeff. Lowe. Must. Go.

Lowe recently lost ownership of the property to Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue, he faces an upcoming hearing in Las Vegas relating to charges of possessing exotic animals and operating a business without a license, and the state of Oklahoma is suing him for at least $50,000 in back sales taxes.

Reminder that Jeff Lowe sucks. #TigerKing pic.twitter.com/WotD741Rcl

— PETA (@peta) April 13, 2020

You Can Help Big Cats and Others

We recently placed a full-page ad in the Wynnewood Gazette to encourage employees and volunteers of the G.W. Zoo to share their firsthand accounts of veterinary care failures and other abuse. Please, if you’ve witnessed animal suffering at any roadside zoo or other captive-wildlife attraction, share your firsthand accounts at PETA.org/Abuse.

Report Your Concerns Here

You don’t have to be a roadside zoo whistleblower to help animals trapped in highway hellholes like G.W. Zoo—you just have to care. Please, never support abusive animal shows or exhibits. Find a real tiger sanctuary, instead—where big cats aren’t abused or exploited.

The post WATCH: 7 Seconds Prove Big Cats Suffer at ‘Tiger King’ Roadside Zoo appeared first on PETA.

Are you in the mood for something sweet and good for you? Sounds like you need an orange Julius.

While he’s as refreshing as a frosty drink, this orange Julius didn’t come from a smoothie bar. He came from rural North Carolina after an elderly woman asked PETA to help her by trapping and neutering the supposedly “feral” cat. But once we got Julius back to PETA’s Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters and got a good look at his sweet, round face and heard his infectious purr, we realized that he was anything but feral. At some point during the 2-year-old tabby’s life, someone had showed him some kindness, and he never forgot it.

Like many homeless cats who are mislabeled “feral” simply because no one has bothered to get to know them, Julius is actually extremely affectionate and outgoing, described by PETA staffers as one of the “coolest, chillest cats around.”

We’re not sure about his position on the straws used in his namesake drinks, but we do know that he’s in favor of repurposing cardboard boxes as toys, stepstools, hiding places, and napping spots.

Orange you ready to welcome Julius into your life and give him a loving home? Get the recipe for making him the “coolest, chillest” member of your family at Adopt@peta.org.

The post In the Mood for Something Sweet? Julius Might Satisfy Your Craving appeared first on PETA.