Kategorie: Animals

A Texas man has been charged with assault after throwing a live pig at peaceful demonstrators outside a slaughterhouse.

#Hallettsville Animal abuser cited with a class C assault charge for throwing a pig at one of our activists! Unacceptable behavior! No excuse for animal abuse! #AnimalLiberation https://t.co/ZWxt5OpVoE

— Texas Animal Freedom Fighters (@TXAnimalFreedom) June 13, 2020

The cruel incident of animal abuse took place at a protest outside Glen’s Packing Co.—a slaughterhouse in Hallettsville, Texas.

A local news source reports, “A series of photos on Facebook shows a man wearing a green Texas T-shirt and camouflage Crocs remove the pig from a trailer, slam [the animal] against the pavement, and hoist [the animal] by the legs toward the curb where the protesters were assembled.”

Hallettsville police stated that the man has been cited for Class C assault. A protester was hit by the thrown pig and plans to press charges, according to reports.

The protester told news sources that the antagonist reacted with violence to the activists’ chants about freedom for animals. “This individual was agitated enough by our presence that he said, ‘Here, you want an animal to be free?’ as he assaulted us with the pig,” he said.

This man’s own speciesism is the source of his rage.

Speciesism is the misguided belief that one species is more important than another. This toxic mindset is deeply ingrained in our society, and as we saw in this story, it results in all kinds of negative consequences.

We can only imagine that anyone who would react to peaceful protesters with such belligerent hostility must be insecure about their own immoral behavior. His actions say a whole lot more about him than they do about animal rights activists.

Treating animals in such a way is completely unjustifiable.

Pigs can bond with humans, play games, and even enjoy a good massage. They’ve rescued humans from drowning and fires—yet the meat industry imprisons them on farms. They’re confined to metal crates full of their own waste in which they don’t even have enough room to turn around. By the time they’re sent to slaughter, many pigs on factory farms have lung lesions caused by pneumonia.

No one needs to eat meat. Pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys, sheep, and other animals are living, feeling, thinking beings who value their lives. But they’re kicked and prodded even when ill or injured and jammed into crowded trucks, and their last moments of life are on a blood-soaked killing floor. They are terrified by the sights, sounds, and smells of the slaughterhouse and don’t want to die, yet workers shoot them in the head with a captive-bolt gun and slit their throats.

We hope the man from this story—and all other meat-eaters—will one day truly see animals and realize that they’re complex individuals deserving of respect.

Stand against violent ignorance by going vegan today.

While most of us have been steeped in speciesism throughout our lives, we can—and must—overcome this destructive way of thinking. By going vegan today, you’ll save nearly 200 animals a year simply by not eating them. Order a free vegan starter kit full of recipes and tips. Do double the good and send one to a friend, too!

Order a Free Vegan Starter Kit

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The post PETA Condemns Hostile Man Who Threw Live Pig at Animal Rights Activists appeared first on PETA.

PETA has obtained a U.S. Department of Agriculture report revealing a recent violation of law at Washington County Meat Packing outside Bristol, Virginia. In response, we sent a letter today calling on Washington County Commonwealth’s Attorney Joshua Cumbow to review the matter and, as appropriate, file criminal cruelty-to-animals charges against the facility and the worker who shot a steer in the head five times with a .22 Magnum rifle, after which the animal remained standing, fully conscious, and looking around. It took a sixth shot with a 12-gauge shotgun before he was finally rendered unconscious.

“This disturbing report shows that this steer experienced a prolonged, agonizing death at Washington County Meat Packing,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is calling for a criminal investigation on behalf of the steer who suffered at this facility and urging all compassionate members of the public who are disturbed by this cruelty to go vegan and help prevent more animals from suffering in slaughterhouses.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. The group notes that steers, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, and other animals feel pain and fear and value their lives, just as humans do, and that the only way to help prevent them from suffering in slaughterhouses is not to eat them.

For more information, visit PETA.org.

PETA’s letter to Cumbow follows.

June 15, 2020

The Honorable Joshua Cumbow

Washington County Commonwealth’s Attorney

Dear Mr. Cumbow,

I hope this letter finds you well. I would like to request that your office (and the proper local law enforcement agency, as you deem appropriate) investigate and file suitable criminal charges against Washington County Meat Packing and the worker responsible for shooting a steer in the head six times before the animal was finally rendered unconscious on May 18 at its slaughterhouse located at 20505 Campground Rd. outside of Bristol. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) documented the incident in the attached report, which states the following:

“[A]n employee attempted to stun a mature Scottish Highland steer using a .22 Magnum rifle. … The initial stun attempt using a .22 Magnum rifle was ineffective, as the steer remained standing. Four (4) additional attempts to stun the steer using the same rifle were also ineffective, as the animal continued standing, continued rhythmic breathing, and exhibited tracking eye movement. After the fifth unsuccessful stunning attempt using the .22 Magnum rifle, the employee successfully stunned the steer using a 12-gauge shotgun.”¹

This conduct appears to violate Va. Code § 3.2-6570. Importantly, FSIS action does not preempt criminal liability under state law for slaughterhouse workers who perpetrate acts of cruelty to animals.²

Please let us know what we might do to assist you. Thank you for your consideration and for the difficult work that you do.

Sincerely,

Colin Henstock

Assistant Manager of Investigations

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

[1]FSIS District 80 Manager Todd Furey, Notice of Suspension, Washington County Meat Packing, Est. M32062 (May 18, 2020) https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/0902d85b-ff91-4f28-93c6-e6fbd093863d/M32062-NOS-05082020.pdf?MOD=AJPERES.

2See Nat’l. Meat Assoc. v. Harris, 132 S. Ct. 965, 974 n.10 (2012) (“. . . States may exact civil or criminal penalties for animal cruelty or other conduct that also violates the [Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA)]. See [21 U.S.C.] §678; cf. Bates v. Dow Agrosciences, LLC, 544 U.S. 431, 447 (2005) (holding that a preemption clause barring state laws ‘in addition to or different’ from a federal Act does not interfere with an ‘equivalent’ state provision). Although the FMIA preempts much state law involving slaughterhouses, it thus leaves some room for the States to regulate.”).

The post Criminal Probe Sought: Conscious Steer Shot Six Times in Head appeared first on PETA.

This morning, PETA sent a letter urging the Department of Public Health to investigate ContextLogic, Inc.—the parent company of online marketplaces Wish, Cute, Geek, and others—for continuing to offer fur items for sale across its online platforms in apparent violation of the city’s fur ban. The action comes after PETA contacted the CEO of ContextLogic, urging him to remove all fur for sale, and received no reply.

“ContextLogic continues to support an industry in which animals are beaten, electrocuted, and even skinned alive,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is urging officials to hold this company accountable for its brazen display of fur items, which are not only hideously cruel but whose sale and display for sale is prohibited in the city.”

Animals on fur farms spend their entire lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages. At the end of their short, miserable lives, fur farmers use the cheapest killing methods, such as electrocution or suffocation. Others are caught in steel-jaw or body-crushing traps, which slam shut on the animal, often breaking bones, severing ligaments, and crushing organs, causing excruciating pain, sometimes for days. Some animals will attempt to chew off their own limbs in an attempt to escape. If they don’t die from blood loss or infection, like gangrene, trappers shoot, strangle, beat, or stomp them to death.

PETA (whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview) notes that California banned the sale of new fur statewide in 2019 and that numerous top designers and retailers—including Burberry, Gucci, Versace, Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, and Giorgio Armani—have banned fur.

PETA’s letter to Principal Environmental Health Inspector Mohanned Malhi is available here. For more information, please visit PETA.org.

The post Wish’s Parent Company Under Fire for Apparently Flouting City’s Fur Ban appeared first on PETA.

After Tiger King gave the public a glimpse into the neglect and abuse prevalent at roadside zoos across the U.S., PETA has placed a full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of the Myrtle Beach Sun News to encourage Myrtle Beach Safari and Waccatee Zoo employees and volunteers to share their firsthand accounts at PETA.org/Abuse.

Myrtle Beach Safari operator Bhagavan “Doc” Antle has been repeatedly cited under federal animal welfare laws, prematurely separated cubs from their mothers for use in public encounters, and engaged in animal-abusing publicity stunts. Fellow Tiger King subject Joe “Exotic” Maldonado-Passage and others have said that Antle puts tiger cubs who’ve grown too old for playtime events into a gas chamber to kill them and then burns their bodies in an on-site crematorium. At the nearby Waccatee Zoo, Lila the tiger has gone almost completely bald, and she and other animals have been documented exhibiting signs of severe distress.

“PETA wants to know what secrets ‘Doc’ Antle and the Waccatee Zoo are hiding,” says PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel for Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet. “We need kind people on the inside to come forward if they have witnessed the type of abuse, neglect, and trafficking in endangered species that the whole world saw in Tiger King.”

A whistleblower tip from inside The Mobile Zoo in Alabama led to the rescue of a chimpanzee and three bears, the closure of the facility, and a plea of guilty to 14 counts of cruelty to animals by the owner. Through whistleblowers, PETA has learned of egregious cruelty in circuses, at roadside zoos, in laboratories, and elsewhere.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. The ad will also appear in the Wynnewood Gazette—the hometown paper of Joe “Exotic’s” former facility, now operated by Jeff Lowe and rebranded as “Tiger King Park”—and in the Sun Sentinel, a hometown paper of the Zoological Wildlife Foundation, which is run by Mario Tabraue, who was also featured in Tiger King.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.

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This morning, PETA and PETA Germany fired off a letter urging the German minister of defense to end that country’s armed forces’ use of animals in live tissue training (LTT)—during which live pigs are mutilated and killed—in the wake of new studies confirming the superiority of human-relevant models, which nearly three-quarters of NATO allies already use instead of animals.

The groups’ action comes after the ministry assured PETA last year that it would conduct a “thorough examination” of non-animal simulation models and pledged to PETA in 2018 that it would “abandon live tissue training entirely as soon as suitable simulation models are available.”

In 2010, PETA convinced German regulators to block applications from U.S. Army Europe to conduct LLT for American service members stationed in Germany on the grounds that such invasive and lethal exercises would violate the German Animal Welfare Act. That same year, the German armed forces erroneously told PETA that they “do no animal tests for training purposes”—a misstatement that prompted the country’s ministry of defense to “formally apologise” to the group in 2017 and confirm in 2018 the use of up to 12 pigs for training 18 surgeons per year.

“Using gentle pigs as disposable tools and inflicting massive injuries to poorly mimic human war wounds are indefensible and inferior training,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA is calling on the German ministry of defense to cease this practice—which the U.S. Coast Guard has called ‘abhorrent’ and itself ended—and to switch to modern and superior human simulation technology.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—notes that sensitive, intelligent pigs have vastly different anatomy from humans, making these trainings irrelevant. Cutting-edge, high-tech human simulators that “breathe” and “bleed” are more effective, ethical, and economical.

The groups’ letter to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany’s minister of defense, is available here. PETA opposes speciesism, the human-supremacist belief system that other animals exist for humans to exploit at will. For more information, please visit PETA.org.

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