Kategorie: Animals

Stress can often feel unavoidable amid the hustle and bustle of our fast-paced lives. This is especially true during the holiday season, so it’s essential to find moments of relief as we balance the demands of work, relationships, activism, and personal well-being. And doing so shouldn’t cause more stress for others, including animals. That’s why we’re offering some helpful animal-friendly tips for keeping your stress levels low.

Start Your Day With a Healthy Breakfast

Studies show that starting the day with a high-quality, healthy breakfast can keep stress levels low and even help manage depression. If you’re in a rush, opt for something easy to prepare, like a bowl of vegan yogurt with granola and berries or whole-wheat toast topped with peanut butter, sliced bananas, and a drizzle of maple syrup. And if you have more time in the morning, you can try a fun new recipe, such as the Coconut Chia Berry Parfait, Avocado Toast with Garbanzo Beans, or Breakfast Scramble Tacos.

Cows, chickens, pigs, and other animals used for food endure short, stress-filled lives on today’s farms, where they’re deprived of everything that’s natural and important to them. By choosing vegan meals, you can help spare the lives of nearly 200 animals a year.

Take a Midday Break With a Soothing Cup of Tea

Stepping away from your busy workday to enjoy a warm cup of tea is a simple way to relax, especially if you can do it mindfully. (This means no screens while you sip.) The Four Seasons Tea Bundle from Leaves of Leisure is a great set of four herbal blends inspired by the changing seasons.

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Spend Time With Your Animal Companions

Interacting with animals can decrease your stress hormone levels and lower your blood pressure. So if you share your home with an animal companion, one of the best ways to lower your stress and theirs is simply to spend time with them—playing, cuddling, or going for a walk.

Try a Calming Herbal Lozenge While You Work

Laki Naturals’ Calm Mood lozenges contain soothing ashwagandha, magnesium, California poppy, valerian root, chamomile, and lavender oil, all of which can help calm your nerves naturally.

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Sweat Out the Stress

Exercise releases endorphins, which make you happy, duh! Studies show that regular movement helps you become more resilient to stress, so don’t neglect this part of your day. However you choose to move—whether taking a stroll through a park, moving through a yoga flow, or going all out with a high-intensity training session—make sure you love to do it.

End Your Day With a Soak in a Warm Bath by Candlelight

A warm bath can soothe your nerves and relax your muscles. Add a spa-like vibe to your bathroom with Lifetherapy’s Grounded Mood Melting Salt Soak, and light a vegan candle.

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Get a Great Night’s Rest With a Weighted Blanket

Sleep is one of the keys to stress management, so set yourself up for the best night possible. Take 10 minutes before bed to meditate or read a book, then doze off under a wool-free weighted blanket.

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Going vegan is the best thing you can do for animals, the planet, and your personal health. Start today by ordering a free vegan starter kit:

Send Me a FREE Vegan Starter Kit

The post Unwind With Animals in Mind—Follow PETA’s Tips for Stress Relief appeared first on PETA.

In cities across the U.S., PETA is decking the halls with a dash of compassion. This holiday season, we’re spreading good cheer in the form of a Christmas ad blitz-en to inspire empathy for all our fellow animals.

Our festive ads serve as reminders that no animal wants to be exploited and killed for their flesh, feathers, fur, or skin. Vegan living spares countless animals a lifetime of suffering. 

’Tis the Season for Kindness to Animals: See How PETA’s Holiday Ads Are Lighting Up U.S. Cities

In Des Moines, Iowa, a little calf delivers a can’t-miss message to the city’s bustling Merle Hay neighborhood, urging everyone to see her as a living, feeling individual—not an accessory or a piece of meat.

Cows naturally spend their time socializing with friends and family, but those raised for meat and leather typically spend their lives on crowded, filthy lots, where they have little opportunity to form meaningful bonds essential to their well-being. Workers in the meat and leather industries castrate, brand, string up, skin, and dismember cows, sometimes while they’re still conscious.

In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, PETA is lighting up the largest shopping district between Denver and Minneapolis with sky-high appeals from animals to leave only animal-friendly gifts under the tree this Christmas.

Just feet from The Empire Mall—home to dozens of retailers worthy of the naughty list, such as Coach and lululemon, which sell skins and down—PETA’s digital billboard reminds shoppers that animals are living, feeling beings, not merchandise.

Buying wool, leather, or anything else made from animals supports the violent abuse of sentient beings in these industries. PETA entity investigations into more than 100 wool suppliers have exposed that shearers beat sheep, cut their skin to shreds, and hastily sew them back up—without painkillers. At down factories, workers hang ducks and geese upside down, drag them through electrified water, and stab them in the throat. Meat industry workers pack chickens densely on top of one another in filthy cages, where they often die after their legs break under the strain of their own weight. And in the reptile-skins industry, workers hack apart lizards with machetes while they’re still conscious.

Travelers coming to and from the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport for their holiday trips are reminded that cruelty doesn’t fly. Plastered on Uber, Lyft, and other rideshare vehicles, PETA’s thought-provoking ads challenge consumers to think about who suffers for luggage made from leather.

Because animals’ skin is one of the most profitable coproducts of the meat industry, purchasing leather directly contributes to the slaughter of countless animals. Worldwide, the meat and leather industries kill more than a billion cows, sheep, and other animals for their skins every year.

Along the Long Island Expressway, jam-packed with Manhattan-bound tourists, residents, and holiday shoppers, PETA’s highway billboard shows the loving bond between a mother cow and her precious calf—a reminder that these gentle giants have their own lives and families, just like we do.

At Newark Penn Station in New Jersey, one of the busiest train stations in the U.S., all eyes are on PETA’s “I’m Me, Not Meat” ads. Every year, the meat and fishing industries kill billions of animals, including fish, turkeys, cows, chickens, and pigs, for their flesh. Every individual who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals per year.

In Columbus, Ohio, known as one of the best towns for Christmas shopping, PETA’s bike share ads peddle a plea to let our fellow animals live in peace.

In Trenton, New Jersey, and Tucson, Arizona, PETA’s ads illustrate the love that mothers of all species have for their babies. Mother cows are nurturing and fiercely protective of their young, but the dairy industry denies them this important bond. There are countless reports of mother cows frantically crying out for their babies for several days after workers tore their babies away from them.

PETA’s heartwarming Christmas special tells the touching story of Toby the turkey, who spends the holidays with his loving family—not being sent to a slaughterhouse. The festive ad, which is airing on local TV stations across the U.S., encourages viewers to leave turkeys in peace, not in pieces.

Give the Gift of Empathy by Going Vegan

This holiday season—and all year round—show kindness and compassion to all living, feeling beings by going vegan and only wearing animal-free clothing. Check out PETA’s exciting selection of vegan holiday gifts, and order our free vegan starter kit to make the compassionate switch today:

Go Vegan!

The post You Know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen—but Have You Seen PETA’s Holiday Ad Blitz-en? appeared first on PETA.

Hundreds of Thousands of Chickens to be Suffocated; PETA Demands Action, Accountability

Following reports that the Arkansas Department of Agriculture has started killing hundreds of thousands of young chickens because Cooks Venture doesn’t want them—by suffocating them with foam, an agonizing death that can take as long as 14 minutes—PETA rushed a letter to Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward today expressing outrage at the cruel slaughter and callous waste of birds’ lives and slamming the agency for using cruel and lazy killing methods not approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) for non-emergencies. PETA points out that the chickens were essentially abandoned by Cooks Venture following its sudden shutdown, leaving the Department of Agriculture to deal with millions of birds crammed into filthy sheds at the company’s supply farms.

 

Chickens on a factory farm. Credit: PETA

 

“These chickens have suffered in crowded, ammonia-ridden sheds their whole lives, and now, outrageously, they’re being suffocated to death en masse on the taxpayers’ dime while Cooks Venture washes its hands of them,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling for accountability and urging the Arkansas Department of Agriculture to stop the killing of these chickens via suffocation or other cruel methods not sanctioned by the AVMA, and we urge everyone to go vegan to prevent this kind of ruthless mass killing.”

Chickens killed for their flesh are crowded by the tens of thousands into filthy sheds and bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight. At the slaughterhouse, their throats are cut, often while they’re still conscious, and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and offers a free vegan starter kit on its website. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.

The post Hundreds of Thousands of Chickens to be Suffocated; PETA Demands Action, Accountability appeared first on PETA.

Below, please find a statement from PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman in response to reports of avian flu outbreaks at the Trillium Farm Holdings LLC egg farms in Union and Hardin counties and the Hardin County facility’s plan to kill more than 2.6 million chickens:

An avian flu outbreak at Trillium comes as no surprise to PETA, whose previous investigation into one of its filthy egg farms revealed hundreds of dead birds decomposing alongside their surviving cagemates and hens left to die slowly and painfully after botched killings. The only things Trillium pumps out more of than eggs are disease and death, and since authorities turn a blind eye, PETA urges everyone to take matters into their own hands and help end this horrific cycle by going vegan.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.

The post PETA Statement: Avian Flu Outbreak at Top Ohio Egg Farm appeared first on PETA.

Officials reportedly believe that the steer escaped from a local slaughterhouse before ending up along the train tracks near Newark Penn Station—the same one where dozens of PETA’s “I’m Me, Not Meat” ads are placed for the holiday season.

After being safely captured, the steer was taken to Skylands Animal Sanctuary & Rescue in Sussex County, New Jersey, and named Ricardo. Now, he’s enjoying the greatest gift of all: a safe home where he can roam free, graze, and socialize with other animals.

UPDATE: SOUND UP. New Jersey runaway train track bull, ‘Ricardo’ saved from slaughter house. He has new permanent home at Skylands Animal Sanctuary, where he will have 232 acres to graze and roam. Here he is walking up from tranquilizer. pic.twitter.com/haPRMdKh45

— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) December 15, 2023

Ricardo’s heartwarming tale is a celebratory one indeed, but the countless animals still suffering on farms and in slaughterhouses aren’t so lucky. Each year, the meat and dairy industries exploit and kill more than 29 million cows in the U.S. alone. In the meat industry, workers subject many young cows to agonizing mutilations, such as castration, branding, and dehorning—often without any pain relief. At slaughterhouses, workers hang them upside down and slit their throats—sometimes while they’re still conscious.

Cows Want to Live

Cows have been known to go to extraordinary lengths to escape from slaughterhouses—a testament to their extreme intelligence, knack for solving problems, and, most importantly, desire to live. Just earlier this year, a 4-month-old calf ran loose through the streets of Brooklyn after breaking free from a slaughterhouse.

All Our Fellow Animals Deserve the Same Happy Ending as Ricardo

If Ricardo’s inspiring escapade teaches us anything, it’s that cows desire the same things we do: respect, compassion, and the freedom to do as they please. No one wants to spend their lives on crowded, filthy farms or to die in a slaughterhouse.

You can save nearly 200 animals per year by going vegan. Make the compassionate switch today:

Go Vegan!

The post It’s a Christmas Miracle! Ricardo the Rogue Steer Finds a Home at a Real Sanctuary After Train-Disrupting Escapade appeared first on PETA.