According to news reports, Shaker Heights, Ohio, K-9 Igor has been part of Chad Hagan’s family since the two were partnered together when the dog was only a year old. They have hardly spent any time apart over the past five years, forging a powerful bond that no doubt made them an efficient team on duty and inseparable companions off duty. When Hagan recently informed the chief of police that he was planning to leave the agency, he asked to buy Igor from the city, which is common practice when a police dog is retired. He even offered to pay $10,000 out of pocket to help offset the cost of replacing him, but city officials refused and forced Hagan to relinquish Igor. Since the agency doesn’t have another handler to partner with him, Igor has been sitting in a kennel facility, separated from the only family he’s ever known.
We sent an urgent letter to the chief of police requesting the immediate retirement and release of the dog back to his family. If you agree with us, please contact the city officials listed below and let them know that you support reuniting Igor with former officer Hagan. Please keep your message polite and respectful.
As PETA’s “Hell on Wheels” tour stopped in Augusta to show locals how chickens suffer on slaughterhouse-bound trucks, an 18-wheeler transporting chickens crashed into a power pole Wednesday in Ridge Spring. The chickens who weren’t killed on impact were likely loaded onto another truck headed for the slaughterhouse—but the next morning, PETA members found two survivors hiding in bushes nearby and rushed them to receive veterinary care. Once they’ve recovered, the duo—now named Pinky and Cole after the founder of the Slutty Vegan restaurant chain, whose birthday is today—will be taken to a sanctuary.
“Having gone from a crowded, filthy transport truck bound for slaughter to a safe and caring sanctuary, Pinky and Cole will never be caged or killed for their body parts,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges everyone to go vegan to spare chickens from terrifying deaths and to get these deadly trucks off the streets.”
The U.S. transports and slaughters nearly 10 billion chickens every year, and PETA points out that transport truck crashes like this one are shockingly common—nearly 70 animal-related accidents have occurred in 2023.
This story has a happy ending for Pinky and Cole, who will have the opportunity to engage in their natural behavior at a sanctuary—such as scratching for food, taking dust baths, roosting in trees, and sitting in the sun—but the two survivors have a long road to recovery. Both are struggling to stand and walk because the meat industry bred them to grow so large so quickly that their legs are crippled under the weight. Their chests are devoid of feathers and red with ammonia burns from being forced to sit in giant sheds filled with excrement.
Every person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals each year daily suffering and terrifying deaths and reduces their own risk of developing heart disease and cancer. PETA’s free vegan starter kit can help those looking to make the switch.
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, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.
Dozens of animals are dead and many more are injured due to blatant negligence and incompetence in U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laboratories, according to federal documents obtained by PETA.
The reports detail a laundry list of violent acts committed against animals, including the suffocation death of a hamster, the starvation death of a rat, and multiple monkey escapes that led to finger and toe amputations.
In light of these obscene violations and the documented ineffectiveness of animal experimentation, PETA is urging the FDA to transition to non-animal, human-relevant research methods.
FDA: Flagrant Disregard for Animals
Not only did the documented incidents directly violate multiple federal animal welfare guidelines, they were also utterly preventable. An inability to adhere to even the bare minimum animal care standards led to the extreme suffering of dogs, fish, frogs, and other animals.
The horrors took place at three laboratories operated by the FDA: the Center for Veterinary Medicine in Laurel, Maryland; the National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Arkansas; and the White Oak Consolidated Animal Program in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The violations include the following:
Fourteen zebrafish died after inattentive staff failed to notice that equipment had malfunctioned, changing the water quality in their tanks.
A rat sustained a deep wound that exposed muscle after staff put the animal in the wrong cage with an incompatible rat, causing the two to fight.
One rat died and a second one nearly died of starvation after a caretaker failed to provide food. Another rat died and three others became severely sick after experimenters gave them a carcinogenic chemical.
Three frogs died after eating unsuitable plastic aquarium plants.
One hamster suffocated to death after staff moved the animal’s cage to an inadequately ventilated area, and a second hamster died after staff incorrectly set up an anesthesia system. In another incident, a hamster died and another was unresponsive after staff mishandled cage equipment.
Two rabbits sustained cuts that required stitches after the divider between their cages was moved, causing them to fight.
Monkeys escaped from their cages on two separate occasions. In one incident, staff failed to secure a cage lock, allowing monkeys to escape and fight with other monkeys. Five monkeys sustained bite wounds to their hands, feet, and tongues, requiring that some of their fingers and toes be amputated.
Seven mice died and five others were in critical condition after staff failed to evaluate the animals and provide care. Four other mice didn’t receive necessary veterinary treatment for three full days. Three additional mice died shortly after arriving at the FDA facility.
Three dogs sustained injuries after catching their paws on exposed wire in a faulty cage.
Experimenters also went rogue on multiple occasions, ignoring what they were approved to do to animals. For example, 13 mice and their babies were used in an experiment approved for only eight mice and their babies. Several mouse pups fell victim to cannibalism as a result of severe crowding and stress stemming from this error.
Animals Don’t Belong in Labs
As the agency responsible for ensuring the safety of the food and medicine we rely on, the FDA should invest its resources—more than $6.7 billion in taxpayer money in 2023 alone—only in the most reliable research available. These practices are outlined in PETA scientists’ Research Modernization Deal, which provides a comprehensive strategy for replacing all animal experiments with more effective, human-relevant, non-animal methods.
The FDA itself has voiced support for adopting non-animal testing methods, so there’s no reason for animals to still be imprisoned in its laboratories and no excuse for the lack of care these animals received.
What You Can Do
Please urge Scandinavian Airlines to stop shipping animals to their deaths in laboratories:
And if you’re in the U.S., please take an additional action for animals by adding your name to a letter asking the FDA to support the use of reliable and human-relevant, non-animal approaches to assess sunscreens:
PETA’s 2023 Company of the Year is the apple of our eye! Apple Inc. clearly recognizes that today’s conscious consumers want to support sustainable brands—in the past five years, global searches for sustainable goods have increased by 71%, and surveys indicate that a vast majority of shoppers care about the environmental impact of the products they buy. As the largest company in the world, Apple Inc. is meeting consumers’ demands and setting a tremendous example for other top companies by ditching leather as part of its goal to be carbon neutral by 2030.
The company’s decision to say “adIOS” to leather—a cruelly obtained coproduct of the meat industry—will spare countless animals and help mitigate the climate catastrophe. The brand will instead offer leather-free accessories, allowing compassionate consumers to feel good about purchasing animal and eco-friendly products.
iStock.com/borojoint | iStock.com/ClaraBastian
Hey, Siri: What’s Wrong With Leather?
Because animals’ skin is one of the most profitable coproducts of the meat industry, purchasing leather directly contributes to the slaughter of countless individuals. Worldwide, the meat and leather industries kill more than a billion cows, sheep, and other animals for their skins every year. The vast majority of cows killed for their skins endure horrific practices of the meat industry—including castration, branding, and tail docking—without any painkillers. Cows naturally form long-term friendships and have complex social hierarchies, but the ones raised for meat and leather typically spend their lives on crowded, filthy lots, where they have little opportunity to meaningfully socialize with others.
Additionally, much of the leather sold in U.S. stores comes from countries where animal welfare laws are nonexistent or largely unenforced. In Brazil—the world’s largest source of animal hides—a PETA exposé revealed that workers beat cows and bulls, burned them on the face with hot irons, and electroshocked them before their skin was turned into leather products like car interiors.
No matter where it’s obtained, anything made from an animal is the product of extreme violence and exploitation.
Is Leather Bad for the Environment?
According to the Higg Materials Sustainability Index, leather made from cows’ skin contributes far more to water pollution, water depletion, and greenhouse gas emissions than any synthetic or plant-based vegan leather. Raising cows requires that thousands of acres of land be cleared of trees and the animals who naturally live there. Roughly 80% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has been caused by cattle ranchers destroying land to raise animals for their skin and flesh.
Turning animals’ skin into leather also requires massive amounts of energy and dangerous chemicals, including mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and various oils, dyes, and finishes, some of them cyanide-based. This process, which halts decomposition through chemical baths and dehydration, is anything but “eco-friendly.” In addition, the toxic waste runs off into local water sources in countries like Bangladesh, poisoning entire ecosystems and greatly increasing tannery workers’ risk of developing skin cancer. An estimated 90% of Bangladeshi workers will die before the age of 50 because of the hazardous production of leather.
The extreme suffering in the meat and leather industries, as well as their devastating environmental impacts, are the main reasons why hundreds of major designers and retailers are developing innovative, animal-free textiles made from plants, such as leather created from mushrooms, cacti, or grapes.
Apple Updates to Leather-Free Products
Apple has already launched several leather-free, FineWoven-based accessories—including Apple watch straps, wallets, and iPhone cases. According to the company, the new material, which is recycled, has “significantly lower emissions compared to the more carbon-intensive leather.”
Sync or Swim: PETA’s Company of the Year Sets an Example for Other Major Brands
Apple may not need any more accolades—for multiple years, it has retained its crown as the most valuable company worldwide—but the brand’s decision to end its use of leather across all its product lines is a massive win for our fellow animals and for the planet. For this exemplary move, PETA is proud to name Apple our 2023 Company of the Year.
Follow the Example of PETA’s Company of the Year by Going Vegan!
There’s nothing stylish about the skins of slaughtered animals. Never buy leather or any other material stolen from sentient beings, and urge companies like Levi’s to switch to vegan leather:
PETA is urging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today to suspend all monkey imports after the agency revealed in an online seminar this week that from 2021 to 2023, there was a shocking increase in imported shipments of monkeys with tuberculosis (TB), which is transmissible to humans. Between 2010 and 2020, there were no confirmed cases.
In January 2023, a shipment of macaques from Southeast Asia contained the largest percentage of monkeys infected with TB in the history of importation into the U.S. The 26 infected long-tailed macaques in this shipment harbored a highly infectious TB strain that has never been seen in animals in the U.S.
Documents obtained by PETA show that the 26 infected monkeys were likely imported by international monkey dealer and experimenter Charles River Laboratories as part of a shipment of 540 monkeys imported from Vietnam and brought to Houston. In a separate letter, PETA is pressing Charles River CEO James Foster to confirm whether the company is responsible for the shipment.
PETA recently exposed Charles River’s secretive plans to build a monkey-breeding facility and warehouse on ecologically sensitive land in Brazoria County, Texas, that would be populated with monkeys Charles River is importing from Asia and Mauritius. TB, including this new strain that was described in the January 2023 shipment, has been shown to infect cows in Asia, raising the specter of spillover in Texas.
“Importing thousands of monkeys is playing with fire and severely increases the risk of the spread of diseases transmissible to humans,” says PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “PETA is calling on the CDC to suspend all monkey imports immediately.”
A monkey confined to a shipping crate. Credit: PETA
Earlier this year, PETA revealed that monkeys imported into the U.S. from Mauritius caused a TB outbreak at a Michigan laboratory. Monkeys from Cambodia have also arrived infected with a bacterium so deadly that the U.S. classifies it as a bioterrorism agent.
Charles River is currently under civil and criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for violations of the Endangered Species and Lacey acts. The company also recently acknowledged that it’s under investigation by the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission related to its sourcing of monkeys from Asia. More than 1,000 long-tailed macaques are still being confined in limbo at Charles River’s facility in Houston after the company allegedly imported them illegally from Cambodia.
