Kategorie: Animals

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PETA to Kevin Bacon: ‘Don’t Be Chicken! Throw Out the Eggs With the Bacon’

Following Kevin Bacon’s admission in People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue that he can’t eat bacon anymore after getting to know pigs on his farm in Connecticut, PETA sent a letter today to the actor—who has worked as a spokesperson for the American Egg Board and celebrated his birthday this year by eating a roasted chicken—encouraging him to adopt a chicken so that he can shift his mindset around them, too. PETA is confident that once Bacon learns that hens are clever thinkers and wonderful mothers who cluck back and forth with their unhatched chicks, he’ll cut their meat and eggs from his meals.

“All it takes is meeting one animal and seeing the individual, right?” writes PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “Don’t be chicken! Throw the eggs out with the bacon and adopt some chickens instead of eating them. Consider how wonderful life would be for chickens if Kyra and you serenaded them while they were surrounded by all the other amazing animals you have kindly taken in.”

Rescued chickens seen at the Piedmont Farm Animal Refuge in Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Chickens, rescued from the egg industry, at a farmed-animal sanctuary. Credit: PETA

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.

PETA’s letter to Bacon follows.

Dear Kevin,

Thank you for ditching bacon! All it takes is meeting one animal and seeing the individual, right? May we call on you now to adopt a chicken, preferably a laying hen so that you’d stop eating these dear birds and their eggs, too?

Did you know that chickens possess cognitive abilities on a par with those of dogs? Or that chickens make wonderful mothers? A mother bird will cluck softly to her unhatched babies while sitting on the eggs, and they will chirp back to her and to each other from inside their shells. Of course, none of this occurs when these sweet birds are caged and used as egg-laying machines. They’re confined to small wire cages and forced to lay eggs until their broken bodies tire, and then they’re slaughtered.

Please, don’t be chicken! Throw the eggs out with the bacon, and adopt some chickens instead of eating them. Consider how wonderful life would be for chickens if Kyra and you serenaded them while they were surrounded by all the other amazing animals you have kindly taken in.

Sincerely,

Nicole Cummins

PETA

The post PETA to Kevin Bacon: ‘Don’t Be Chicken! Throw Out the Eggs With the Bacon’ appeared first on PETA.

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You’ll Be Wide Awake After Learning About These Sleep Experiments

University of Wisconsin–Madison officials have green-lit experiments on marmosets that are so cruel, so pointless, and so patently bereft of scientific rigor—while also managing to be rife with ineptitude that it strains credulity to think they could ever have been approved by anyone. And guess what? They came from the notorious University of Massachusetts–Amherst’s (UMass) Agnès Lacreuse.

PETA scientists combed through hundreds of pages of documents to untangle this nasty web. Here’s what we found.

Two marmosets in red hammock in cage looking at cameraObtained by PETA through public records law

At Lacreuse’s request and with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), experimenters at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, located on the campus of UW-Madison, intend to prevent tiny, sensitive marmosets from sleeping more than 15 minutes at a stretch for several nights a week in a wrongheaded attempt to somehow glean insight into the effects of sleep deprivation on humans’ ability to think clearly and the effects of sleep deprivation on Alzheimer’s disease.

PETA is calling for investigations by NIH and the U.S. Department of Agriculture because these experiments are inherently flawed, add nothing to scientific knowledge, and appear to violate numerous animal welfare regulations, among other serious concerns. PETA is also asking the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to yank the experiment’s funding.

The Details

Every 15 minutes during the night, experimenters blast the monkeys for six full minutes with noises measuring from 60 to 90 decibels. By comparison, the average noise from a vacuum cleaner is about 70 decibels. The monkeys will be startled awake as many as 46 times during the night for a total of 276 minutes for three consecutive nights.

The experiments break no new ground. A wealth of published information already exists about the effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive decline in humans. Numerous other studies have already examined the same effects of sleep deprivation in human volunteers, and they were all completed without a monkey body count. The experiment proposal should have been tossed out immediately.

Fatal Flaws

The setup of the experiment can’t possibly shed light on human age-related cognitive decline. Humans who experience poor sleep aren’t suffering because they’re startled awake by loud noises at preset intervals but rather because they suffer from poor sleep for biological and neurological reasons not covered by this experiment.

In addition, marmosets aren’t miniature humans. Numerous physiological and biological differences between species make marmosets a poor stand-in for humans, rendering useless any information from the experiments.

Bait and Switch?

In order to get the money to bankroll this travesty, experimenters had to classify the amount of pain they were going to inflict on the monkeys. They said it was minimal.

It’s not. And the funding should be yanked for this reason.

Marmoset experiments at UMassObtained by PETA through public records law

Not only are marmosets in this experiment deprived of sleep, they’re also subjected to chronic captivity, repeated fluid restriction, and restraint. The cumulative effect is permanent physical and psychological harm.

All this was unrepresented or downplayed in the grant proposal.

Who’s on First?

This experiment was funded by a grant from NIA two years ago, when it was slated for a laboratory at UMass, where Lacreuse would conduct it. Many months later, UW-Madison is still debating how it will be conducted, what will happen to the animals, and even what equipment it should use, according to information PETA obtained.

Vote for Me!

UW-Madison primate experimenter Ricki Colman is slated to be the chief experimenter for these experiments. She’s also the head of the laboratory’s animal oversight committee, which voted to approve the project she’ll conduct. Unsurprisingly, appearing to exert undue influence on the vote like this likely violates a mess of regulations—another reason that funding should be canceled.

What You Can Do

Please take action today and demand that UMass shut down Lacreuse’s laboratory immediately.

The post You’ll Be Wide Awake After Learning About These Sleep Experiments appeared first on PETA.

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PETA Brings Horror Stories From NIH Monkey Fright Lab to the Streets of Bethesda and D.C.

PETA is unveiling new ads in the Washington, D.C., area on behalf of monkeys caged for years in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) laboratory of experimenter Elisabeth Murray. These include video footage of real monkeys named Beamish and Guinness on a mobile billboard circling the NIH campus and large images of Guinness on Capital Bikeshare stands nearby in Washington.

When:    Thursday, November 9, 8:30–9:30 a.m.

Where:    Near the escalator at the Medical Center Metro station, Bethesda

To kick it off, a larger-than-life Beamish mascot and PETA members will greet commuters tomorrow at the Medical Center Metro station, which is used by many NIH staffers, and alert them to Murray’s cruel, taxpayer-funded monkey fright experiments.

“These cruel fright experiments are relics of decades-old laboratory abuse of monkeys that should have ended with the Cold War,” said PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “NIH must shut down Elisabeth Murray’s fright experiments now and modernize its science.”

This screen capture shows part of a video obtained by PETA through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In Murray’s laboratory, experimenters cut open monkeys’ skulls, inject their brains with toxins, and implant titanium rods in their skulls. The monkeys are then isolated in tiny cages and repeatedly presented with realistic-looking spiders and snakes in experiments intentionally designed to terrify them. Murray has received $50 million in taxpayer funding since 1998 for her curiosity-driven experiments.

Beamish’s and Guinness’ stories will be told on a mobile billboard circling the NIH campus from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on November 9. In addition, PETA’s messages calling on NIH to end the wasteful experiments will appear on Capital Bikeshare stands at the following locations: Broad Branch Road and Northampton Street N.W., Fessenden Street and Wisconsin Avenue N.W., McKinley Street and Connecticut Avenue N.W., Wisconsin Avenue and Ingomar Street N.W., and the National Portrait Gallery at Seventh and F streets N.W.

The post PETA Brings Horror Stories From NIH Monkey Fright Lab to the Streets of Bethesda and D.C. appeared first on PETA.

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From Office to Oasis: How Adaptive Reuse Can Change the World

Remote work has emptied many office spaces, especially in cities like Dallas, Houston, and San Francisco. So what can be done with these unused spaces? “Adaptive reuse” is the practice of finding new uses for old buildings. Since nearly 20% of office spaces in the U.S. are currently unoccupied, animal-free vertical farms and technology could be brought into the city through adaptive reuse.

Vertical farm - hydroponic plant system with cultivated lettuces© iStock.com/onurdongel

The Office-to-Farm Transformation

Picture this: rows of cubicles replaced by stacks of lush greenery, vibrant tomatoes hanging where whiteboards used to be, and harsh fluorescent lighting swapped out for grow lights. This is what transforming unused office space into urban farms could look like. And the benefits? The sky’s the limit!

  • Green, urban oases: In 2020, nearly 82% of the total U.S. population lived in urban areas and cities. But cities often lack the green spaces needed for sustainable living. For some individuals, reaching a store that offers fresh fruits and vegetables can be a daylong endeavor, particularly in areas referred to as “food deserts.” Converting lifeless office buildings into urban farms would bring fresh, healthy foods to concrete jungles, making it easier—and likely more affordable—for stores to carry them. And by growing only plants, there would be no need to worry about the adverse environmental and health consequences of raising animals for food. (Factory farms and slaughterhouses are often located in the countryside, where they generate water and air pollution as well as foul odors and cause health problems for people who work at these facilities and live nearby.)
  • Vegan meat and dairy: Reused office buildings could also serve as hubs for vegan meat and dairy production. Imagine having access to vegan meat, cheese, and milk freshly made in your community with in-house ingredients. Not only would this be kind to animals, it would also promote healthy living. Leading health experts agree that going vegan is the single best thing anyone can do for themselves and their families. Vegan eating reduces the risk of suffering from numerous health problems, including some of the biggest killers in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, and strokes.
  • Cultivated-meat innovation: The office-to-farm movement doesn’t stop at veggies. It could be a game changer for cultivated-meat production. Cultivated meat, which is created from cultured animal cells, is an ethical, sustainable product obtained without killing animals and may one day be widely available. Unused offices could house state-of-the-art laboratories where cultivated meat could be grown in a controlled environment, saving countless lives. Life on a factory farm is a cruel existence for animals. In the U.S. today, 99% of animals used for food live on these massive farms, where they’re confined by the thousands to wire cages, metal crates, or other extremely restrictive enclosures inside filthy, windowless warehouses. Although the prospect of clean meat is exciting, animals can’t wait for it to be widely available. By going vegan now, you’d make a clear statement that you refuse to fund the abuse and slaughter of animals.

The Sustainable Impact

The transformation of vacant office spaces into vegan food production hubs would generate a multitude of benefits, including the following.

  • Reduced land use: Some office buildings could be repurposed as vertical farms, where crops could be grown in stacks, one on top of the other, maximizing space and increasing productivity per unit area. This farming technique uses up to 99% less land than traditional farming. Plus, vertical farms can grow a variety of produce all year round, defying the seasons.
  • Reduced emissions: Shifting away from animal agriculture results in less CO2, methane, and excrement polluting the air and waterways. This vegan food system would eliminate the need to transport live animals to—and their body parts from—slaughter. And since plants and plant-based products would be produced locally, long-distance transport would no longer be necessary.
  • Feeding more people: It’s possible to end hunger globally—but only if there’s a shift toward vegan eating. Currently, animal-free agriculture generates around 1.5 trillion more pounds of food than animal agriculture does. It’s only logical: Eating plants is much more efficient than growing crops to feed animals (who require large quantities of food) and then consuming those animals.
  • Rewilding farmland: Animal agriculture consumes a staggering 83% of farmland and is responsible for more than half of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to University of Oxford research. A nationwide shift to vegan eating would help restore this depleted farmland to its natural splendor.
  • Healthy living: These urban farms would promote healthier living through the consumption of fresh, locally grown produce and other animal-free foods.

The Call to Go Vegan

The world is changing, and we must be the driving force behind a greener, more compassionate future. So let’s raise a toast to adaptive reuse, urban vertical farming, and vegan living!

Did you know you could spare nearly 200 animals per year just by going vegan? Getting started is easy:

Order a FREE Vegan Starter Kit

The post From Office to Oasis: How Adaptive Reuse Can Change the World appeared first on PETA.

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PETA’s Not ‘Happy’ With Pharrell: We’re Challenging Him Over New $1M Crocodile-Skin Bag

Following reports that Pharrell Williams’ collection for Louis Vuitton includes a $1 million made-to-order crocodile-skin bag, PETA sent the singer a letter inviting him to join us on a less-than-luxurious tour of the filthy farms where crocodiles are packed into concrete pits. When several animals are housed together, it’s likely that aggression and injuries will result, and these commonly lead to infections and diseases—conditions that a PETA Asia investigation revealed exist on farms that supply skins to LVMH, Louis Vuitton’s parent company.

Crocodiles are packed into a concrete pit on a farm that supplies skins to LVMH

Crocodiles are packed into a concrete pit on a farm that supplies skins to LVMH. Photo: PETA Asia

PETA let Pharrell know what he’ll need to bring along for the trip, including nose plugs and high boots to wade through fetid, waste-filled water.

There are no blurred lines here. Killing wildlife for a bag isn’t cool—it’s cold. Pharrell should follow the example of compassionate celebrities like singer Billie Eilish, who recently teamed up with Gucci to create the Horsebit 1955 Bag, made with high-end vegan leather that’s better for animals and the planet.

Another PETA Asia investigation revealed that workers at facilities supplying LVMH struck pythons repeatedly on the head, suspended them in the air, inflated their bodies with water, and disemboweled them—even as they still moved about.

Dozens of major designers and retailers, including Calvin Klein, Chanel, Nordstrom, and Selfridges, have removed exotic skins from their products.

PETA will continue to put pressure on LVMH executives until they get the memo that animals are not ours to exploit for handbags, clothing, or anything else. You can join our call:

The post PETA’s Not ‘Happy’ With Pharrell: We’re Challenging Him Over New $1M Crocodile-Skin Bag appeared first on PETA.