animal rights

By Alka Chandna, Ph.D.

Animal experimenters from Canada’s McGill University recently determined that mice—like humans and other mammals—make grimacing facial expressions when they are in pain. For the study, the ill-fated mice were videotaped after experimenters injected noxious chemicals into their abdomens, ankles, hands and feet; placed them on hot plates; placed their tails in hot water; clamped metal binder clips on the tips of their tails; and performed various surgeries on them without administering pain relief.

The results of the new study should bolster the argument that these animals suffer as we do and should not be treated like disposable laboratory equipment. Instead, the authors are ignoring the moral implications of their findings and will instead use the results as fodder for more dreadful pain experiments on animals. This is like subjecting a person to surgery without anesthesia just to pave the way for further surgeries with anesthesia. There’s simply no good reason for it.

Mice and rats are mammals with nervous systems similar to our Click to continue »

editor’s note: Before you read Paula’s piece, please remember to watch the amazing movie “Food, Inc,” a scathing indictment against America’s farming “system” and the food we eat. It was at many cinemas last year (in Worcester for a week or two). So in case you missed it, turn to channel 2 or 21 and watch this great documentary. We promise you will be eating less meat immediately! (and feeling so much healthier!)

By Paula Moore

Eating out is becoming a blood sport.

According to recent news stories, food adventure clubs — whose members sample “gross-out” dishes such as sautéed lamb’s brains and duck embryos — are springing up across the country. During one recent outing at a Korean restaurant in New York, a group of gastro-warriors dined on freshly vivisected lobster and live octopus. The lobster’s head watches as you consume the body, and the octopus writhes as a chef clips off his tentacles—which diners eat quickly while the limbs are still wriggling.

Apparently, it’s not enough that we eat all manner of dead animals — now we have to eat live ones too. But consuming live animals doesn’t just push the boundaries of good taste: It’s animal abuse. Click to continue »

PETA is constantly under vicious and vigorous attack by people who have two goals in mind: to do all that they can to stop us from winning animal rights victories and to cripple our ability to expose animal abuse. But we are not about to let them succeed.

Industry giants and their sleazy front groups are going after PETA for one reason: We’re making tremendous progress in our campaign to end cruelty wherever it occurs, from slaughterhouses to laboratories, the exotic-animal trade to the fur trade, and sleazy roadside zoos to miserable circuses. Our opponents are very upset about the effectiveness of our investigations, including the one that we conducted on turkey farms owned by Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., in West Virginia. That investigation led to the first cases in U.S. history in which factory-farm employees faced felony cruelty-to-animals charges for abusing birds. And that scares them! Click to continue »

By Justin Goodman

In the last few years-ever since the passage of the chilling Animal Enterprises Terrorism Act and the implementation of an earlier incarnation of the law-the free speech rights of some animal activists have been trampled in McCarthy-like fashion. People who spoke at public events about the torment that animals are forced to endure in laboratories, sent faxes in protest, ran an informational Web site and organized and attended protests on public property-activities associated with constitutionally protected free speech-found themselves facing prosecution as “terrorists.”

This should give all Americans pause. People who engage in nonviolent protests and civil disobedience are sitting in jail cells, stigmatized by one of the most politically charged and discrediting labels of our time, while people who wake up every morning and go to jobs in which they torment and kill animals in laboratories continue to enjoy their freedom, paychecks, social lives and families. Click to continue »

By Ingrid E. Newkirk

President Obama recently made a historic pledge on gay rights that moved our country closer to that original promise of “liberty and justice for all.”

In my Washington, D.C., neighborhood, gays are not only “out” but out and about: Same-sex couples hold hands on the street and laugh and chat at tables in restaurants. Only a mean soul could begrudge them the joy of being “de-closeted” on a fine autumn evening. And only a dead soul could wish to deny them the basic rights that most of us take for granted.

Washington is where those who feel discriminated against and exploited come to make their case on the streets and in the halls of Congress. Click to continue »

Dear Friends,

Every day, our office is inundated with calls and e-mails from people alerting us to the plight of animals in trouble. Thanks to our dedicated supporters, PETA rescues countless animals from emergency situations.

Recently, we received a report about some sorely neglected animals on a property in Washington state. Upon investigating this hellhole—where sick, starving animals were denied veterinary care and proper food—we discovered a bull named Blue. Suffering from pneumonia, a high fever, and severe gastric distress, his ribs stuck out like a coat rack, and you could count every notch in his spine. Click to continue »

By Lindsay Pollard-Post

This Fourth of July, Americans celebrated their freedom with picnics, trips to the beach and time spent with the people they love. But America isn’t a free country for everyone who lives here. In nearly every community—perhaps even on your own street—Americans’ best friends, our dogs, are kept chained and deprived of every freedom.

These dogs spent our nation’s birthday as they spend every other day: pacing their tiny patch of dirt, panting in the heat, wishing for companionship or a drink of cool water and watching the world go by out of their reach. The only difference was that many spent this night terrorized and trembling in fear because of the booming fireworks.

“Out of sight, out of mind” in the back yard, many chained dogs are deprived of even their basic needs and rights. Click to continue »

By Chris Holbein

It’s hard to find a silver lining in a recession. Stocks are plummeting, 401(k) plans are shrinking and businesses are either scaling back or folding. But there is one bright spot: Food magazines have stopped force-feeding their readers recipes featuring foie gras.

Gourmet and Bon Appétit have reportedly forsaken foie gras in favor of more budget-friendly options, and the editor in chief of Food & Wine recently announced that the magazine will no longer feature “recipes that involve loads of foie gras.” That’s a good thing. It’s just a shame that it took a tanking economy—rather than an ethical revolution or even a sense of revulsion—to make some foodies give up diseased duck livers. Click to continue »

By Laurence Van Atten

International Animal Rescue has saved its 500th ‘dancing’ bear from the streets of India. The bear has been identified as Chitra, a female. This is a major milestone in its campaign to cut free all the dancing bears and provide them with a safe haven for the rest of their lives. International Animal Rescue believes that 2009 will be the year in which the practice of dancing bears in India is ended for good. Click to continue »