With the support of PETA, a U.K.-based animal advocacy group called Animal Aid, circulated a petition (almost 13,000 signatures to date) “urging the government to make CCTV installation mandatory for all slaughterhouses.”  The meatpacking industry opposes the measure.

Paul McCartney once said, “If slaughterhouses had windows, then everyone would be vegetarian.”  I think it’s safe to say that many people would also go veg if they watched animals being slaughtered through a live feed from the kill floor.  We might not have CCTV – or windows – in slaughterhouses, but we do have the next best thing: videos that show the terror and agony experienced by animals being killed.

Brian Ahmed, an egg farmer in Australia, is claiming that activists put the lives of his hens at risk when they enter his farms.  “We need tougher laws that actually penalise those who illegally enter farms and jeopardise the health of our livestock.”

Mr. Ahmed fails to explain how people entering his farm jeopardizes the health of his hens, but he must know that invoking “biosecurity” could help him garner support from unsuspecting lawmakers and from the public, which is largely unfamiliar with factory farms. Photos and videos speak a thousand words, which make undercover investigations the best tool available to educate the public about the horrors of factory farming.

According to the NY Times, China’s FDA will stop mandating animal tests on some cosmetics, including shampoos and certain skin-care products, if the manufacturers can assess risk using other methods, such as evaluating  existing data on the ingredients.  More than 50 activists celebrated in the streets in the city of Dalian in a rally organized by the Humane Society International, one of the NGOs behind the Be Cruelty-Free campaign in China. As many as 300,000 rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and other animals are used to test cosmetics in China every year.

Animals used in experiments are among the most tortured on the planet. Just imagine spending your entire life in a cage and being pinned down and having chemicals forced down your throat or injected into your eyes. In the U.S., the Humane Cosmetics Act would prohibit animal testing for cosmetics manufactured or sold in the country. Please ask your U.S. Representative to cosponsor this bill.

Undercover footage taken by Farm Watch shows dozens of rats crawling over living and deceased pigs in wet, filthy and cramped enclosures.  The fact that the meat from this farm is certified under New Zealand’s pork care label demonstrates that these labels are meaningless.  A TV news station in New Zealand ran an excellent in depth story about the farm, the regulators and the broken system.

Factory farms, or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), are inherently inhumane because the animals are treated like commodities.  In CAFOs, pigs, chickens and cows are mutilated, confined, kidnapped, beaten and deprived of the ability to do anything that comes naturally to them.  If you oppose animal cruelty, then please go vegan and educate others about the horrors of factory farming.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) is fighting to free Tony, a 550 pound Bengal tiger being held captive in a cage at a truck stop in Louisiana.  Though big cats are outlawed in Louisiana, lawmakers made an exception for “Truck Stop Tony.”  In an attempt to free Tony and relocate him to a big cat sanctuary in Colorado, the ALDF challenging the constitutionality of the exception: “When the legislature passes a law, it should have general applicability and not confer special favors on one person.”

Photo credit: M. Haik.  Truck stop Tony’s enclosure

Tigers are wild animals who hunt, travel long distances and live with members of their own species.  They should not be roadside attractions where they are deprived of everything that makes their lives worth living.   The Colorado Wild Animal Sanctuary could provide Tony with a 20 acre habitat to roam freely and interact with other tigers while receiving full time veterinary care, enrichment activities and a better diet.  To see how you can help, please visit Free Tony the Tiger.