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The 6,000 member Dallas Safari Club will auction off rare animal hunts this weekend during the banquet at its annual convention, which is a “showcase of hunting, sporting and outdoor adventure,” according to the Club’s website. During the auction, “bidders of any age or gender” will have the chance to bid on “amazing items,” including “youth hunts in New Zealand and Texas, a challenging Mid-Asian ibex hunt in Russia, and a bongo hunt in Cameroon.”

One of dozens of animal hunts at Dallas Safari Club Auction

The 2014 convention made international headlines when one attendee, Corey Knowlton, paid $350,000 to shoot an endangered black rhino in Namibia. Mr. Knowlton, who has purportedly received death threats, tells critics that he is motivated by “conservation.” Specifically, he claims that his substantial contribution will be allocated to rhino conservation efforts and that killing the rhino in question would actually benefit other rhinos in the area who he has been attacking.

But, if conservation is really Mr. Knowlton’s motivation, then why doesn’t he allocate a small part of his winning bid to relocate him?  And, if he’s concerned that the menacing rhino is harming the others, then why hasn’t he  shot him down hasn’t he done it in the 12 months since he won the bid?  Could it be because the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has not yet issued a permit to import the rhino’s body and that Mr. Knowlton has no intention of returning from Africa without his “trophy.”

In an interview with Jane Velez-Mitchell on JaneUnchained.com, Christopher Gervais, the director of the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival & Biodiversity Conference, says that killing animals is not the way to preserve them: “You do not hunt a vulnerable species in the name of conservation. Other organizations are conserving without hunting and killing.” Conservation funds. he says, can be raised through photography safaris during which animals are shot with cameras instead of guns.

Shooting rhinos with cameras

Please let the Dallas Safari Club know what you think of selling trophy hunts by contacting them through Facebook or its website.

Video obtained by PETA of NIH researchers conducting maternal deprivation and other psychological studies on infant monkeys revealed such extreme abuse and terror that four members of Congress sent a strongly-worded letter to the NIH demanding an explanation.

Among the many heart-breaking video clips are a babies frantically attempting to awaken their sedated mothers, who appeared to be dead, and infant monkeys being subjected to loud noises while being held in the dark in what the researchers themselves describe as “pits of despair,” cages so small that the terrified monkeys cannot stand up.

NIH researchers terrorize infant monkeys in psychological experiments

In a fascinating interview with Justin Goodman, PETA’s Director of Laboratory Investigations, Jane Velez Mitchell shines a spotlight on the studies and the deception that has enabled NIH researchers to spend tens of millions of U.S. tax dollars on these experiments for over 30 years.

These infant monkey studies are funded through 2017, but circumstances have emerged which could bring them to an end before the money runs out. First, the NIH researchers will be unable to justify to Congress the continuation of this research, which after 30 years, haven’t yielded any information useful to human mental health. In fact, the researchers have already acknowledged that the tests are irrelevant to humans. As PETA’s Justin Goodman explains, the scientists have created a “cottage industry,” collecting millions of dollars from Congress year-after-year while remaining under the public radar. Secondly, video of the experiments, which are now in the public domain in spite of NIH’s efforts to keep them confidential, has triggered over 160,000 to take action.

Infant monkey attempts to awaken her mother during maternal deprivation study.

The NIH researchers who have taken tens of millions of U.S. tax dollars over the past 30 years to perform these useless and cruel experiments are being exposed for what they are — thieves and terrorists. Please speak up for these infant monkeys by demanding that NIH permanently discontinue these barbaric experiments.

In a major victory for animals, the U.S. military will stop using live animals for various military training purposes as of January 1st. The new policy, which was instituted as a result of many years of advocacy by PETA and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), will eliminate some of the worst abuses, from cutting apart pigs to forcing tubes down live the throats of live cats and ferrets as a component of pediatric training. Wherever possible, lifelike human simulators will be used.

Human simulator

Jane Velez-Mitchell of Jane Unchained interviews Justin Goodman, PETA’s Director of Laboratory Investigations, to learn more about the victory.

According to Mr. Goodman, “institutional inertia” and resistance to change in the military make this astonishing victory truly historic. But much change is still needed, as the government continues to use live animals to replicate battlefield trauma. While this has been reduced in recent years, PCRM estimated several years ago that the military shoots, blows up and dismembers at least 8,500 live goats, pigs and other animals each year in these training exercises.

On the bright side, the U.S. Secretary of Defense wrote in a letter to PETA that the Pentagon will work to identify ways to phase out this testing too. If the will is there, then that shouldn’t be too big a challenge, as studies show that those who learn trauma treatment on human simulators are better equipped to treat injured patients than those who are trained on live animals.

Studies show lifelike human simulators are more useful than live animals in trauma training

The use of any animals in military training begs the question as to why they have to pay the price for human warfare. If countries choose to attack each other, an activity unique to humans, then what right do we have to bring animals into it?

Please use PETA’s email action alert to ask U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security officials to replace animals in military trauma training with superior non-animal training methods.

Activists will go to extreme lengths to help animals — from protesting naked to liberating minks from fur farms. But how many are willing to live in their own excrement for 10 days?  “We have a waiting list,” according to the makers of Farming Humans, a one-hour documentary film in the early stages of development.

In Farming Humans, 12 people will be locked up in small cages for 10 days to emulate the intensive confinement of pigs, calves and chickens on factory farms. Unlike other animals, the captive humans will be able to describe their physical discomfort, the smell of their waste and the stress of being unable to move. They will also be able to beg for mercy and leave if they start to go insane, which is what happens to pigs in gestation crates.

Pigs who go insane from confinement chew the metal bars that imprison them

The filmmakers will make life difficult for the human animals, but they will stop short of carrying out the worst abuses, such as castration, dehorning, tail cutting, branding, debeaking, gratuitous physical attacks and, of course, slaughter.

TV host Jane Velez-Mitchell talks to the filmmakers about their provocative concept in an interview.

This isn’t the first time that human animals have stepped into a farm animal cage. In the months leading up to a vote on a gestation crate ban in New Jersey, HSUS challenged people in the state to step inside of one. That challenge, however, lasted only 4 minutes.

Gestation crate challenge in NJ (Photo: HSUS)

As expected, NJ governor Chris Christie vetoed the bill in an effort to curry favor with  hog farmers in Iowa, who have an outsized influence in the race for U.S. President. In reaction to his veto, actress and musician Cher called him a “despicable bully,” and comedian John Stewart criticized him on his show:

https://youtu.be/cFim-euvBMY

To learn more about the project and/or support the filmmakers in this endeavor, please visit Farming Humans.

What happens when you put the illustrious Jenny Brown, co-founder of Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, in a room with TV personality Jane-Velez Mitchell two weeks before Thanksgiving? Step inside to find out.

Please note that the videos contain short clips from factory farms for viewers who have never seen them.

Support the life-saving work of Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary by sponsoring a turkey.

Undercover investigations conducted at factory farms change hearts and minds. Please share this Mercy For Animals video taken at a Butterball turkey factory.