Archives

After learning that a human leg was found at a recycling plant in Dublin, PETA produced an ad depicting a human leg on a dinner plate to remind people that “all meat is murder.” A furious Council Member said, “The deliberate use of human remains in an advertisement is sickening and disgusting . . .That person will have family, friends and loved ones worried about them and I would call on PETA to stop trying to gain publicity out of such a sickening situation.”

Given the extraordinary challenge of getting the general public to give serious thought to the plight of animals, PETA employs attention-grabbing tactics, such as nude protests, that many find offensive. But do the benefits of these tactics outweigh the downsides?  I think so.  These tactics generate media coverage that our typical protests do not receive.  And media coverage drives people to their website, which can trigger people to go veg.

Over the objections of PETA, Lawmakers in Pima County, Arizona (Tucson area) approved a trap, neuter & release (TNR) program to reduce the overall number of feral cats while preventing existing cats from being euthanized. In a letter to the County’s Board of Supervisors, PETA encouraged the County to euthanize feral cats on the grounds that they are not meant to live outdoors; they prey on wildlife; and they send a message to it’s okay for humans to abandon their pets. PETA also says that euthanasia is less painful than the deaths experienced by cats in the street.

I know I open up a can of (faux) worms when I ask this question, but are some feral cats better off being killed in a shelter than sent back into inhospitable and dangerous streets where their demise could be far more painful or where they are they abused by people? Do they depend on the kindness of strangers for food, only to be neglected? Do they prey on local wildlife?  Does their presence give people license to abandon their own cats, as PETA claims? Does the presence of feral cats give people license to abandon their cats? I don’t know. What I do know is that we are reckless and cruel by domesticating animals and then tossing them out into the street like garbage when taking care of them becomes inconvenient. I also know is that we must continuously remind the general public to spay and neuter companion animals and adopt from shelters instead of buying from pet stores and breeders.

In an ongoing attempt to free Lolita, a killer whale who was kidnapped from the Pugent Sound 44 years, PETA is appealing a lawsuit it lost that challenged the USDA’s automatic renewal of Miami Seaquarium’s Animal Welfare Act license, which allows it to exhibit Lolita.  PETA claims that the Seaquarium is in violation of at least three of the act’s regulations. The group says Lolita is kept in a tank that is smaller than the minimum size required and has no orca companion or shelter from the sun.

Photo credit: Ross Cobb

Kidnapping an intelligent orca from her home and holding her captive for over 40 years in a small tank is unspeakably cruel.  And the fact that she is alone makes it even worse.  She must be extraordinarily stressed, frustrated, depressed and lonely.  This case is truly heart-breaking.  Kudos to PETA for attempting to free Lolita and release her into a coastal sanctuary that is ready to take her.  Please use this link to submit a letter to the owner of the Seaquarium.

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.

A letter from PETA has prompted tennis star Andy Murray from removing references to hunting from his hotel’s website.  Here’s an excerpt: “The idea of hunting cats and dogs, such as your beloved Maggie May and Rusty, would rightly make most of us sick, and yet the animals listed on the Cromlix website have exactly the same capacity to feel pain and suffer.”

Andy Murray’s Hotel Cromlix in Scotland

Hunting is the only “sport” in which only one team knows that it’s playing.  One could argue that eating meat from free roaming animals who are hunted is more humane than eating factory farmed animals, but I can’t help but think that the majority of people who hunt do so because they enjoy killing.  And, while it’s true that the hunted animals lived freely before being killed, they often leave behind offspring who are too young to take care of themselves.  To the humans, hunting is a recreational activity, but to the the animals who are killed and orphaned, it’s a tragedy.  To learn more about hunting and to see what you can do to stop it, please visit PETA’s hunting page.