A gaggle of grim reapers made an appearance at Milan Fashion Week Thursday. The dramatic demonstration reminded attendees of the reality of real fur—it’s dead.

Great job PETA Europe!

Beautifulnewsmakers/Creative Commons

Live Free or Die Hard and Mission Impossible III star Maggie Q just released two sexy new pro-vegetarian ads for PETA Asia Pacific.

A vegetarian for many years, Maggie says that giving meat the boot is one of the most rewarding decisions she has ever made. "I feel better, I have more energy on and off the set, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm doing something to help stop animal suffering."

You can see both of the ads here, and make sure to check out this amazing AP TV story about Maggie and the ads.

Kudos to you, Maggie. The animals are lucky to have you on their side.

Yesterday, one of my colleagues dressed as a chicken and drove a Hummer round the State Department building, where the Meeting of Major Economies on Energy Security and Climate Change was taking place, to make the point that a meat-based diet is responsible for more greenhouse-gas emissions than driving a gas-guzzling SUV. And yes, in case you're wondering, sometimes it does take a giant chicken in a Hum-V to get certain people to pay attention. Here's a pic:

After a landslide victory (14 to 6!) that I can't help thinking got a boost from the genuinely pathetic photo of him trying to look tough with a big gun and tinted glasses, Taser International's Rick Smith takes his spot next to Thomas Langfitt and David Waitzman as our very latest Vivisector of the Week! Rick's commanding victory is quite a testament to the extent of his sleazy practices, as he had a very tough opponent in the form of Vassar's Jeffrey Cynx, who tortures songbirds for a living and writes whimsical poetry about it.

To spice things up a bit, I've decided to give this week's contest a theme: Both of our contestants like to torment rodents; both are professionally cruel to animals under the auspices of UC Davis; and both have recently sold their services, and their souls, to Mars Inc., which has evidently decided that they need to kill animals to make candy bars. So here we go again—feel free to be horrified, but don't forget to vote, 'cuz it's time to crown the next Vivisector of the Week!

Robert Rucker, UC Davis. UC Davis/Creative Commons When the folks at Mars needed someone to cram baby mice into tiny Plexiglas chambers and submerge them in chilled water for hours, they knew that Rob Rucker was their man. But as Rob will no doubt be the first to point out, if you're going to go to all the trouble of torturing mice, there's more than just one way to ensure maximum misery! When Mr. Rucker's finished with the first stage of his experiment, he likes to force food down the animals' throats for 10 days, then starve them, and then kill them. If you find his zeal for this job disturbing, you're going to want to cast your vote for Rob Rucker now!

Carl Keen, UC Davis. UC Davis/Creative Commons Carl Keen, who holds the Mars, Inc., Endowed Chair in Developmental Nutrition, shares his colleague's passion for hurting rodents. Keen's work for the chocolate company involves feeding cocoa to rats, anaesthetizing them with carbon dioxide (a procedure which is known to be extremely distressful for the animals), and collecting their blood with a "cardiac heart puncture," which is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds. Only after he's finally killed these animals does our Carl pat himself on the back and get ready for his next round of experiments. Leave a comment below to vote for Carl "Cardiac Puncture" Keen.

Don't forget to vote, and check back with us next week* to see which of the "UC Davis Rodent Rippers" will be the latest Vivisector of the Week!

*The PETA Files cannot guarantee that they will remember to do this next week.

I’m psyched to let you know that we’ve just partnered with Helium, “the leading consumer destination where people can speak their minds and consider opposing opinions.” We’re excited because the partnership provides PETA members, and the public at large, an open and fair environment to debate any animal rights issue that you want. The site’s format is super user-friendly, so this should be a fun and easy way to talk to new people about the issues you’re most passionate about.

Should the NFL add cruelty to animals to its personal conduct policy? Do PETA’s naked protest tactics work? Should chickens be added to the Humane Slaughter Act? These and other debates are already heating up over at Helium, so check it out and let me know what you think.

Les Moonves, CBS News/Creative Commons

The real villain here is a fellow named Les Moonves, who runs CBS, and under whose leadership the network has become renowned for soliciting and airing acts of cruelty to animals in an effort to boost ratings. Most people are familiar with the Survivor stunts where the contestants are made to kill animals or drink their blood, but apparently Moonves and CBS felt a need to take the shock factor up just another notch by having kids do the killing, as happened in the latest episode of Kid Nation. Honestly, I hate to call any attention to CBS's new show so they can tag it as "controversial" as a way of getting more viewers, but Moonves needs to hear from people about this latest episode, in which a group of children persuade the other kids on the show to chop off chickens' heads as a way of getting protein in their diet. Many of these kids had grown close to the animals during the show, and some were clearly traumatized by the experience.

Please click here to let Les Moonves know that encouraging kids to kill animals is a new low for him (which is saying something), and that he needs drop these lousy stunts right now, no matter how good they may be for his ratings.

And now ... Deflocked!

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

Not all of Oscar De La Hoya's fans were as happy about the pics of the world-famous boxer prancing around in fishnets and a mini skirt as we were here at PETA. But as soon as we saw the photos—which have been dutifully circulating the celebrity blog circuit this week after the good folks at x17 broke the story—we thought he'd be just perfect for our Fur Is a Drag campaign. You can read PETA's letter to Oscar below. We just can’t figure out why his management is so upset about the whole thing—men as diverse as Rudy Giuliani, Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, and Jamie Foxx have donned a dress without any adverse effect to their careers. Don't you think Oscar would be a knockout on the catwalk?

Dear Oscar,

The controversy surrounding the cross-dressing photos of you could be turned around to do some good. One of PETA’s most amusing ongoing campaigns is called Fur Is a Drag, which has involved parodies of fur fashion shows, featuring cross-dressing models sporting donated furs which are spattered with paint and accessorized with cruel leghold traps. We’re planning our next Fur is Drag runway parody for this December in New York, to be hosted by drag sensation Lady Bunny, founder of the Wigstock festival. Might you consider walking the catwalk? You’d be a real knockout. Maybe we can help turn this scandal from a sow’s ear into a silk purse—with matching pumps.

Sincerely,

Dan Mathews
Vice President
PETA

I love me some Nellie McKay. She just released her new album, Obligatory Villagers, yesterday, so I wanted to give it a quick shout out. Nellie never misses an opportunity to talk about her love of animals and what people can do to make the world a better place for them, and here’s what she had to say when she sat down with the uber-hip peta2 posse recently:

Tell us about the new album, Obligatory Villagers.

It's a rumbus opus, a ragtime sonata. It's about the times we live in.

What animal rights issues are you most passionate about?

Every outrage deserves attention. In terms of scope, ending factory farming & our relationship to animals as food is key, because from there, victory in other areas is inevitable.

Do you think schools should be required to offer students alternatives to dissection? Why?

Schools should not only offer students alternatives, they should completely remove dissection & vivisection from their curriculum. Knowledge without compassion is useless.

Do you have any dissection horror stories from your school days that you'd like to share?

In fourth grade we campaigned to remove formaldehyde jars entombing small animals from the science room. We circulated petitions & met w/the principal & made the teachers really nervous. The jars were removed.

Why did you choose to become a vegetarian?

I was fortunate enough to go vegetarian w/my parents. The sight of caged & suffering animals in animal rights literature elicited an instant response of sadness & anger. Kids have a natural empathy w/ animals.

What's your favorite vegetarian dish?

My Mother's vegan fish & chips w/ brown beans is always on the top of the list.

Any advice for people who want to get involved in animal rights but don't know how to get started?

The biggest thing you can do for the animals, the earth, & humankind (including yourself) is to switch to an animal-free diet. It may not be easy, it may not be instant, but start & watch the world change for the better.

What's up next for you?

I'm working with the Coalition to Preserve Community to prevent Columbia University from demolishing eighteen acres of Harlem to construct a new campus. Among their development plans is a level-3 biotech lab, which would almost certainly include animal research. And of course, I mention ColumbiaCruelty.com wherever I go.

KP and Darby

Karen Porreca, or KP, has been with PETA since the very beginning, and she's done an incredible job managing our kickass editing staff and editing hundreds and hundreds of pages a week herself (we generate an awful lot of text here) to ensure that everything we put out is lucid and professional, and that there's never a word out of place. Karen is also always the first person to recommend a holistic remedy when you have a cold, or give you the number of a good reflexologist. Which, well, everyone has their thing, I guess.

KP was my boss for the first year that I was at PETA, back when I was an editor for the organization myself and spent my days obsessing over em-dashes, misplaced modifiers, and dangling participles (OK, I still obsess over those things, but in those days it was actually useful to someone), so I'm very excited to announce that she's writing a new blog for PETA, which will be focusing on how to keep your canine companion happy and healthy, with an emphasis on weird hippie stuff like holistic medicine and chiropractics. In all seriousness, the blog is a ton of fun, and it's a great resource for anybody who loves dogs—and if you're into alternative medicine, there's probably gonna be a good deal of that for you too.

So head on over to KP's Dog Blog when you get a chance, and let her know what you think. Also, if you have time, I’d be very grateful if you could scour every word of the blog—and if you can find any grammatical errors (even just, like, a comma out of place), report them back to me.

After more than a year of discussions with PETA, CKE Restaurants (the parent company of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.) has announced a new animal welfare program that will phase in cage-free eggs, and begin sourcing pork from suppliers that don’t use cruel gestation crates for pregnant pigs. The plan also gives consideration to poultry suppliers that are willing to use controlled-atmosphere killing, which is the most humane form of slaughter available.

Here's what Hardee's spokesman Jeff Mochal said about the change:

"We take the animal welfare concerns very seriously. When you meet with PETA they make a pretty good case. We want to stay consistent with where the industry is at now and where it's heading."

This is another victory for farmed animals, and it is a sign that there is a major upheaval in the industry, with many of the biggest players (with the notable exception of KFC, which is still decades behind) making significant improvements in their animal welfare standards in response to pressure from the animal protection community and compassionate consumers. In just the past year, Smithfield Foods, Maple Leaf Foods, and Cargill Meat Solutions took steps to phase out gestation crates for pigs, and Burger King and Wendy's restaurants made similar changes affecting millions of animals.

I make these points whenever we have a victory like this, but I want to really emphasize them this time:

1. Yes, this is a victory for animals. It means that millions upon millions of pigs and chickens will be spared some of the worst tortures that they currently suffer, and it is a sign that with hard work, we can effect change for the better.
2. No, this doesn't mean that our work is anywhere near finished. It just means that our work is effective, and that we have an incentive to work harder and push for more change.
3. Torturing animals less in factory farms is always a good thing, but the best thing that you can do if you want to help animals is to go vegan.

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to get these improvements at Hardees and Carls Jr.! And thanks to CKE Restaurants for helping to encourage such significant changes in their suppliers, and the industry at large.

As you may have heard by now, Michael Vick and his three co-defendants were indicted today by a grand jury, and charged with one count of beating or killing a dog in addition to one count of engaging in and promoting dogfighting. The next step is for the prosecuting attorney, Gerald Poindexter, to actually charge these guys. This is PETA’s official statement on the new indictment:

"PETA believes, as most Americans do, that the best way to safeguard animals is for anyone who participates in dogfighting to spend time behind bars and be banned from owning animals for life. Given that dogs who did not perform to the defendants' satisfaction were intentionally killed by electrocution, drowning, hanging, shooting, and being repeatedly slammed to the ground, state felony cruelty-to-animals charges and state felony dogfighting charges are clearly warranted in this case. The federal authorities prosecuted the crimes under their jurisdiction with due diligence, and we look forward to seeing Commonwealth Attorney Gerald Poindexter do the same.”

Please click here to take action on this issue by urging the NFL to add cruelty to animals to its conduct policy.

PETA's Senior Vice President Lisa Lange was on The O'Reilly Factor last night to talk about two of our latest ads, a sexy veggie testimonial starring Alicia Silverstone and a racy new promo for our Animal Birth Control (ABC) Campaign featuring burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese. The question at issue was whether these ads were somehow offensive. O'Reilly himself was very fair and balanced about the whole thing, and even made some positive comments about the animal protection movement, and Lisa did a great job of explaining why she believes that there's nothing wrong with a beautiful woman using sex appeal to make a point.

In fact, the only person who came out of the show looking bad was that Queen of Prudes, Fox News' Kirsten Powers, who was so scandalized by the super-sexy Dita Von Teese ad that she could barely string together a coherent sentence. Powers' blustering aside, I do think O'Reilly's question is an important one, and it's something we take very seriously at PETA. The way I see it, both Alicia's veggie PSA and Dita Von Teese's ABC ad are tasteful, professional, and, honestly, stunning, each in their own way. They do what ads are supposed to do—they grab your attention and they generate discussion about the issue.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what people think about this tactic. It won't mean that we're going to stop running sexy ads for our different campaigns to help animals (I'm busy working away on the script for next year's "State of the Union Undress" right now), but a little bit of healthy debate never hurt nobody. Except Kirsten Powers.

See Also

Politics of Power and PETA
A Photo Gallery of PETA's Naked Campaigns
Animal Rights Uncompromised: PETA's Tactics

I know, I know. I just used an almost identical subject line last week in the “Shoplifting Seagull” entry, but I couldn’t resist. Just like I couldn’t resist sharing this amazing story about a pigeon who befriended an injured baby monkey at an animal sanctuary in China. Check it out here.

Is it possible for the biggest name in burlesque, Dita Von Teese, to get any sexier? She’s already the spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics Viva Glam campaign, is the face of Frederick’s of Hollywood’s upcoming holiday catalog, and has graced the cover of Playboy, Harpers Bazaar, and Elle. In fact, I just looked up the word “sexy” on Wikipedia and there is no definition, just her picture.

For those of you who thought Dita couldn’t get any sexier, think again. She is lending her voice, among other things, to our new ABC campaign. Dita urges fans to "bone up" on their ABCs and, if they are considering adding a dog or a cat to the family, to adopt from a local animal shelter and be sure to get their new family member spayed or neutered.

And here are some exclusive behind-the-scenes images and video from the launch of the ad.

Who's ready for the new season of Dancing With the Stars? Me too. In fact, I believe that there are only two kinds of people in the world: DWTS fans, and those who are too embarrassed to admit that they are DWTS fans. I fall squarely into the first category, as any of my friends—and my downstairs neighbors—will tell you.

So, it’s a bit of an understatement to say I’m excited for tonight’s season premiere. And I’m even more excited because PETA pal Jennie Garth is on the show this season. Make sure to tune in to ABC at 8 EST, and in the meantime, check out this great ad she shot for us a while back.

umusic/Creative Commons

If you've been following Rob Zombie's career, you'll know that he's been successful in a number of different arenas, from his groundbreaking work with White Zombie in the '90s, when this blogger was a young alternative-music junkie ("More human than hu-man! More human than hu-man!") to his successful solo career, and more recently in his mega-hit slasher films House of 1,000 Corpses and Halloween. A lot of people who have watched the gore-fest that is this summer's Halloween get more squeamish when the young Michael Myers mutilates animals than they do when the killer graduates to human victims. Well, it so happens that this touches on one of PETA's major campaigns—to raise awareness about the well-documented link between cruelty to animals and crimes against humans.

With that in mind, PETA VP Dan Mathews wrote the following note to Mr. Zombie:

“We at PETA would like to thank you for making clear in Halloween that people who commit acts of cruelty to animals are likely to move on to humans. Although audiences wince during scenes showing the young Michael Myers mutilating animals, following it up with the school counselor articulating how this is the first step to becoming a maniac was perfectly done. Hopefully, with the attention focused by your movie on this link between animal cruelty and human violence, more people will recognize the warning signs among people they know and deal with it more forcefully.”

Not only was the cat used in this scene fake (of course), but guess what? Rob Zombie is an ethical vegetarian, and has been since 1982, when he saw slaughterhouse footage in high school. Turns out that some zombies don't eat flesh at all. Who knew?

Deloitte/Creative Commons

In addition to the critically-acclaimed film Away From Her, Julie Christie has starred in such classics as Doctor Zhivago and Heaven Can Wait, as well as one of my favorite films of all time, the incredibly frightening psychological thriller Don't Look Now (which, incidentally, also features Donald Sutherland and an evil, knife-wielding troll creature). Throughout her distinguished career, Christie has also been an outspoken advocate for animal and environmental protection, and in 1981, she gained a worldwide reputation as a strong voice for animals after she narrated the groundbreaking documentary The Animals Film, which graphically depicts factory- farming abuses.

And just this morning, she sent a letter to clothing retailer Burberry's creative director Christopher Bailey urging him to end the use of fur in Burberry designs once and for all. Here's what she says:

"For the sake of basic decency and humanity as well as for the sake of your company's reputation, won't you please stop using real fur in your designs?"

You can the full letter here, and for a little horror movie about the practices that Burberry supports, click here.

PETA’s regulatory testing division recently fired off a letter to Samuel H. Wilson, acting director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), urging him to cancel planned experiments on mice involving artificial butter flavoring and its ingredients. Yes, I said artificial butter flavoring, the stuff in microwave popcorn.

One ingredient in artificial butter flavoring, diacetyl, is suspected of causing a debilitating—and sometimes deadly—lung disease in dozens of workers and now possibly in consumers as well, and the NIEHS’ knee-jerk reaction is simply to do more animal tests. Keep in mind that producers accounting for 80 percent of the market for this product have already stopped using diacetyl or announced plans to do so, and as our regulatory testing watchdogs pointed out, in experiments that have already been conducted, mice who were forced to inhale diacetyl didn’t develop the same symptoms of obliterative bronchiolitis (OB) that humans did. It sounds like the NIEHS has never heard Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote that goes something like this, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results.”

In response to PETA's warnings—which were originally submitted to the NIEHS' National Toxicology Program (NTP) in May—one scientist acknowledged that although "it's not clear how one would extrapolate findings from the animal studies to humans. … [T]hat does not lessen my enthusiasm for this study." In our newest letter, we point out that while the NTP conducts cruel experiments on mice, workers—and possibly consumers—will remain at risk for OB. How about we cut to the chase and instead of conducting irrelevant animal experiments and further delaying the protection of workers and consumers who are exposed to diacetyl, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration immediately rescind its "generally recognized as safe" designation for the chemical?

Jessica Sandler, PETA’s director of regulatory testing said it best,

“There's a crisis looming for countless workers and consumers who are exposed to diacetyl, and once again, the government's answer is to try to mimic in animals the effects already seen in people. Not only is this completely illogical approach blatantly cruel, it also directly jeopardizes the health of the citizens that the agency is charged with safeguarding."

I’ll keep you posted as this case develops, and in the meantime, here’s a great page about PETA’s behind-the-scenes battle to stop animal testing.

Kidport/Creative Commons

Yup, that's right. It's finally Fish Amnesty Day again! Fish Amnesty Day was created by PETA 10 years ago as a much less violent alternative to National Hunting and Fishing Day, which (by an amazing coincidence) happens to be on the same date.

For some reason, fish are often the last animal people cut from their diets when they go vegetarian, so if you're someone who's been thinking about giving up eating fish but never got around to it, this is a great time to take the plunge. PETA has a whole site about the lives of these fascinating animals at FishingHurts.com, and once you've checked that out, if you'd like to celebrate Fish Amnesty Day by giving up fish for good, click here to take PETA's pledge to be veg.

I will be marking this momentous occasion with a meal at my favorite vegetarian sushi restaurant, Kotobuki. Happy Fish Amnesty Day, everyone!

Click here to order a free vegetarian starter kit.

Fall is here, and the sounds of songbirds chirping morning greetings can be heard outside your window, while the animal moms and dads of the world rustle through the freshly fallen leaves seeking out a hearty breakfast for their children. Meanwhile, back in the lab, Jeffrey Cynx is busy as a bee burning lesions into the brains of the songbirds he's rounded up, while the folks at Taser International are furtively tasering as many animals as they can get their hands on to see if they have heart attacks.

That's right—it's time to pick out one of the slimiest "scientists" in the animal-experimentation game and crown this week's Vivisector of the Week! Last week's winner (by a slim margin of 5 to 4) was Thomas Langfitt, who takes his seat next to UConn's David Waitzman as this week's Vilest Vivisector. Tom may be dead, but his lifelong dedication to smashing animal's heads will never be forgotten!

So suppress those gag reflexes and cast your vote, 'cuz we've got two guys whose lousy scientific practices are rivaled only by the extreme cruelty of their methods, and this week's gonna be close! Ladies and gentlemen, your contestants …

Jeffrey Cynx, Vassar.

The NIH recently launched an investigation into a laboratory at Vassar College, where Jeffrey Cynx has been cutting into birds' backs, castrating male birds, burning lesions into their brains, and ripping out their tracheal nerves. After a whistleblower reported that these animals were also allegedly being denied veterinary care and dying—even prior to the experiments—PETA wrote to Vassar College to ask (very politely), WTF? We're working on getting these experiments stopped, but in the meantime, if you like songbirds, you may want to cast your vote for today's first contestant, Vassar's very own Jeffrey Cynx!

Rick Smith, Taser International.

Inthesetimes/Creative Commons

Taser International CEO Rick Smith is a young man who gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Don't tase me, bro!" Rick and his pals have been tasing animals for years now, and he has such a passion for the job that he's even willing to take his work home with him! Taser VP Max Nerheim recently testified that he and Rick repeatedly shocked live pigs during the fall of 2002 in his home garage and at an unnamed "horse facility" in Phoenix. You can write to Rick about his work here, and if his pig-shocking ways make your blood boil, cast your vote for Rick Smith now!

As always, thanks for voting, and check back with us next Friday* to find out who will be next week's Vivisector of the Week!

*The PETA Files cannot guarantee that they will remember to do this every week.

Don’t worry if you don’t get that subject line. It’s just a shout out to my homegirl, Anuradha “Slim Shady” Sawhney, who does a hell of a job running PETA India.

The point of this post is really to give props to the whole gang over at PETA India, who just released the incredibly exciting news that the city of Mumbai will no longer allow elephants within its borders. Mumbai's compassionate decision will spare many elephants a lifetime of abuse and neglect, and it sends a powerful message to other towns and cities across the country. You can check out the full story here.

Now PETA India is expanding the campaign to other cities, and they’ve enlisted India’s A-list to help. They just sent this petition, featuring heavy-hitting Indian celebs like Dilip Kuman, Saira Banu, John Abraham, Raveena Tandon, and others, to Chief Ministers across the country, and hopefully we’ll be hearing more on this issue soon.

Way to go PETA India!

Update: Following the success of Alicia’s PSA, Sky News put together a wonderful retrospective of PETA’s many naked ads and protests over the past year. You can check out the picture gallery here.

The folks in Houston were severely deprived yesterday, when their cable provider decided at the last minute (literally) that it would pull Alicia Silverstone's super sexy new pro-vegetarianism ad, which had already been approved and paid for. Comcast Cable told us that they had banned the spot "because she is naked," despite the fact that the ad has already aired on numerous news programs worldwide. Besides, as PETA Vice President Dan Mathews pointed out in a staff meeting today, they showed Holly Hunter's naked ass on Saving Grace the other night, so, um, what's the problem here, Comcast?

We had picked Houston because it consistently ranks in the top ten least healthy cities in the country, so we figured they could use some good diet advice (honestly, who in their right mind would turn down friendly diet advice from the beautiful Alicia Silverstone?), but Houstonians need not despair. As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk puts it,

"Houston viewers can still go to PETA.org and get an eyeful, not only of the stunning Ms. Silverstone, but also of our free Vegetarian Starter Kit—chock full of delicious recipes—that will make them drool for an entirely different reason."

And finally, because I love it so much, here is the ad again. Alicia, you are gorgeous.

Alicia Silverstone’s Sexy Veggie PSA
Order a FREE vegetarian starter kit at GoVeg.com

OK, so not a bar exactly. Have you heard about the incredible shoplifting seagull from Aberdeen, Scotland? Apparently, the bird waits until the shopkeeper isn’t looking, then casually strolls into the store and grabs a bag of chips and takes off. Once outside, he rips the bag open and shares it with other birds. It’s become a daily occurrence and customers have actually begun paying the bird’s tab. Unreal.

Of course, here in Norfolk, the seagulls don’t have to resort to such shenanigans, as Ingrid Newkirk lives here. And, as evidenced by the industrial-sized bag of bird seed in the corner of her office, let me just say that the birds in these here parts are, umm, well fed.

It's Thursday, which means another slice of genius from the mind of Jeff Corriveau. For anyone not familiar with the campaign, this one is a reference to a little drug called Premarin, which, yes, is made with horse urine. And on that note, here's this week's Deflocked!

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

Hopefully everyone has checked out our new Animal Birth Control campaign by now, but if not, give it a peek. To promote it, we’re going to make some new stickers with the slogan “I love my [insert incredibly cute word to replace ‘mutt’ here].” We’ve all seen countless “I love my Golden Retriever” stickers, right? Well, that’s the idea, but instead of promoting a specific breed of dog, we’ll be promoting the best kind of dog in the world, the [insert incredibly cute word to replace ‘mutt’ here]!

One of the best things about working at PETA is that I get to share ideas with some of the most creative people I've ever met—the same people who came up with the iconic I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur campaign, and countless other initiatives that have fundamentally changed the way people view animal rights issues. But sometimes, just occasionally, when you get those people in a room together, they just can’t exactly nail it, and they have to ask for help. Well this is one of those times, so please help us.

Here’s our list of finalists. Please tell us which one you like best, and please add your own ideas to the mix. Have fun!

Mixter
Muttle
Mixhound
FusionDog
All-American Original
Custom Blend Canine
57 Special
Diamond in the Woof

Before I go on—if you had a comment that was published but disappeared from the site recently, please be assured that it's nothing personal. We had a small glitch in our blog software, which we're sorting out today.

And for the few people who submitted comments that never got published, sometimes our spam filter picks them up accidentally, so feel free to let me know if you don't see your comment after a couple of days (though, if you're one of those people who submit the ol' "People Eating Tasty Animals" joke as if it were still funny, I wouldn't bother).

In completely unrelated news, U.S. News and World Report just did a great piece about our new Colonel Sanders novelty pen—filled with blood-red ink in order to make a subtle point about KFC's bloody business. You can check the article out here.

And finally, in another total non sequitur, my good friend Holly just reminded me that today is the official Talk Like a Pirate Day, so please don't forget to, um, talk like a pirate. And if you need a little inspiration, check out our amazing Pirates of the Carob Bean video here, and see if you can guess which voices are me.

That is all.

I would comment on this, but I'm still pretty much speechless. It may be one of the greatest videos ever created. Check it out:

There are some more pics and info here.

Following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Bristol last week, PETA UK protesters took to the streets to remind shoppers that the solution to epidemics like foot and mouth, mad-cow disease, and bird flu is actually really, really simple. Go vegetarian. The pics are priceless.

Answers/Creative Commons

The words "poetic justice" spring to mind. If you missed the story, America's most notorious animal trainer, Jack Hanna, got stuck in an airport turnstile yesterday when he was trying to transport a flamingo in a crate like she was carry-on luggage. Hanna also had a leopard and a mongoose in tow, so the terrified animals had to sit there for God knows how long while firefighters worked to free the flamingo’s crate from the turnstile. Or as he put it:

"I was stuck like a worm. My eyes were as big as grapefruits. I can't describe the feeling in my stomach. I can't move up or down. The bars are on your face."

Boy, it must be really unpleasant to be stuck like that, Jack. I know it’s hard, but see if you can grind those mental gears just a little bit more and think about whether there might be something wrong with the fact that your entire career is based on putting animals through exactly the same kind of nightmare.

I know—those khaki pants and that corny sense of humor make Jack Hanna oh-so-likeable, but the bottom line is that he has a simply lousy track record when it comes to animals. It's abundantly clear from incidents like this one that the animals themselves aren't Hanna's first priority, since he clearly feels comfortable lugging them around in crates to be brought out and paraded around for people's amusement, and it shouldn't take a wildlife expert to figure out that this experience can be immensely stressful for the animals involved. You can click here for some more info about the tawdry exotic-pet trade, which Hanna helps to glamorize by pimping leopards and big snakes on TV.

For future reference, Jack, exotic animals don't belong in crates any more than they belong in a TV studio, no matter how much they pay you. Here's hoping that next time you end up behind bars, it's for good.

Chrissie Hynde and PETA VP Dan Mathews

Chrissie Hynde, who famously sang “My City Is Gone” in lament of the decay of her native Akron, OH, went home on Saturday to spearhead the revitalization of downtown by opening a trendy vegan eatery and bar called VegiTerranean.

Reflecting Hynde’s commitment to animal advocacy and vegan living, VegiTerranean’s gourmet menu will include no meat or animal products. Hynde wanted Akron to be part of the national trend toward meatless dining, and at nearly every stop of her recent concert tour, she visited vegan hotspots, including Sublime in Ft. Lauderdale and Veganopolis in Portland to make sure her menu features the most delectable veggie dishes possible. The eatery will have a modern, Italian flair, and will feature three distinct areas: a coffee bar, bakery and lounge.

Of course, Hynde arrived at the ribbon cutting ceremony on the back of a Harley—and wearing a waitress uniform, just like in her "Brass in Pocket" video. Outside the restaurant she passed out hors d'oeuvres, implored the crowd to consider going vegan, and gave a speech, along with Akron mayor Donald Plusquellic and PETA’s Dan Mathews.

Here’s a great story about the whole event. Weekend road trip to Akron, anyone?

Since we began preparations to launch our new initiative to fight animal overpopulation a little while ago, I've learned an awful lot about animal breeders—who positively swarmed to my recent entry about shelter animals in order to leave lengthy comments trying to dissuade readers from adopting. These folks came from online forums with descriptions like the following: "We discuss how to fight bills or laws negatively affecting pet ownership … Federal, state, local legislation, zoning, breed bans, mandatory spay and neuter, breeder registration, breeder licensing, breeding bans, etc." It became fairly evident to me that these people are going to fight any attempts to reduce animal overpopulation at pretty much every turn, but we're more than ready to get down into the trenches, and our new Animal Birth Control (ABC) Campaign is the first step in a long-term plan to help bring an end to animal homelessness.

Putting the breeders in their place is only one part of the battle here. We need to do everything we can to encourage people to spay and neuter their pets—which means extensive education campaigns and pushing for mandatory spay/neuter legislation—and ultimately, the choice lies with the pet guardians themselves, since anyone who decides to bring an animal into their homes has the opportunity to save a life instead of funding the breeders and the pet stores, who couldn't care less that they're a huge part of the problem in the first place. You can check out our new ABC video below, and there's more info on the campaign here.

Get the code
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For years, singer-songwriter Melissa Ferrick has worn her emotions on her sleeve, and used her music to draw attention to issues that are important to her. Well, now she’s speaking up for the millions of homeless animals killed in shelters each year in this stunning new ad promoting responsible animal guardianship. The shot may look familiar to die-hard Ferrick fans; she donated the cover of her 2006 release, In the Eyes of Strangers, for us to use in the ad.

Speaking out on important issues is nothing new for Ferrick, who is openly gay and talks about it in her songs. She burst onto the national scene after she was booked to open for longtime PETA pal Morrissey in the early '90s, and later started her own label, Right On Records. Ferrick is currently gearing up for a fall tour with alt-folk icon Ani DiFranco.

As if anyone needs another reason to not buy Australian wool, a damning new report about live export was just released. The report found, among other things, that on one recent voyage from Tasmania to the Middle East, many of the sheep loaded didn’t even meet the extremely low minimum export standards, that many sheep developed the condition “pink eye” during the voyage, and that about 1,600 out of the 75,000 sheep aboard died on the four week voyage.

The worst part is that the sheep who died en route may have been the lucky ones, as in the Muslim nations of North Africa and the Middle East, ritual slaughter is exempt from humane slaughter regulations. Some sheep are slaughtered en masse in lots, while others are taken home, often in the trunks of cars, and slaughtered individually by the purchasers.

If you need a little background info on the whole live export thing, click here. And please, if you haven’t done so already, join actor Joaquin Phoenix in pressuring Oz Ag Minister Peter McGauran to put an end to this horrible abuse.

Sometimes photos just speak for themselves, so I’m going to let this one do just that. Okay, just a few words first: Kudos to everyone at PETA Asia Pacific for putting together this demonstration at the Manila Zoo, in the Philippines. It really says it all about zoos in just a few words, don’t you think?

PETA India activists just held a protest outside Hotel Tunga Paradise, in a suburb of Mumbai, where a crab eating festival was taking place. My pal Nikunj told me that people were actually quite receptive, most never having thought of crabs as individuals who are capable of feeling pain when their legs are torn from their bodies in nets or when they’re thrown into scalding hot water while they are fully conscious.

One of my favorite things about PETA and its affiliates is that we don’t shy away from speaking up for even the most unpopular and least cute and cuddly animals, so a big “Woo Woo” to the peeps in India for stepping it up with this great demonstration.

nytimes/Creative Commons

After years of urging from PETA, the Alaska Zoo just announced that they will be sending Maggie, a 27-year-old African elephant, to the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in California! Maggie was captured in Zimbabwe in 1981 during a cull, and likely watched as her entire family was slaughtered. She has lived at the Alaska Zoo since 1983, and the last 10 years of captivity for this highly social animal have been solitary, after her only companion, an Asian elephant named Annabelle, died.

It's pretty much a no-brainer that elephants, who roam up to 30 miles a day, don't belong in zoos, and Anchorage, like most northern zoos, is far too cold for an elephant, meaning that she spends many months out of the year locked indoors.

You may remember that Maggie was in the news recently after a failed attempt by the zoo to provide her with a treadmill to give her exercise. Following this incident, and two subsequent collapses by Maggie due to failing health, attitudes from locals and the media changed, and more and more people began calling for her release to a sanctuary.

As PETA Director Debbie Leahy says,

“We applaud the Alaska Zoo for its compassionate decision to move Maggie to a warmer climate where she will be able to socialize with other elephants for the first time in 10 years. By taking action now, the zoo has ensured Maggie's future happiness and probably saved her life.”

The zoo plans to finalize the agreement with PAWS within two weeks, and hopefully she'll be headed to the sanctuary before winter. Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to make this happen!

PETA has donated $10,000 dollars toward Maggie’s long-term care—we hope she gets well soon.

It's that time again, folks, where we pick out one researcher from a pool of the most cold-hearted animal abusers in the business who has distinguished himself over his colleagues with an unswerving dedication to senseless cruelty and bad science. The voter turnout for last week was abysmal, since most commenters were so disgusted that they couldn't choose between the two candidates, but the show must go on—and last week's winner (by a hair) was UConn's David Waitzman, who got a last-minute boost in the voting after his sick practices were outed on the front page of his own University's newspaper.

Now it's time to reach for those barf bags and hit the ballots, because we've got a tight head-to-head battle this week between a cat-torturer and a man who has killed almost every kind of animal in his 30-year career. Drum roll, please …

Moshe Solomonow, UC Denver.

UCHSC/Creative Commons

Moshe's medium is cats, and his experiment of choice involves cutting open their backs down to their spinal cords in order to attach "S" hooks to their spinal ligaments. A whistleblower at the university recently contacted PETA to inform us that the drug the cats were being given as an anesthetic for these barbaric experiments did not appear to be effective and that the cats were still moving and struggling after the drug was administered. You can learn more about Moshe's lengthy career working with house cats here.

Thomas Langfitt, UPenn (deceased).

collphyphil/Creative Commons

When the Philadelphia College of Physicians announced their decision to endow a chair in honor of the notorious Thomas Langfitt this year, animal lovers everywhere were horrified. Mr. Langfitt spent three decades "studying" trauma by smashing the heads and bodies of live dogs, pigs, monkeys, and other animals, and ultimately had his funding cut off when he repeatedly delivered crippling blows to the heads of baboons at UPenn, following PETA's release of video footage taken by the experimenters themselves, in which they ridiculed the primates and appeared to take pleasure in inflicting pain on them. You can read our letter to the group here. Langfitt is dead now. Let's make sure his legacy dies with him.

That's all for now. Don't forget to vote, and stay tuned next week,* when we'll be talking about some folks who really don't like mice.

*The PETA Files cannot guarantee that they will remember to do this next week.

The Emmy Awards are coming up this Sunday, and there are a few nominees that we're going to be rooting for in particular here at PETA. It's a little cruel and unusual of FOX to put three hours of must-see television on, when they know that I will have just spent the entire day struggling through 12 different football games on NFL Sunday Ticket, but duty is duty, and I will be there for the awards. Here are the actors I'm going to be pulling for:

buddytv/Creative Commons

Alec Baldwin
Nominated for: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for 30 Rock
Alec has been an outspoken champion for animal rights throughout his career. PETA's slaughterhouse investigation video, Meet Your Meat, which Alec Baldwin narrated for us, has inspired thousands of people to stop eating animals.

Edie Falco
Nominated for: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for The Sopranos
Edie Falco narrated and stared in our anti-violence PSA, to remind people that cruelty to animals needs to be taken seriously—both for the animals' sake, and because it invariably leads to violence against humans.

Simon Cowell
Nominated for: Outstanding Reality-competition Program for American Idol
Simon Cowell has spoken out on a number of issues on behalf of animals. Most recently, he starred in our Hot Dog PSA, to raise awareness about the dangers of leaving dogs in hot cars, and he also did this beautiful ad to point out that if you like animals, you probably shouldn't frickin' wear them.

William Shatner
Nominated for: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Boston Legal
William Shatner, who has been amazing in Boston Legal the past few years, is a longtime PETA supporter. Among the many things Shatner has done to help animals, he wrote the introduction to Ingrid Newkirk's Making Kind Choices, and he also narrated our PSA about looking out for animals during natural disasters. The guy was also Captain Kirk, for God’s sake. He should get an Emmy by default.

People/Creative Commons

Katherine Heigl
Nominated for: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama for Grey's Anatomy
Katherine Heigl came through for us in a big way this year when she signed our petition to help cats and dogs in California via the Healthy Pets Act. (I would be remiss if I didn’t point out here that she is also just really astoundingly attractive.)

Bill Maher
Nominated for: Outstanding Variety, Music, or Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for Real Time With Bill Maher
In addition to being one of the funniest people in America, Bill Maher has worked with PETA on pretty much every animal issue there is. Here's one of my favorite ads with him:

Good luck at the Emmys, guys! And thanks for everything that you do for animals.

Talking about the cosmetics company here. e.l.f. Stands for "Eyes, Lips, Face," and these guys are pretty rad. In addition to selling 100 percent cruelty-free cosmetics, e.l.f. have teamed up with PETA for a promotion to help draw attention to our fur campaign. They made these handy little tweezers with a faux-leather case so that their customers can be "fur-free" too, and they also released the following statement:

"Millions of fur-bearing animals including foxes, raccoons, minks, coyotes, bobcats, beavers, muskrats, otters, and others are killed in the wild by excruciating beatings, strangling, and electrocutions. e.l.f. does not test on animals and supports PETA in the Fur Free campaign."

Thanks, folks. If I ever have occasion to wear makeup, e.l.f. will be the first place I look. My friend and colleague Mylie—who presumably knows a whole lot about makeup, since she spends the bulk of her salary every month on black lipstick—wants you to know that we're running a contest right now to win a prize pack from the company, which you can check out here.

I think it may be time for a Gladiator, Quills, and Walk the Line marathon this weekend, because two-time Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix has taken time away from promoting his upcoming films We Own the Night and Reservation Road to write to Australian Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran about the cruel treatment of sheep by the Australian wool industry.

Phoenix focused his letter on the two worst abuses sheep face in Australia: mulesing and live export. In case you’re not familiar with these two terms, here’s a quick explanation. Mulesing is a painful procedure in which gardening shears are used to cut skin and flesh from lambs' backsides without any painkillers. It is a crude and cheap effort to reduce maggot infestation, even though humane methods exist. Every year, millions of Australian sheep discarded by the wool industry are shipped to the Middle East and North Africa. They are crammed onto multi-tiered ships where they suffer amid the waste of thousands of other animals for weeks on end. Many suffer and die from smothering, starvation, heatstroke, injuries and disease. Each year, tens of thousands of animals die en route—almost 40,000 sheep died in 2005 alone.

Check out Phoenix’s full letter here, and join him in writing Peter McGauran here.

Time for your weekly dose of Deflocked!

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

My post on Breeders this week seems to have raised enough controversy that it merits a follow-up entry. I followed the comments on this one really closely, and it's pretty clear that there's some interesting stuff going on. PETA Files reader Kelly—who was the most outspoken representative of the forces of good in the comment war on that particular post—made this remark, which inspired me to get out my pipe and Sherlock Holmes hat and do a bit of investigative work:

"Would anyone like to know why the crackpot breeders have come out of the woodwork to come here and spread the usual propaganda about ‘reputable’ breeders? They are all madly messaging each other and emailing each other and exhorting each other on their forums to come here and spread the gospel and try to cover their butts."

Sure enough, when I looked into it, the page was getting some heavy traffic from breeder-focused message boards and sites, and an unusual amount of comments with the standard anti-animal propaganda that people copy and paste from meat-industry front groups when they have an axe to grind about an initiative that's designed to help animals. There was also the standard drivel about "responsible" breeders (as if such a thing existed). Which got me to thinking: What po$$ible rea$on could the$e breeder$ have for coming onto PETA’s blog by the dozen to try and di$courage people from adopting from a shelter? If anyone ha$ any idea$, I'd love to hear them. It'$ a total my$tery to me!

Anyway, by way of an answer to some of the legitimate questions about the campaign that appeared in the comments:

1) Sad as it is to see them there, buying an animal from a pet store just isn't a good way to help them. If you pay for that animal, not only is she going to be replaced right away with another one, but you're funding the pet store's practice with your purchase, and denying an adoptable animal at a shelter a chance at life at the same time.

2) I deliberately didn't draw a distinction between so-called "responsible" breeders and people who run puppy mills. Sure, some of these folks aren’t quite so cruel as the scumbags who torture animals in puppy mill-type operations, but the point here is that there is no excuse for breeding and selling animals when millions upon millions of them are being killed in shelters or suffering out on the streets.

That's it on breeders for now, but keep an eye out for some of the great new stuff we have coming up to expose this vicious little industry for what it is.

OK, so normally I don’t just post links to videos or whatever as the entire content of an entry, but this is the cutest thing I’ve seen in ages, save for that baby hedgehog on cuteoverlord the other day, so I just had to share it.

Alright, altogether now . . . Awwwwww.

WildAboutTheWorld/Creative Commons

The famous African Grey Parrot named Alex died late last week at Brandeis University outside of Boston. Alex knew English well enough to identify over 50 different objects, seven colors and numerous shapes by name. He could also count and was able to express desires, including, get this, his frustration with the repetitive research.

It’s being said that Alex’s advanced language and recognition skills revolutionized the understanding of the avian brain. Alex taught many people that yes, even birds have thoughts and feelings and preferences, and the ability to express them. And while that’s all well and good, the important thing to me is what we, as a society, do with that knowledge. We can’t acknowledge it when it’s convenient by ooohing and ahhhing because a bird can say “I love you,” without also accepting the responsibility that comes along with knowing that these animals each have a very real cognitive presence.

There are millions of birds suffering and dying for KFC and dying in Petsmart’s back rooms, all of whom are thinking and feeling and experiencing the world just like Alex did. They just don’t know how to express themselves in a way that we can understand. And if there’s one thing that we should have learned from Alex, it’s that we need to be open and “listen” to animals, even when they’re not speaking our language, because there’s a whole lot more going on inside their heads than we give them credit for.

Check out this great New York Times column from Verlyn Klinkenborg for his take on Alex.

The Mystery Meat photo series has been getting quite a bit of play online lately. The official name of the series is the “Meet Your Meat Photo Tour”, which is of course strikingly similar to our video Meet Your Meat. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, and the photographer came up with his catchy handle on his own. Totally.

Anyway, the idea of this photo thing is to show super close-ups of meat, and man, some of them are beyond gross. Check out this one, for instance. The fat streaks look particularly appetizing, especially the slug looking protrusion on the left side. It reminds me of the bloody, gooey mess that gets sucked out during liposuction, except that this is a picture of someone’s food. Yum.

Click for larger image

Also notice the brilliant KFC ad below the pic. They’ve really targeted their demographic well here, as anyone who would find these liposuction-soup-esque shots appealing probably wouldn’t mind eating at a joint that has reportedly served worms, human blood, cockroaches, and other disgusting things in its food.

Update: Phew! Where were all those comments coming from? Click here to find out.

PETA is ratcheting up our campaign against cat and dog breeders, and this beautiful billboard in New York is the first of a number of strong statements you can look for over the next few months designed to remind people that buying animals from breeders or pet stores when millions are dying in shelters is, simply put, irresponsible and cruel. Of course, the real villains here are the breeders themselves. Not only are these people directly contributing to the animal overpopulation epidemic in this country—they’re also making a tidy profit out of it (in case it’s not immediately clear, I don’t have an awful lot of sympathy for animal breeders). There’s some more information on this topic here, and I’ll keep you posted as this campaign progresses—we’ve got some great stuff on the way ...

About/Creative Commons

Last week, following a technical glitch on one of their planes, the folks at Nepal Airlines went ahead and sacrificed two goats on the runway to the god of sky protection in an utterly mind-boggling attempt at crisis management. I have a couple of thoughts about this from an animal rights perspective: Firstly, while the strangeness of this particular incident certainly drives home a point about the mindless cruelty of treating animals like objects, the fact is that it's no more senseless or cruel than some practices that are more familiar to us—like, say, shooting deer and gluing their heads to a wall (I'll pause here for a moment so that the 15 or so hunters who are apparently avid PETA Files readers can post comments about how their little shooting sprees are actually the best thing that ever happened to animals).

The second lesson to take home from this sad story is as follows: If you have any other choice of transport—be it plane, car, rowboat, whatever—think very seriously about these options before you buy that Nepal Airlines ticket. I won't pretend that I'm up to date on the latest techniques that they're pushing in flight school nowadays, but I can tell you with confidence that when your pilot tells you the plane has been fixed via goat sacrifice, it's time to panic.

You Howard Stern fans out there will appreciate this pic. Our sexy Fashion Police caught up with Howard's lovely girlfriend Beth Ostrosky at Fashion Week in New York last week. Beth said she was really glad to see that they were out there giving fashionistas the animals' side of the story.

The sudden loss of Dame Anita Roddick, who pioneered the sale of cruelty-free beauty products in her Body Shop stores in the '70s—declaring in letters a foot high, 'against animal tests'—has left us a bit shaken at the PETA offices today.

From the opening of her first Body Shop store in Brighton in 1974 to her decision last year to enter into a partnership with L'Oreal in order to show that company how easy it is to run a successful business without supporting unethical practices like animal experimentation, Anita Roddick never once compromised her stated goal of "putting idealism back on the agenda" or stopped for one moment in her quest to show by example that kindness not only has a role in a successful business but that it can be its driving force.

It is not an overstatement to say that Anita Roddick ushered animal rights into the mainstream with her work to show the strong demand for products not tested on animals. She was a courageous, progressive pioneer, who risked her business to be the first corporation to announce her staunch support for a ban on cosmetics and toiletries tests on animals. She will take her place in history as a woman who helped to bring a sense of social justice and ethical practices into the business world, but we will always remember her as a deeply compassionate soul who was a true friend to animals.

She will be greatly missed, and not the least by our Senior VP, Dan Mathews, for whom she once cooked a vegan breakfast! We are all profoundly indebted to the great strides she took to make the world a better place for humans and animals alike.

timeinc/Creative Commons

Grammy Award-winning hip hop artist Eve was in the news this week with a story about the fact that she's given up wearing her mink fur coat. Here's what she had to say about it:

"It's nothing to do with animal rights—it's just that I have moved on. I think people should be able to wear what they want and I hate that the PETA people throw blood or paint over people wearing fur. To me that's just rude and if anyone did that to me they'd better be tough because they'd have a fight on their hands."

Yeah, the quote didn't exactly inspire me, either, but hey, at least it's on her radar—and sometimes all it takes for someone to come around is a gentle nudge in the right direction. So we sent her this letter, along with a copy of Martha Stewart's fur exposé in the hopes that she'll figure out why it's actually not OK for people to "wear what they want" when there's live skinning or electrocution involved. I really do think there’s a good chance she’ll change her tune once she sees how fur coats are actually made. I'll definitely let you know if we get a response.

While we're on the topic, I figured this was as good a time as any to point out that PETA has actually never thrown red paint at fur-wearers. Pies, maybe, but never red paint. Just one of those urban legends, I guess.

Score one for freedom of speech in Finland! Remember the story of the Austrian activists who were arrested back in 2003 for going onto a Finnish fur farm to film the horrible conditions? The activists were beaten by the “farmer,” arrested and held for three days by police, and their legal struggle has been on-going for several years now.

Well, they were just found not guilty and are free. Here’s the full story. Congrats guys!

This story was being considered for a web feature, but I grabbed it for the blog because I found it to be incredibly moving. Please share Marcie’s story with your friends and family who still wear wool . . .

When a PETA member found Marcie languishing at a decrepit Colorado farm, she was sick, frightened, and going blind. She had been used as a breeding machine her entire life, and had endured the anguish of having all of her babies taken away as soon as they were born, sometimes even to be killed right in front of her.

After the farmer agreed to relinquish Marcie, she was taken to the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, a refuge for abused and neglected animals. There, for the first time in her life, Marcie knew kindness instead of cruelty. She was given wholesome and plentiful food and the veterinary care she so desperately needed. But Marcie, shell-shocked and traumatized by her past, never fully recovered.

Despite the best of care, the damage was done: Marcie lost her sight within a year of her rescue. She was terrified of people—it was a year before shelter staff could even touch her—so she sought comfort and security among the goats at the sanctuary. In an effort to “hide,” Marcie camouflaged herself in the resident goat herd, forging a fast friendship with her bovid cousins.

In her final years, Marcie found contentment and peace. But for millions of sheep farmed for their wool, there is no happy ending.

In Australia, where most of the world’s wool comes from, the misery for sheep begins when they are only weeks old. In a misguided attempt to prevent maggot infestation, or flystrike, farmers carve huge chunks of skin from the backsides of millions of lambs a year—without any pain relief—in a crude mutilation called mulesing.

For 200 years, Australian farmers have intentionally bred, and continue to breed, merino sheep who have extra wrinkly skin because more skin means more wool and more profits. This extra skin collects moisture, urine and feces and attracts blowflies which lay their eggs in the wrinkly folds of skin. The hatched maggots can eat the sheep alive. Rather than spend the extra time and money on effective and humane methods to prevent flystrike, many farmers choose to simply cut the wrinkly skin off from the backside of lambs because it is cheaper and easier than caring for them properly.

Shearing is also a painful, frightening ordeal. Shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, so they work as quickly as possible, leaving sheep bruised and bleeding. The untreated wounds can attract flies and become infected. Terrified sheep who don’t “cooperate” are often beaten and kicked into submission. When they are no longer profitable for their wool, Australian sheep are often shipped thousands of miles to the Middle East, where they are dragged off trucks by their ears and legs, kicked in the face, and have their throats slit while they are still conscious.

So, what can you do? Please, don’t ever buy any wool. Choose cotton, acrylic, polyester fleece, and other durable, stylish, and warm fabrics. Find sources of animal-friendly clothing at the PETA Mall and in our cruelty-free clothing guide. And click here for more ways to help.

For anyone who still has doubts about the power of the internet, check out this AP story about 14-year-old Amy Bareijan. Amy wanted to go vegetarian after watching Meet Your Meat on YouTube, so she posted her own video asking for people’s advice and personal experiences that may help her. The response was overwhelming, to say the least. Check out the story here.

The video that started it all:

Paul McCartney never misses an opportunity to help animals, and his latest video is no exception. The video, for his new single Nod Your Head, shows the former Beatle rocking PETA’s “Eat No Cow” T-shirt as a helpful reminder to people to stop eating animals.

Check it out!

Dave Warwak, an art teacher at Fox River Grove Middle School in Illinois (and, if I'm not mistaken, a regular commenter on this here blog), has been dismissed from his classroom by the school after teaching his students about factory farming and the other forms of animal abuse that made him go vegan. Apparently, the school's principal ordered Warwak to leave the classroom after he showed his students photos of animals in factory farms and gave them the book The Food Revolution by Pulitzer Prize-nominated author John Robbins.

Let me go over that again, real quick. An Illinois principal just kicked out a teacher for talking to his students about veganism. Does that disturb anyone else as much as it does me? You can read PETA's letter to the school here. Unbelievable.

In the meantime, keep fighting the good fight, Dave. We're all 100 percent behind you.

Time for your weekly glimpse into the seedy underbelly of the animal-experimentation industry! This Friday, we have two "scientists" going head to head for the coveted PETA Files "Vivisector of the Week"* award, granted to the most cold-hearted, unethical animal researcher in academia—with extra points awarded for sheer stupidity of the experiments. Swallow hard and get ready to be revolted, because here are the two contenders for this week's prize:

David Waitzman, UConn.

UCHC/Creative Commons

Waitzman's going to be tough to beat this week. His experiments are so hideous that he's recently been given a citation and fine from the USDA for violating the pathetically low standards required by the Animal Welfare Act. Let's see if we can make this a twofer for Mr. Waitzman, who likes to drill holes in monkeys' skulls and implant steel coils into their eyeballs. PETA is currently asking the feds to take back Waitzman's grant money in light of his USDA citations. The guy has already received more than $1.7 million in federal funds to conduct these experiments, which should make a lot of people more than a little upset.

George Fahey, UIUC.

UIUC/Creative Commons

George Fahey jumped onto the national stage this week with an article in The New York Times magazine describing his work surgically attaching tubes to live dogs' intestines for the benefit of the multi-million dollar pet-food industry. As the article points out, "With his academic status and independent financing, George Fahey’s research spares pet-food manufacturers the negative publicity they might attract if they ran their own experiments on surgically altered dogs." That selfless act alone deserves a big lick on the face from one of the grateful pet-food company execs, don't you think? Click here to read PETA's letter to UIUC's Chancellor suggesting that they look into an alternative to dog mutilation 'round about now.

Please cast your votes now, or if neither of these mad scientists does the trick for you, feel free to nominate a write-in candidate. See you next week!*

*The PETA Files cannot guarantee that they will remember to do this next week.

Hunting has been on the decline for years, and CNN just reported that the latest numbers are that it’s down another 10% over the last ten years. Hunting in the water, err, I mean fishing, is also down around 15%. And call me crazy, but I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that while hunting and fishing numbers are steadily on the decline, new federal data shows surging numbers of birdwatchers, wildlife photographers and other wildlife watchers. They increased from 62.8 million in 1996 to 71.1 million in 2006.

Of course, as the numbers of hunters and fishers decline, so does the money in state wildlife agencies’ coffers, since most of their revenue comes from hunting and fishing licenses. And of course hunters and the agencies themselves are quick to go into panic mode, saying that “conservation” will suffer if these agencies don’t receive the money from hunting licenses, when in reality the only “conservation” they actually pay for is breeding more animals for hunters to blast into oblivion. So, perhaps it’s time for a policy shift here. I think it makes much more sense that wild areas be paid for out of regular taxes, since they sustain the earth and they are vital to life itself. It should be free and encouraged to watch birds and appreciate nature, and our state wildlife agencies shouldn’t be begging people to go out and kill animals simply so they can stay in business.

Man, it really is a bad time to be a hunter. First, CNN reports these new declining numbers, then the news that hunting may put men’s hearts at risk.

And perhaps most disturbing is the recently released DMGDRO report on the link between hunting and, how shall I put this … diminutive male genitalia, which, now that I think about it, may explain Dick Cheney’s obsession with playing with really big guns . . .

Cynical-C Blog/Creative Commons

Scantily clad in sexy pleather uniforms, high-heeled boots, and police hats and holding signs that read, "Animal Skins Are a Fashion Felony," PETA's pair of sexy "fashion police" are taking New York fashion week by storm. They’re handing out violation notices resembling citation tickets to fur-, leather-, and wool-wearers for "violating the code of common decency." This dedicated duo is staking out the shows at Bryant Park and anywhere else suspected violators—including designers—gather. And get this, at their first outing yesterday, they even gave a citation to the notorious pelt pushing fur hag Anna Wintour.

Here are a few pics of their first outing.

Unfortunately, they weren’t able to get a shot of them ticketing Wintour, but I like this shot of the hag getting a pie in the face in Paris a couple of years ago better anyway . . .

And without further ado ... This week's Deflocked!

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

idv/Creative Commons

It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of PETA booster Luciano Pavarotti this morning. In addition to his legendary voice and his pioneering work bringing an appreciation for opera and classical music to millions of new people around the world, Pavarotti was known for his kindness, his compassion, and his philanthropic work, raising his voice on behalf of animals on many occasions throughout his life.

In 1998, Pavarotti lent his name and his considerable influence to PETA’s campaign to raise animal welfare standards in Taiwan—where scores of homeless dogs were rounded up by garbage collectors to be poisoned, electrocuted, drowned or slowly starved. The cruelty touched Pavarotti deeply, and, with his help, the campaign resulted in the first ever animal welfare law in that country, which has since passed progressive legislation banning circuses and prohibiting the export of exotic animals as pets. Pavarotti also raised his voice for animals who are electrocuted, gassed, and drowned in the fur industry, having signed another PETA petition against fur following one of his performances at� LaScala.

Pavarotti's great voice will be missed around the world, and at PETA, he will be particularly missed as a powerful voice for animals.

PETA's Marketing Department (myself included) is in love with Blog ads. Advertising your site or your campaign on a good blog with a sympathetic audience is a fantastic tool for getting your message out there. So we're all very excited about the contest we have running for people to create their own blog ad about one of PETA's websites for a chance to win a $500 Apple gift card.

Well, this was all fun and games until Amy Cook, the upstart writer for PETA's Veg Cooking blog, posted this incendiary little entry on her blog. You want war, Amy? You got it. But let me tell you a couple of things first: For a start, just because your last name is Cook doesn't mean you know how to cook. And more importantly, your daddy apparently didn't tell you that you NEVER bring a knife to a gun fight. Steppin' to Jack'izzle is like steppin' to death row, straight up.

Amy is asking people to enter PETA's contest by creating an ad for The Veg Cooking Files, or whatever her blog is called, so let me be the first one to step up with an example:

And now that we've gotten that out of the way, onto the big guns. Here's my sample blog ad for The PETA Files. Try and keep this one in mind when you enter the contest.

Well, that was quick! Here’s what she said on The View this morning:

"Let me really just reiterate this for everybody: I was not condoning nor was I saying I thought Michael Vick did anything right—I did not say that I thought he was good in what he did. … I watched the show on another network that is a sports show, and what I saw made me take a minute to think about what happened with this kid, because they were talking about the culture of dogfighting, and so I thought to myself—well, if you're raised in it, that may be a reason why you're acting the way you have been acting. So I went on to pose this as a discussion, and somehow—I don't know how this happened, if you read the papers today—I'm eating dogs, I'm swinging them by their tail. … I love my animals. I have cats. I've adopted cats from various shelters, but I also believe that if there's a problem out there that we can address by checking out where it stems from, that we need to take a look at this in this high-profile area so we can mark it for the future. That was my point, and I'm very, very sorry—PETA and I are very close and we’ve talked about it a lot.

Thanks for clearing that up, Whoopi, and keep up the great work. Your fans appreciate it.

Click here for an update

CityUniversity/Creative Commons

Whoopi Goldberg certainly didn't shy away from controversy on her first appearance on The View—she came right out and offered the following defense of Michael Vick:

"He's from the South, from the Deep South ... This is part of his cultural upbringing"

I have no idea where she got that one from, but I can tell her right now that there are an awful lot of people in the South who'd be pretty upset by the implication that electrocuting animals is somehow "part of their heritage." Or, as PETA President Ingrid Newkirk put it in the letter she wrote to Whoopi yesterday,

"Those who fight dogs do so in New York, Chicago and even the Republic of Ireland, and what unites them is lawlessness and callousness, not whether they eat grits or Belgian waffles for breakfast."

Michael Vick needs a lot of things right now—some serious counseling for a start—but he doesn't need anyone to give him lame excuses for his decision to torture dogs for pleasure and profit. He needs to face that horrible fact all by himself.

Ingrid spoke with Whoopi on the phone last night after she received the letter, since Goldberg actually has a good track record with animals outside of this incident, and Whoopi explained that she had never intended to appear accepting of cruelty. Let’s hope she makes up for it with some positive comments about animals on The View after this rocky start.

For readers who may be unfamiliar with the British vernacular, a "21 bum salute" is a charming, classically understated English way of saying "Hey chaps, we respectfully disagree with your actions. Any chance you might reconsider?" By way of an example, here's a pic from PETA UK's recent protest against the Queen's Guards' use of bearskin hats. Note the lovingly painted Union Jacks and the looming rainclouds in the background. Makes me proud to be British.

You can read more about the protest in this weekend’s Sun.

At a weekend religious youth rally in Italy, Pope Benedict XVI told the more than 500,000 attendees that young Catholics should take the lead in the fight to save the earth. Check out what he said, “Before it's too late, we need to make courageous choices that will recreate a strong alliance between man and Earth … We need a decisive 'yes' to care for creation and a strong commitment to reverse those trends that risk making the situation of decay irreversible.” Amen to that.

Makes this ad even more apropos, eh?

Last week, handbag company Hogan found themselves in a bit of an awkward spot after releasing promotional materials proclaiming that they had named a new pony-skin handbag "The Chrissie," after Pretenders singer and anti-leather crusader Chrissie Hynde. The folks at Hogan are backpedaling furiously, but Chrissie Hynde is not pleased about the situation in the least. You can read the letter she sent them this morning here.

In other Chrissie news, if you have a moment, you should definitely check out this article in The Miami Herald about how a badass like Chrissie Hynde deals with those endless nonsensical questions vegetarians often get from die-hard meat-eaters about their diet choice. Priceless.

Who the hell sends their friends Labor Day cards? Well, we do, I guess. For some reason I feel duty-bound to post PETA's official "Labor Day E-Card" for your edification and viewing enjoyment. After all, we did go to all the trouble of making it back in the day. I'd just like to point out that this one was made before they put ol' Jack in charge of making e-cards for PETA. If it puts you in the mood for some Jacktastic e-card action, you may want to check out last year's Santa Got Run Over by His Reindeer e-card. It's a classic, and, well, Christmas is right around the corner …

Anyway, Happy Labor Day. For reals. Now get to work surprising and confusing your friends by sending them their very own PETA Labor Day e-card!

In the wake of last week’s news about Spain banning bullfights from national TV comes this story from The Guardian about a man being gored to death while participating in a bull run. 30-year-old Jose Antonio Vaquero was tossed around on a bull’s horns while other runners tried to distract the animal, but apparently it was too little too late.

Sadly, this kind of thing is par for the course when it comes to bull runs and bullfighting, and is another reason for Spain to step into the 21st century and ban the cruel bloodsport once and for all.

About seven years ago, PetSmart CEO Phillip Francis made a commitment not to sell rabbits in PetSmart stores because of the high numbers of bunnies who are dumped in shelters after the novelty of an impulse purchase wears off. "Our brand name stands for ethics, quality, health and good care for animals and we're always willing to forego the short run marginal sale because our standards are higher and our ethics are little bit better," he said. Well, either that was an empty promise or else PetSmart Corporate decided it was a good business decision to lower their ethical standards in the intervening years, since the company has announced that it will start selling rabbits in its stores, despite the thousands of rabbits who are abandoned to die in shelters every year.

As you probably know, we're pretty unhappy with the company as it is, based on their lousy record of animal care and their refusal to stop selling animals in the first place. So we sent our own bunny to sort them out. Check out the pics below, and an article about the protest here. And you can write to PetSmart about this issue at http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/petsmart_rabbit_cruelty.

N.B. Please note that I was able to avoid using the phrase "hopping mad" throughout this entire post. I feel like I deserve some credit for showing such considerable restraint.