Every day, peta2 is building a kinder world for animals, but we couldn’t do it without YOU. When you, your friends, and your family make compassionate choices, share PETA’s investigations on social media, sign petitions, and mail letters to companies, it helps stop animal abuse.
We accomplished A LOT for animals this past year, but sometimes we need to call in some extra help. Here are 12 of the worst instances of animal abuse in 2016 that we can still do something about—so let’s get loud for animals and STOP this cruelty!
Conscious Cows Stabbed in the Spine for Kosher Meat
Terms like “shackle and hoist” and “devil’s fork” sound like they should be in a horror movie—and that’s pretty much what this eyewitness investigation of kosher slaughter in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay looks like.
Representatives of the office of the chief rabbi of Israel (which has the power to decide what qualifies as “kosher”) have shockingly defended beef produced using the “shackle and hoist” method—which also employs electric prods, sharp nose-hooks, and a spike called a “puntilla”—reportedly saying that “gratuitous cruelty” does not “disqualify the meat” as kosher. Kosher slaughter is intended to minimize the animals’ suffering, not increase it!
Help end this NOW by urging Israeli authorities to ban imports from slaughterhouses that use the “shackle and hoist” method.
Restaurants Hack Apart and Serve LIVE Octopuses and Other Animals
As if slaughtering animals for food weren’t cruel enough, several restaurants in New York and California are taking it a step further by mutilating live animals and serving their severed body parts to customers. Octopuses’ limbs are cut off or they’re slowly steamed alive in boiling hot pots at the table.
Live shrimps’ and lobsters’ tails are ripped or cut off and served on a plate right next to their mutilated but still living bodies, while some shrimps’ exoskeletons—the hard, protective outer layer of their bodies—are torn off so that diners can bite right into their flesh.
This disgusting cruelty needs to end. Urge legislators in California and New York to introduce laws that’ll stop restaurants from mutilating and serving live animals.
More Proof the Wool Industry Is Heartless
An eyewitness investigation of two Chilean wool farms found massive suffering—including sheep who were kicked, shoved, and stomped on by workers and lambs who tried to get back to their moms after being separated from them.
Workers stabbed fully conscious animals in the neck, and video footage shows that one sheep was skinned alive.
Urge Chilean officials to prosecute workers who cut into the necks of fully conscious sheep—without doing anything to minimize their pain—in apparent violation of Chile’s animal-protection law.
Geese Plucked Alive and Tossed Aside Bloody and Raw for Down Feathers
In 2012, after PETA released footage of live plucking—a process in which live geese are pinned down by workers who violently rip out their feathers to be used for down products—many companies claimed to use only “responsible down” from birds who weren’t live-plucked. But a look inside Chinese farms in 2016 shows that nothing has changed.
Workers at these farms—which were linked to suppliers using so-called “responsible down”—were documented standing on the birds’ delicate wings, grabbing them by the neck, and painfully ripping feathers out of the fully conscious birds, sometimes leaving bloody wounds.
Tell retailers like Hollander Sleep Products, Eddie Bauer, and Lands’ End to ditch down NOW.
Dogs Bred to Suffer and Waste Away in Labs
Video footage obtained by PETA shows suffering dogs who were being used in muscular dystrophy experiments at Texas A&M University. Such dogs sometimes end up crippled before they’re even 6 months old. Kept in cold steel cages, they were denied a comfortable bed or even a blanket.
As a result of the disease, such dogs’ muscles waste away and their tongues become so severely enlarged that they can easily choke and die. They’ll eventually die or be killed without ever knowing the warmth of a loving home and family that all dogs want and deserve.
Give animals a voice by telling Texas A&M to stop experimenting on these dogs and release them for adoption into good homes!
Sick Horse Neglected and Shot at University
Tina, a horse who had been exploited by the racing industry, was used in Texas A&M University–Commerce’s agricultural equine program. During this time, she suffered from serious hoof injuries, and an equine practitioner stated in the school’s investigative report that her injuries caused her “debilitating pain.” Despite this, she was bred and used in the program, which the report called a “severe violation of veterinary care standards.”
When Tina was five months pregnant, the school’s farm manager shot her in the head. Her unborn baby was then cut out of her body and used by the school’s equine reproduction course.
Take action NOW by telling Texas A&M University–Commerce to stop abusing horses and selling them for slaughter.
Animals Allegedly Gassed at University
A whistleblower contacted PETA about Tel Aviv University’s I. Meier Segals Garden for Zoological Research, where mice, rats, and other small animals are allegedly housed in deplorable conditions and suffer from constant neglect. One animal had a bone-deep wound on his leg, and a very thin gerbil who struggled to breathe had an open wound on his scalp—neither animal received any veterinary care.
Even though mice and rats are small, they’re social, intelligent animals who feel pain, fear, and other emotions. Their suffering shouldn’t be ignored!
Tell Tel Aviv University to stop abusing animals.
Lizards, Turtles, and Frogs Suffer and Die for Pet Stores
At Reptiles by Mack, a supplier for PetSmart, PETA’s observers saw animals who had been shipped from around the world in cramped improvised containers stuffed into filthy, crowded plastic bins. Sick and injured animals were denied veterinary care. And animals were cruelly killed by being gassed inside small bags or even frozen to death.
Investigation after investigation of PetSmart suppliers has revealed factory-farm conditions, including filth, severe crowding, deprivation, neglect, cruelty, and prolonged, agonizing death. Yet the company continues to buy animals from mills like this one.
Tell PetSmart that you won’t buy anything—not even supplies for your beloved animal companions—from its stores or website until it stops selling all animals.
Hermit Suffering in PetSmart and Petco Supplier Facility
A self-proclaimed PetSmart and Petco supplier was found to be warehousing and storing animals in deplorable conditions. Stolen from the wild, thousands of hermit crabs were dumped into pens so crowded that many were buried beneath piles of other crabs and unable to eat or drink.
Deprived of everything that’s natural and important to them, the animals’ shells were cracked open with a manual lever press. The vulnerable crabs were forced into brightly painted shells—which can be toxic to them—and shipped off to be sold to tourists. Hundreds of gentle hermit crabs died every single day.
Let PetSmart and Petco know that you will NEVER shop there until they end all animal sales.
Tri-State Zoo Refuses to Retire Animals to Reputable Sanctuaries
Recent footage from Tri-State Zoological Park, a roadside zoo in Cumberland, Maryland, showed filthy water bowls, a lion who appeared emaciated, and a pig who had red, flaky skin and irritated eyes. Tigers were confined to cages with disgusting, murky pools, and a capuchin monkey kept in solitary confinement was pulling out his own hair, likely out of sheer frustration.
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that Tri-State had violated the federal Animal Welfare Act and it suspended the facility’s license for 45 days. Last year, the agency issued an official warning to Tri-State, yet the citations continue to pile up.
Urge Tri-State to retire the animals to reputable sanctuaries NOW.
Young Ostriches Butchered for ‘Luxury’ Bags
In February 2016, PETA released never-before-seen footage from inside the largest ostrich-slaughter companies in the world.
In South Africa, PETA investigators saw workers force terrified ostriches into stun boxes—causing many to slip and fall—and then slit their throats. The birds next in line watched helplessly as their flockmates were killed right in front of them. These slaughterhouses supply ostrich skins to Hermès, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and other top European fashion houses.
Sign our petition asking Hermès and Prada to remove ostrich and other exotic skins from their collections ASAP.
Spain Is Teaching KIDS to Murder Baby Bulls
Spanish bullfighting schools—which receive government funding, —are teaching kids as young as 14 to entertain a crowd by torturing and killing bulls. Some of the calves used are so young that they aren’t even weaned off their mother’s milk. Not only is this cruel, it is also in blatant disregard for international laws set by the United Nations that are aimed at protecting children.
A video from the Spanish Animalist Party Against Mistreatment of Animals shows an apprentice bullfighter attacking a baby bull by stabbing him repeatedly while he pants in fear and exhaustion—until he collapses and is stabbed in the neck. The baby bull is apparently still conscious but can do nothing except lie there as the teen slices off his ears as a trophy.
Tell Spain to respect the rights of children and animals by shutting down bullfighting schools NOW.
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