August 1, 2015 The Austin, Texas, City Council has voted 10-1 to ban the use of bullhooks, and the ban will go into effect in October 2016. Bullhooks—heavy batons with a sharp metal hook on the end—are used to beat elephants who are forced to perform in Ringling Bros. circus, among other circuses.
August 1, 2015 Oh behalf of Washington, D.C., resident Melanie Sloan and others, PETA Foundation lawyers have filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia against UniverSoul Circus alleging a campaign of deceit aimed at hoodwinking compassionate people into supporting and perpetuating the abuse of animals.
Betty Crocker’s old website wasn’t too helpful on the subject of vegan baking, including egg substitutes. We talked with parent company General Mills, and it added a new vegan section to the site, which includes several delicious recipes. In addition, the egg-substitute FAQ page was updated to make it clear that “[t]here are many great … Read more »
After talks with PETA, Kroger’s 2015 Sustainability Report described progress on reducing dehorning among its dairy suppliers, saying that “several leading dairy farms that Kroger sources from are integrating a significant portion of polled bulls into their herds.” The report also states that the company “is encouraging this transition as increased acceptance of this practice … Read more »
July 1, 2015 A coalition including PETA, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Orca Network, and Orca Network Director Howard Garrett hit the Miami Seaquarium with a lawsuit contending that the facility’s imprisonment of Lolita the suffering orca—who’s currently being held without the company of any others of her kind in a cramped tank with no … Read more »
July 1, 2015 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has sided with PETA and denied Mitchel Kalmanson’s application to import six endangered tigers from Mexico. The tigers will be spared abuse at Kalmanson’s hands, which was going on even as the FWS was considering his application.
July 1, 2015 After learning that the owner of four bears was planning to give them away, PETA stepped in and arranged for them to be transferred to a sanctuary. These bears had not left their tiny, decrepit cages since at least 1995, when the roadside zoo where they were being held captive closed its … Read more »
July 1, 2015 Barilla, the largest pasta company in the world, issued a new policy banning all animal testing for its products and ingredients after being contacted by PETA about the company’s published studies detailing cruel experiments on rats in order to evaluate potential health claims about wheat. After PETA explained the experiments’ irrelevance to … Read more »
June 23, 2015 Notorious roadside zoo Big Cats of Serenity Springs (BCSS) was been hit with a complaint from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and may soon face legal consequences for its long history of Animal Welfare Act citations, many of which were issued during inspections prompted by PETA complaints. The violations alleged in … Read more »
Following an appeal by PETA, Kentucky’s attorney general ruled that the University of Kentucky violated the Kentucky Open Records Act by refusing to provide PETA with records related to its use of animals in classroom laboratories and training exercises. The university must now provide PETA with protocols describing classroom experiments on animals, which PETA will … Read more »
Following years of urging from PETA, the Miami-Dade school district—the fourth-largest district in the United States—has made the compassionate decision to ban cat dissection across all schools. PETA met with the school board, provided teachers with training in computer-based virtual dissections, and donated interactive cat-anatomy software for use throughout the district.
After engaging with PETA, Chipotle revised its Pasture Dairy Quality Guidelines to emphasize its preference for polled (hornless) cattle as a means to reduce dehorning. The company also reported progress on this front with two of its primary dairy providers.
