How This Selfie Might Change Everything

Posted September 24, 2015 by Kim Johnson

A few years ago in Indonesia, a photographer left his camera unattended. That was tempting for a curious crested black macaque named Naruto, who grabbed the camera and began taking photographs—some of the forest floor, some of other macaques, and several of himself, one of which resulted in the now-famous “monkey selfie.”

Acting as Naruto’s legal representative (aka “next friend”), PETA has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. federal court in San Francisco against the owner of the camera, photographer David J. Slater, and his company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd., both of which claim copyright ownership of the photos that Naruto took. Also named as a defendant is the San Francisco–based publishing company Blurb, Inc., which published a collection of Slater’s photographs, including two selfies taken by Naruto.

The lawsuit seeks to have Naruto declared the “author” and owner of his photograph. U.S. copyright law doesn’t prohibit an animal from owning a copyright, and since Naruto took the photo, he should own the copyright, as any human would.

If this lawsuit succeeds, it would be the first time that, instead of being considered a piece of property, a nonhuman animal is declared the owner of property (in this case, the copyright of the “monkey selfie”). It would also be the first time that a right is extended to a nonhuman animal beyond just the mere basic necessities of food, shelter, water, and veterinary care. It’s about time!

PETA is also asking the court to allow us to donate all the proceeds from sales of the “monkey selfie” for the benefit of Naruto and his community, without compensation to PETA.

Animals deserve to have appropriate rights of their own and should not be exploited by humans. 

We think Naruto should have the rights to his photo. What do you think? Share this story, and let us know in the comments! 

Read more: http://www.peta2.com/blog/monkey-selfie-lawsuit/#ixzz3mlTIGYB6

How Circus Training and Abuse Killed These Baby Elephants

Posted September 22, 2015 by Kim Johnson

The first step in training baby elephants to perform is to destroy the bond between them and their mothers. To do this, Ringling Bros. trainers drag the babies away from their mothers. For up to 23 hours a day, the babies’ legs are tethered so that all they can do is stand in one spot on a concrete floor. They aren’t provided with any mental or physical stimulation, and they can’t lie down, stretch their legs, or even turn around.

After up to six long months of standing in their own waste, these once curious and energetic elephants lose all interest in fighting back. Their spirits are broken. Now, they’re under the control of the trainers, who begin forcing them to do confusing and painful tricks through the use of violence and fear. This type of “training” and abuse is what killed these elephants:

Riccardo

Riccardo’s life began inside Ringling’s misleadingly named breeding facility, the Center for Elephant Conservation. After Riccardo’s mother, Shirley, gave birth—while she was chained by three legs—she made several desperate attempts to reach out and care for her newborn, but instead of allowing mother and baby to bond, Ringling’s trainers pulled Riccardo away.

When Riccardo was only 8 months old, he fell off a pedestal and broke his hind legs. Ringling trainers originally claimed that he had fallen while he was playing, but it was later revealed in court that Riccardo actually fell while he was being trained to get on the pedestal. His trainer admitted that he was holding a bullhook and that a rope was tied around Riccardo’s trunk when the baby elephant toppled over. The damage to Riccardo’s legs could not be treated, and veterinarians euthanized him. 

Kenny

Kenny was just 3 years old when he died. In the wild, he would still be at his mother’s side, but in the circus, Kenny had to spend much of his time traveling around the country inside a cramped boxcar. One day in 1998, Kenny was reportedly very sick, but trainers still forced him to perform in two shows. 

According to the circus’s animal-care log, Kenny was “not eating or drinking.” He also was “bleeding from his rectum … had a hard time standing, was very shaky, walked very slowly,” and “passed a large amount of blood from his rectum.” Later that night, he died alone in his stall. 

Benjamin

Just a year after Kenny’s death, Benjamin died while he was traveling with Ringling. During a stop in Texas, he went swimming in a pond with another young elephant named Shirley (who would later give birth to Riccardo, mentioned above). When the elephants’ trainer commanded them to exit the pond, Shirley obeyed immediately, but being a young and curious elephant, Benjamin continued to splash and play in the water, ignoring the trainer’s commands.

The trainer then grabbed his bullhook and went into the water after Benjamin. Likely out of fear of the trainer and the bullhook, Benjamin moved away into deeper water and drowned. 

Bertha

In 2005, an 11-day-old elephant named Bertha reportedly died. The circus did not announce her birth or death.

What You Can Do

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has announced that it plans to phase out the use of elephants in its performances by 2018. While this is a great victory it is not enough. For the next three years, elephants with Ringling will still be chained, hit with bullhooks,and crammed into tiny boxcars. Many of the elephants suffer from painful arthritis or carry tuberculosis, and their retirement day needs to come now.

Three years is too long for a mother elephant separated from her calf, too long for a baby elephant beaten with bullhooks, and too long for an animal who would roam up to 30 miles a day in the wild but who is instead kept in shackles.

Never go to a circus that uses animals! Continue to speak up for animals abused by Ringling, and urge the circus to retire the elephants NOW.

Read more: http://www.peta2.com/blog/ringling-baby-elephant-training-deaths/#ixzz3mVvHRDhO

Why Animal Testing Is Bad

Written by: Hannah Easley

Let's see why animal testing is so horrible. This article will give you the full insight of what 

it's actually like for these animals to be tested on for our use. 

Written by PETA | May 11, 2011

Top Five Reasons to Stop Animal Testing

Poisoning, shocking, burning, and killing animals is all in a day’s work for vivisectors. If these atrocious acts were committed outside laboratories, they would be felonies. But animals suffer and die every day in laboratories with little or no protection from cruelty. Here are the top five reasons why it needs to stop:

1. It’s unethical to sentence 100 million thinking, feeling animals to life in a laboratory cage and intentionally cause them pain, loneliness, and fear.
2. It’s bad science. The Food and Drug Administration reports that 92 out of every 100 drugs that pass animal tests fail in humans.
3. It’s wasteful. Animal experiments prolong the suffering of people waiting for effective cures by misleading experimenters and squandering precious money, time, and resources that could have been spent on human-relevant research.
4. It’s archaic. Forward-thinking scientists have developed humane, modern, and effective non-animal research methods, including human-based microdosing, in vitrotechnology, human-patient simulators, and sophisticated computer modeling, that are cheaper, faster, and more accurate than animal tests.
5. The world doesn’t need another eyeliner, hand soap, food ingredient, drug forerectile dysfunction, or pesticide so badly that it should come at the expense of animals’ lives.

For everyday ways to keep animals out of cruel experiments, see PETA’s list of surprising ways to help animals in laboratories.    -PETA

That wasn't enough for you? Well how about some videos to show real proof of what these animals go through. 

And we will never forget this video of a girl who went to the extreme to stand up for animals.

You must be thinking.. wow. But that is just the beginning, but it can also be the end. 

KEEP FIGHTING to end animal testing FOR GOOD and let these animals have some peace at night.  

Besides, take it from Norman Reedus - 

  - Link to picture

The Truth About Animal Actors

Posted August 12, 2015 by Grace Woodward

A lot of people strive for their 15 minutes of fame. Unfortunately, animals who are forced to work in the entertainment industry have no say in the matter. Animals aren’t treated like rock stars when they’re famous, either. Instead, they face lives of abuse and confinement.

Primates, elephants, bears, big cats, and other wild animals used for film and television productions are born in captivity and typically taken away from their mothers at birth so that they become dependent on humans for survival. These animals are often abused and mistreated in order to get them to do exactly what their trainers want them to do on set, where time is money.

Wild-animal “performers” are sometimes subjected to abusive training methods like beatings,electric prods, psychological torment, and food deprivation so that they’ll perform on cue. When they reach adulthood and are no longer easily dominated, many animals are discarded at roadside zoos or other substandard facilities. Lions and tigers may even end up at “canned hunt” facilities, and sometimes they’re killed for their skin and organs.

Chimpanzees and other great apes used for film reach adolescence at around 7 or 8 years old, when they become aggressive and dangerous to work with. At that point, they’re discarded by trainers and may languish for decades in tiny cages at roadside zoos, sometimes isolated from other primates. For example, Chubbs, the chimpanzee who appeared in the Tim Burton film Planet of the Apes, currently lives in a decrepit roadside zoo in Texas called Amarillo Wildlife Refuge. PETA found him living in a filthy cage, surviving on dog food and rotten produce. We wrote to Burton and asked him to fund Chubbs’ release, but he didn’t respond. While people can lead lavish lives of luxury from making films, the animals they’re responsible for exploiting are cast off and forgotten.

Domesticated animals can suffer behind the scenes, also, and may even be killed during filming.

Twenty-seven animals died during the production of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Many whistle-blowers raised concerns not just once but repeatedly to both the film’s head wrangler and the head of production about unsafe housing conditions for animals, but their concerns were apparently ignored.

Most of the injuries and deaths occurred where the animals were housed. Goats and sheep died from worm infestations and from falling into sinkholes, two horses went over steep embankments and died, and another horse died after being placed in a paddock with other high-strung horses.  Numerous chickens were also killed by unsupervised dogs or trampled by other animals when left unprotected.

The American Humane Association (AHA), which is funded in part by the Screen Actors Guild, does not look after the animals’ living conditions off set or monitor animal treatment during pre-production and training. AHA ratings are based only on the short period of time when animals are on the set—they don’t reveal anything about how the animals were trained or the conditions in which they live. So the next time you see the label “no animals were harmed” in a film or TV series, you’ll know what that REALLY means.

In 2012, HBO cancelled its series Luck after horses were reportedly injured and killed during filming. Marc’s Shadow, pictured above, collapsed on set after severely fracturing a leg bone and was subsequently euthanized.

Today’s technology can save animals from a lifetime of misery by replacing them in films, TV shows, and commercials with animation or computer-generated imagery.

What You Can Do

When you see live animals on screen, think about what they experienced before and after their debut. Never buy tickets to see a film that uses live animals, and encourage your friends and family to do the same. Animals are NOT OURS to use for entertainment.

Read more: http://www.peta2.com/blog/animals-in-tv-film-cruelty/#ixzz3iifxbJ3Y

Where Do Captive Animals Go After They've Been Freed?

Posted July 22, 2015 by Lily Trahan

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware of all the awful things that SeaWorld does to the animals it holds captive. But it isn’t just SeaWorld—other marine parks as well as aquariums and zoos treat animals terribly, too!

NO species exists just to be locked up, whether animals are born into captivity or not, plain and simple. All living beings—human or not—deserve to be left alone so that they can fully enjoy life in their natural habitats with their families. Facilities like zoos and aquariums rob animals of these opportunities and everything that’s natural and important to them, which is why it’s crucial to speak out and call on these businesses to free suffering animals.

Now, people sometimes question what would happen to animals after they’ve been freed and if it’s even possible for them to survive. Well, we have the answers:

Where would these animals go?

If animals were released from these types of facilities, they could be sent to true sanctuaries where they’d be able to live in an appropriate habitat. They’d receive care and support while still being able to enjoy what’s natural and important to them. Most importantly, they’d no longer be treated as nothing more than a way to make money.

Do places like aquariums and zoos help with conservation?

If animals are taken from the wild and placed or bred into captivity, they virtually never return to their natural habitat. Zoos and aquariums help little with funding conservation efforts and have very limited breeding programs designed to release animals back into the natural world. Studies show that keeping animals in captivity actually harms conservation efforts.

What about protecting animals from hunters?

Places like zoos and aquariums serve only as a band-aid for animals at risk because of hunting. We need to get rid of the problem at the source, which is to end sport hunting first.

“Canned hunting” ranches often buy unwanted or surplus animals from zoos.

Are these places educational?

Sadly, no. If we truly want to learn about animals and their abilities, it’s best to view them in their natural habitats. This is the only way to see what they’re fully capable of. There’s nothing natural about watching animals behind bars, in inadequate conditions, or without family members to interact with—which is important for social animals.

Can they survive in the wild if they were born into captivity?

Usually not, but they can thrive in sanctuaries!

Iris the monkey goes from living in filthy isolation, to enjoying an island paradise at a sanctuary

Seventeen bears had been held captive in virtually barren concrete pits at Black Forest Bear Park in Helen, Georgia, but now they are living it up at the stunning 60-acre natural habitat at The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg, Colorado.

Read more: http://www.peta2.com/blog/where-captive-animals-released/#ixzz3hD33CzTW