PETA Vs Sea World

Court: Chimpanzees Are Legal Persons

NPR reports:

A New York judge has granted two research chimps the writ of habeas corpus – a move that allows them to challenge their detention. The decision, says Science magazine, effectively recognizes chimps as legal persons, marking the first time in U.S. history that an animal has been given that right. The order, dated April 20, requires Stony Brook University to appear in court and provide a legally sufficient reason for keeping the two chimps, Hercules and Leo. A hearing is scheduled for May 6.

The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), the group that filed the case on behalf of the chimps, said in a statement it believed the Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe's order "implicitly determined that Hercules and Leo are 'persons.'" But Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University who opposes personhood for animals, told Science, "It would be quite surprising if the judge intended to make a momentous substantive finding that chimpanzees are legal persons if the judge has not yet heard the other side's arguments."

Read more at Science.

Ringling Bros: No More Elephants

Via the Associated Press:

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is ending its iconic elephant acts. The circus' parent company, Feld Entertainment, told The Associated Press exclusively that the acts will be phased out by 2018. Growing public concern about how the animals are treated led to the decision. The circus plans to phase out elephant acts by 2018. Feld's 43 elephants will live at the company's 200-acre Center for Elephant Conservation in central Florida. Twenty-nine animals are already there, and the other 14 will arrive as they are phased out from the circus. Elephant acts have been showcased by Ringling for more than a century and have often been featured in its posters. The decision is being announced Thursday.

UPDATE: PETA president Ingrid Newkirk reacts.

ARGENTINA: Court Grants Some Legal Rights To Orangutan Living In Zoo

Via the BBC:

A court in Argentina has ruled that a shy orangutan who spent the last 20 years in a zoo can be granted some legal rights enjoyed by humans. Lawyers had appealed to free Sandra from the Buenos Aires zoo by arguing that although not human, she should be given legal rights. They had argued that she was being illegally detained. If there is no appeal, the ape will be transferred to a sanctuary in Brazil where she will enjoy greater freedom. The singular case hung on whether the animal was a "thing" or a "person". In December a New York State court threw out a request to free a privately owned chimpanzee arguing that the animal was property and had no legal rights.

A local animal rights activist reacts: "This opens the way not only for other Great Apes, but also for other sentient beings which are unfairly and arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in zoos, circuses, water parks and scientific laboratories."

PETA Vs Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

PETA will protest Sea World's participation in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with a naked demonstration outside the flagship store.

Demonstrators wearing nothing but black and white body paint to resemble orcas will squeeze into a bathtub outside the midtown Manhattan store on Thursday to mimic orcas held in captivity and to repeat last year's demand - which was denied - that the float be excluded, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said. "It is unacceptable to confine orcas to barren tanks that, to them, are the size of a bathtub," said Delcianna Winders, PETA's deputy general counsel. The naked protest in temperatures predicted to hover just above freezing rides a wave of controversy surrounding SeaWorld after the 2013 documentary film "Blackfish" alleged the park mishandled the huge sea mammals. The marine theme park uses orcas in its aquatic shows.

This year's is the 88th edition of the parade, which will be attended by a projected 3.5 million spectators.

PETA Launches I, Chicken

From PETA's website:

I, Chicken couples the most cutting-edge virtual reality (VR) hardware available—including wireless VR goggles, motion-capture cameras, and a powerful computer—with guidance from leading VR psychologists in order to immerse participants in a world where they can flap their wings, communicate with other chickens, take dust baths, and engage in other natural chicken behavior. But as participants soon learn, life for any of the 26 million chickens slaughtered every day isn’t a walk in the park. Over the next year, PETA’s youth division, peta2, will take the cutting-edge, three-minute I, Chicken experience to more than a hundred college campuses, where thousands of young people will discover firsthand what it’s like to be a chicken. The VR experience helps people develop empathy for chickens, who aren’t seen as individuals with interests, wants, and needs but rather as producers of meat and eggs.

Worst. Video game. Ever.

Rabbit Season

Animal rights activists are furious with Whole Foods over the plan to begin selling rabbit meat.

On Sunday, rabbit-lovers organized a national day of action to draw attention to the production and sale of rabbit meat at the grocery chain, warning that dogs and cats could be slaughtered for meat next and accusing Whole Foods of being “bunny butchers.” Proving that virtually everything has an advocacy organization, the House Rabbit Society helped design leaflets adorned with adorable bunny pictures for protesters. And one petition asking Whole Foods to stop selling rabbit meat already has more than 13,000 supporters. For its part, Whole Foods has said its pilot program was launched after a four-year process to design a system of rabbit-slaughtering that maintains high standards of animal welfare. 

A spokesman for Whole Foods says that they are sensitive to the "companion animal issue" and are only responding to requests from customers.

Headline Of The Day

I can't even. Details.

Headline Of The Day

Details.

UPDATE: The above-linked Mediaite story is dated today but their link goes to a 2011 news account of the incident. I should have caught that.

PETA Vs Joe Namath

PETA: Eating Meat = Human Slavery

PETA, as they so often do, has caused quite the firestorm with today's co-opting of Martin Luther King Day. "The fate of animals today is similar to that of humans who were subjected to slavery and other civil rights injustices—they, too, are tortured, abused, and neglected as humans once were and sometimes still are. More than 63 billion animals are slaughtered every year in the United States for the food industry, without even a thought to their feelings or needs." The right wing site Townhall is directing readers to a photo of MLK eating meat.

De Blasio To Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages

The New York Daily News reports that one of the first acts by Mayor-elect Bill De Blasio will be to ban horse-drawn carriages, which have long been the target of animal rights activists.

"We are going to get rid of the horse carriages. Period,” de Blasio said in response to a question at his press conference announcing his schools chancellor pick Monday. “It’s over,” he said. De Blasio said he would work with existing drivers to set them up with alternative vehicles to ferry tourists around Central Park. De Blasio and advocacy groups who support him say it’s inhumane to make the horses work the dangerous city streets, but drivers insist their horses are well cared for and there’s no reason to end the industry.

The carriage industry has vowed to fight the city in court.

Lawsuit: Chimps Are People

A New York-based animal rights group has filed a lawsuit demanding "legal personhood" for chimpanzees being kept as pets or in research labs.

The lawsuit demands a writ of habeas corpus — essentially a document granting freedom — on behalf of Tommy the chimp so he can be moved to an animal sanctuary that's more like his natural habitat than his current cage. NhRP is filing two other suits this week seeking freedom for three more New York chimps. The NhRP says it's basing the three suits on a 1772 case involving an American slave named James Somerset. After Somerset's owner took him from Virginia to England, a group of abolitionist lawyers filed a petition to have him freed. Of course, chimps aren't human beings. But the NhRP makes a pretty strong argument that they're more people than things, and that they're entitled to "legal personhood." The suit points out that humans and chimps share 99% of their DNA. They can use tools, grieve, and speak in sign language. Like people, the NhRP's legal documents point out, chimps have.

More from USA Today:

The lawsuit accuses Patrick and Diane Lavery of holding Tommy, a 26-year-old chimp, captive. The Laverys are "detaining Tommy in solitary confinement in a small, dank, cement cage in a cavernous dark shed" at their property, the lawsuit says. Chimpanzees can make choices and, like humans, have an interest in freedom to live as they wish, Wise says. "It would seem exceedingly unlikely that any chimpanzee would choose to live life in a cave." The Nonhuman Rights Project intends to file two additional lawsuits to free two male chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, allegedly owned by New Iberia Research Center and used in locomotion research by the anatomy department at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y., and Kiko, a 26-year-old chimpanzee living on private property in Niagara Falls, Wise says.

PETA: Attack Of The Pigeons

Please don't shoo away disgusting, disease-carrying flying rats just because they shit all over everything. You wouldn't like it if they did that to you.

COSTA RICA: Government To Close Zoos And Release Animals From Captivity

Citing a change in "environmental conscience," Costa Rica will close its zoos and release many of its animals back to the wild.

“We are getting rid of the cages and reinforcing the idea of interacting with biodiversity in botanical parks in a natural way,” said Environment Minister René Castro. “We don't want animals in captivity or enclosed in any way unless it is to rescue or save them.” The closures will take effect in March 2014, when the government's contract with the organization that operates its two zoos is set to expire -- a move that Castro says reflects "a change of environmental conscience among Costa Ricans." The facilities which now house captive animals, Simon Bolivar Zoo and the Santa Ana Conservation Center, will be then transformed into urban parks or gardens where wildlife can visit and live freely if they so choose.

Animals deemed unfit for release will be relocated to wildlife sanctuaries.

RELATED: Earlier this year Costa Rica banned all sport hunting.

Stay Classy, PETA

Via Copyranter at Buzzfeed.

Headline Of The Day

Details.

PETA Calls For PetSmart Boycott

PETA has launched a campaign calling for a boycott of retail giant PetSmart until the chain "stops selling all animals." The below undercover video depicts a (presumably PetSmart) staffer going behind the scenes at one store to film sick and dying animals that have been removed from the floor, making the claim that PetSmart allows the mistreatment of animals and deprives them of veterinary care. The clip has drawn howls of outrage from PetSmart staffers on YouTube. Sample response:

Seriously!? That's a serious case of bad management. It can happen at any company in any store!! The Petsmarts Ive worked at are very loving and caring towards all animals!!! If anyone was EVER caught mistreating an animal it would be instant termination! The store I worked at paid for a $500 surgery on a hamster! We do everything possible to give all animals a loving home. Would PETA do that? DOUBTFUL. Ugh this kind of misleading crap infuriates me.

PETA Responds To Yesterday's Post

PETA writes us today to ask that we look at their rebuttal to the Atlantic article I excerpted in yesterday's post. Also from the Atlantic:

PETA was floored by the title and tone of James McWilliams' article about PETA's euthanasia of some of the saddest dogs and cats in Virginia. While we appreciate that the editorial included some points on our perspective, it did a disservice to homeless animals by failing to examine the causes of and ways to reduce euthanasia -- something PETA works on every day. It waved aside PETA's vital preventative work -- from the more than 10,000 no-cost to low-cost spay-and-neuter surgeries we performed last year in Virginia alone to the time, money, and effort we spend promoting shelter adoptions and spaying and neutering -- to focus on Nathan Winograd's comments against our organization and against PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk, thereby leaving The Atlantic's readers with a grossly incomplete picture of what PETA does and why.

Read the full article.

PETA Kills Almost Every Animal It Gets

Pity the poor sea kitten that falls into PETA's hands. The Atlantic has the horrible stats.

In 2011, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) behaved in a regrettably consistent manner: it euthanized the overwhelming majority (PDF) of dogs and cats that it accepted into its shelters. Out of 760 dogs impounded, they killed 713, arranged for 19 to be adopted, and farmed out 36 to other shelters (not necessarily "no kill" ones). As for cats, they impounded 1,211, euthanized 1,198, transferred eight, and found homes for a grand total of five. PETA also took in 58 other companion animals -- including rabbits. It killed 54 of them. These figures don't reflect well on an organization dedicated to the cause of animal rights. Even acknowledging that PETA sterilized over 10,500 dogs and cats and returned them to their owners, it doesn't change the fact that its adoption rate in 2011 was 2.5 percent for dogs and 0.4 for cats.

In 2010 PETA listed $36 million in revenue, most of which presumably went to those naked model ads promoting veganism. (Tipped by JMG reader Fritz)

RELATED: PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk: "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it."