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The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than bl

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Each year, millions of pigs are kept constantly confined by U.S. animal agribusiness. In the wild, pigs root the earth, cool themselves in mud baths, and walk for miles sniffing for food or exploring their surroundings. On factory farms, they’re unable to do much of what is natural to them and are treated as though they are unfeeling, meat-producing or piglet-making machines.
Sows (female pigs) suffer through constant cycles of pregnancy and nursing, in metal stalls so small the animals can’t even turn around or lie down comfortably during their entire four-month pregnancies.
Piglets not used as “breeders” suffer mutilations just as chickens and turkeys do. Confinement in fattening pens—concrete cells housing several pigs—and the unnatural conditions inherent in factory farming result in frustration, boredom, and aggression such as tail biting and fighting. The industry’s response is not to make conditions less inhumane. Instead, factory farmers cut off the tails of baby piglets, punch bits out of their ears, cut off the ends of some of their teeth, and rip out the males’ testicles—excruciating procedures performed without painkillers.
The slaughter of pigs can be horrific. While they are supposed to be stunned before being killed, the procedure is often rushed and imprecise. As a result, pigs are commonly still conscious as workers hang them upside down, slit their throats, cut off their limbs, and rip their skin from their bodies
Every year, millions of cows are slaughtered to stock our grocery stores with beef, veal, and even dairy products
As with all mammals, cows produce milk for their babies. To ensure the highest milk yield possible, U.S. factory farmers artificially inseminate dairy cows every year and keep them pumped full of steroids and other hormones.
After giving birth, the mothers are hooked up to machines two or three times a day that take the very milk intended for their calves. After two months, the mothers are once again impregnated and then milked for seven months of their nine-month pregnancies. The physically taxing cycle of impregnation, birthing, and mechanized milking forces the average dairy cow to be “spent” by her fifth birthday. If allowed to live naturally, cows can live to be 25.
One byproduct of the dairy industry is a calf per year per cow. A calf’s fate depends on his or her gender: If female, she will likely join her mother on the dairy line. If male, he will be sold to beef or veal farmers, often before he is a week old.
The veal industry is thus a direct byproduct of the dairy industry. Virtually every calf slaughtered for veal is the child of a cow on the dairy line. Most of these calves spend their entire lives chained alone inside wooden crates too small for them to even turn around. To produce the tenderest meat, the crates are purposefully designed to prevent movement and cause muscle atrophy. The urine-soaked wood-slat flooring causes many calves to suffer from chronic pneumonia and other respiratory problems, so veal farmers dose them with antibiotics. And, while their mothers’ milk is being stolen on dairy farms, these calves are fed an iron-deficient milk substitute that keeps them anemic and pales the color of their flesh. After roughly 16 weeks of lonely intensive confinement, without being nursed by their mothers or feeling grass beneath their feet, the calves are slaughtered.
Cattle raised for beef sales are also subjected to cruel treatment. Without painkillers, they have their testicles ripped out, their horns cut off, and third-degree burns (branding) inflicted on them. For the first six to ten months of their lives, they are allowed access to the outdoors before they’re trucked—often over hundreds of miles—to feedlots where they’ll be fattened on an unnatural diet of grains and “fillers” (including sawdust and chicken manure). They’ll stay on the feedlot for another six to ten months until they reach “market weight” of more than 1,000 pounds. Finally, they’re shipped to slaughter.
Food given to animals the day before and during transport to slaughterhouses won’t be converted into flesh, so they receive no food or water. Animals may die on the trucks—frozen to the metal sides, overheated, or dehydrated. At slaughter, they endure painful deaths like pigs and other farmed animals.
“Layers” (chickens raised for their eggs), “broilers” (chickens raised for meat), and turkeys are forced to endure horrific abuse.
Only female chickens lay eggs, and since the breed of egg-laying chickens is totally different from that of bulked-up broiler chickens, male chicks are useless to the egg industry. So they are gassed, crushed, discarded in trash bags to suffocate, or simply piled one on top of another, to die from dehydration or asphyxiation. They have it easy compared to female chicks.
While many countries are banning the battery cage system because of its inherent cruelty, egg producers in the United States still cram hens into small, wire cages for their entire lives.
These hens spend their days unable to engage in nearly any of their natural habits, like perching, nesting, dust-bathing, foraging, roaming, or even flapping their wings. Frustrated and overcrowded, the birds often attack each other. To reduce the impact of stress-induced aggression, soon after the chicks are born, parts of their beaks are seared off with a hot blade without painkillers. Debeaking causes them both acute and chronic pain.
When their egg production declines, “spent” hens are killed and sent to rendering plants as their flesh is too battered to even go into canned soup.
Broilers—the chickens we eat—and turkeys are confined in large, warehouse-style sheds housing tens of thousands of animals. To reduce the pressures of overcrowding, factory farmers amputate turkeys’ toes and mutilate their beaks shortly after birth, causing pain and physical conditions that makes eating, walking, and even standing difficult.
Chickens and turkeys grow so abnormally fast due to selective breeding and growth-promoting antibiotics that their legs and organs can’t support their enormous weight, leading to disabling bone and joint problems. The air in the sheds is heavy with toxins and ammonia from feces, and the birds must endure the stench without relief.
While their lives are filled with suffering, their slaughter is horrific, as well. Before they can be transported to slaughterhouses, the birds must first be gathered. Egg-laying hens are pulled from wire battery cages that can catch—and rip off—their wings, legs, and feet. Broiler chickens and turkeys are snatched by workers who gather three or four animals at once.
The birds are crammed into crates stacked one atop the other inside the trucks. At slaughter, they’re torn from the crates and shackled upside down onto automated metal racks. Some birds are stunned in electrified baths, but most are left conscious, yet paralyzed. Those who are stunned often regain consciousness before their throats are slit and end up being immersed alive in tanks of scalding water that de-feather their bodies.
It may be difficult for some of us to empathize with fish, but the science is clear: Fish are animals with complex lives and the ability to feel pain. The British Farm Animal Welfare Council reports: “The fact that fish are cold-blooded does not prevent them from having a pain system and, indeed, such a system is valuable in preserving life and maximising the biological fitness of individuals.”
The number of aquatic animals killed to be eaten in the United States is not reported, but annual estimates exceed 15 billion. Commercial fishers use football field-sized trawlers equipped with advanced electronics to track aquatic animals
Nets several miles long trap tens of thousands of animals in one “pull.” They’re dragged along the ocean bottoms for hours and eventually killed when the animals are removed from their habitats.
The most “sellable” animals are kept onboard, while the rest—dead and dying—are thrown back into the water. As it’s impossible to catch only certain species with nets, hundreds of thousands of “non-target” animals—including seals, whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and birds—become entangled in the nets and die.
Aquaculture, the factory farming of fish, has become lucrative for U.S. animal agribusiness. Many fish species are raised in shallow, concrete troughs. As with other forms of factory farming, the fish are intensively confined and often diseased. The industry responds by dousing them with antibiotics and other chemical treatments, but death losses are still high.
Most people, who are unfamiliar with the American Pit Bull Terrier, falsely believe that they are dangerous dogs. Unfortunately, Pit Bulls have a bad reputation because of some mean people who have abused their dogs and trained them to be aggressive. Pit Bulls are actually very stable, intelligent, and highly trainable. They are strong athletic dogs, and they require a guardian who is responsible and will give them plenty of exercise and training. They are very loving and loyal and make excellent animal companions.

My Interests

Although the majority of animals slaughtered for their fur come from notoriously cruel fur factory farms, trappers worldwide kill millions of raccoons, coyotes, wolves, bobcats, opossums, nutria, beavers, otters, and other fur-bearing animals every year for the clothing industry.

How a Trapped Animal Dies
There are various types of traps, including snares, underwater traps, and Conibear traps, but the steel-jaw trap is the most widely used. The American Veterinary Medical Association calls these traps “inhumane.”(1) This simple but barbaric device has been banned by the European Union and in a growing number of states across the United States, including Colorado, California, Florida, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington state.(2,3) Arizona does not allow the use of steel-jaw traps on public lands.(4)

When an animal steps on the spring of a steel-jaw trap, the trap’s jaws slam on the animal’s limb. The animal frantically struggles in excruciating pain as the trap cuts into his or her flesh, often down to the bone, mutilating the animal’s foot or leg. Some animals, especially mothers desperate to get back to their young, fight so vigorously that they attempt to chew or twist off their trapped limbs. This struggle may last for hours. Eventually, the animal succumbs to exhaustion and often exposure, frostbite, shock, and death as well.

If trapped animals do not die from blood loss, infection, or gangrene, they will probably be killed by predators or hunters. Victims of water-set traps, including beavers and muskrats, can take more than nine agonizing minutes to drown.(5)

Because many trapped animals are mutilated by predators before trappers return, pole traps are often used. A pole trap is a form of steel-jaw trap that is set in a tree or on a pole. Animals caught in these traps are hoisted into the air and left to hang by the caught appendage until they die or the trapper arrives to kill them.

Conibear traps crush animals’ necks, applying 90 pounds of pressure per square inch. It takes animals three to eight minutes to suffocate in these traps.(6)

‘Accidental’ Victims
Every year, dogs, cats, birds, and other animals, including endangered species, are crippled or killed by traps. Trappers call these animals “trash kills” because they have no economic value. State regulations on how often trappers must check their traps vary from 24 hours to one week. Some states have no regulations at all. Animals can suffer for days before they die or are rescued.

In one case, a dog named Delilah was trapped for 48 hours in Pennsylvania after a steel-jaw trap snapped down on her leg; the local paper said she “used her free legs to scrape a hole to sleep in and gnawed on bark, hoping for nourishment.” Her leg had to be amputated.(7) Another dog suffered for at least five days in Nebraska, where trappers are legally supposed to check traps daily.(8)

A Montana couple’s beloved Great Pyrenees was shot dead by a trapper when the man found the dog in one of his traps. A woman walking her dogs on public land in the same state struggled frantically as her canine companion screamed and writhed in agony after he suddenly became trapped by a baited Conibear trap. She unsuccessfully tried to release the clamp as the dog slowly suffocated. “I’ve never seen anything as traumatic as this girl trying to raise the dog from the trap,” said a witness who heard the woman’s screams for help. Later, it was discovered that another dog had been caught in a Conibear trap on the same trapline only six days earlier. In Middleboro, Massachusetts, the body of a skinned dog was found with his front paw missing. Evidence led the investigating officer to believe that a trapper caught the dog in a trap, then shot and skinned him.

Animal Populations Self-Regulate

Contrary to fur-industry propaganda, there is no ecologically sound reason to trap animals for “wildlife management.” In fact, trapping disrupts wildlife populations by killing healthy animals needed to keep their species strong, and populations are further damaged when the parents of young animals are killed. Left alone, animal populations can and do regulate their own numbers. Even if human intervention or an unusual natural occurrence caused an animal population to rise temporarily, the group would soon stabilize through natural processes no more cruel, even at their worst, than the pain and trauma of being trapped and slaughtered by humans.

Eighty-five percent of the fur industry’s skins come from animals living captive in fur factory farms.(1) These farms can hold thousands of animals, and their farming practices are remarkably uniform around the globe. As with other intensive-confinement animal farms, the methods used in fur factory farms are designed to maximize profits, always at the expense of the animals.

Painful and Short Lives

The most commonly farmed fur-bearing animals are minks, followed by foxes. Chinchillas, lynxes, and even hamsters are also farmed for their fur.(2) Seventy-three percent of fur farms are in Europe, 12 percent are in North America, and the rest are dispersed throughout the world, in countries such as Argentina, China, and Russia.(3) Mink farmers usually breed female minks once a year. There are about three or four surviving kittens in each litter, and they are killed when they are about 6 months old, depending on what country they are in, after the first hard freeze. Minks used for breeding are kept for four to five years.(4) The animals—who are housed in unbearably small cages—live with fear, stress, disease, parasites, and other physical and psychological hardships, all for the sake of an unnecessary global industry that makes billions of dollars annually.

Rabbits are slaughtered by the millions for meat, particularly in China, Italy, and Spain. Once considered a mere byproduct of this consumption, the rabbit-fur industry demands the thicker pelt of an older animal (rabbits raised for meat are killed at the age of 10 to 12 weeks).(5) The United Nations reports that countries such as France are killing as many as 70 million rabbits a year for fur, which is used in clothing, as lures in flyfishing, and for trim on craft items.(6)

Life on the ‘Ranch’

To cut costs, fur farmers pack animals into small cages, preventing them from taking more than a few steps back and forth. This crowding and confinement is especially distressing to minks—solitary animals who may occupy up to 2,500 acres of wetland habitat in the wild. The anguish and frustration of life in a cage leads minks to self-mutilate—biting at their skin, tails, and feet—and frantically pace and circle endlessly. Zoologists at Oxford University who studied captive minks found that despite generations of being bred for fur, minks have not been domesticated and suffer greatly in captivity, especially if they are not given the opportunity to swim. Foxes, raccoons, and other animals suffer just as much and have been found to cannibalize their cagemates in response to their crowded confinement.

Animals in fur factory farms are fed meat byproducts considered unfit for human consumption. Water is provided by a nipple system, which often freezes in the winter or might fail because of human error.

Poison and Pain

No federal humane slaughter law protects animals in fur factory farms, and killing methods are gruesome. Because fur farmers care only about preserving the quality of the fur, they use slaughter methods that keep the pelts intact but that can result in extreme suffering for the animals. Small animals may be crammed into boxes and poisoned with hot, unfiltered engine exhaust from a truck. Engine exhaust is not always lethal, and some animals wake up while they are being skinned. Larger animals have clamps attached to or rods forced into their mouths and rods are forced into their anuses, and they are painfully electrocuted. Other animals are poisoned with strychnine, which suffocates them by paralyzing their muscles with painful, rigid cramps. Gassing, decompression chambers, and neck-breaking are other common slaughter methods in fur factory farms.

The fur industry refuses to condemn even blatantly cruel killing methods. Genital electrocution—deemed “unacceptable” by the American Veterinary Medical Association in its “2000 Report of the AVMA Panel on Euthanasia”—causes animals to suffer from cardiac arrest while they are still conscious.(9) In 1994, Indiana became the first state to file criminal charges against a fur factory farm after PETA investigators documented genital electrocution at V-R Chinchillas. The chinchilla fur industry considers electrocution and neck-breaking “acceptable.”(10)

It may come from a sheep, goat, or Tibetan antelope. It may be called wool, mohair, pashmina, shahtoosh, or cashmere. But no matter what it’s called, any kind of wool causes harm to the animals from whom it is taken.

Many people believe that shearing sheep helps animals who might otherwise be burdened with too much wool. But without human interference, sheep grow just enough wool to protect themselves from temperature extremes. The fleece provides effective insulation against both cold and heat. Wool was once obtained by plucking it from the sheep during molting seasons. Breeding for continuous fleece growth began after the invention of shears.1

Wool-Producing Countries Abuse Sheep

With about 100 million sheep, Australia produces 30 percent of all wool used worldwide.2 Flocks usually consist of thousands of sheep, making individual attention to their needs impossible.

In Australia, the most commonly raised sheep are Merinos, specifically bred to have wrinkly skin, which means more wool per animal. This unnatural overload of wool causes animals to die of heat exhaustion during hot months, and the wrinkles also collect urine and moisture. Attracted to the moisture, flies lay eggs in the folds of skin, and the hatched maggots can eat the sheep alive. To prevent “flystrike,” Australian ranchers perform a barbaric operation—mulesing—or carving huge strips of flesh off the backs of unanesthetized lambs’ legs and around their tails. This is done to cause smooth, scarred skin that won’t harbor fly eggs, yet the bloody wounds often get flystrike before they heal.3

Within weeks of birth, lambs’ ears are hole-punched, their tails are chopped off, and the males are castrated without anesthetics. Male lambs are castrated when between 2 and 8 weeks old, with a rubber ring used to cut off blood supply—one of the most painful methods of castration possible.4 Every year, hundreds of lambs die before the age of 8 weeks from exposure or starvation, and mature sheep die every year from disease, lack of shelter, and neglect.5 Faced with so much death and disease, the rational solution would be to reduce the number of sheep so as to maintain them decently. Instead, sheep are bred to bear more lambs to offset the deaths.

Shearing Is Painful

Sheep are sheared each spring, after lambing, just before some breeds would naturally shed their winter coats. Timing is considered critical: Shearing too late means loss of wool. In the rush, many sheep die from exposure after premature shearing.

Shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, which encourages fast work without regard for the welfare of the sheep. Says one eyewitness: “[T]he shearing shed must be one of the worst places in the world for cruelty to animals … I have seen shearers punch sheep with their shears or their fists until the sheep’s nose bled. I have seen sheep with half their faces shorn off …”6

"Man's best friend" killed for fur? It's not just a bad dream. PETA recently conducted an undercover investigation into the Chinese dog and cat fur trade to show you what the industry is so desperate to hide. Even our veteran investigators were horrified at what they found: Millions of dogs and cats in China are being bludgeoned, hanged, bled to death, and strangled with wire nooses so that their fur can be turned into trim and trinkets. This fur is often deliberately mislabeled as fur from other species and is exported to countries throughout the world to be sold to unsuspecting customers in retail stores. China supplies more than half of the finished fur garments imported for sale in the United States, so the bottom line is that because dog and cat fur is so often mislabeled, if you're buying fur, there's no way to tell whose skin you're wearing.

PETA went into an animal market in Southern China and found cats and dogs languishing in tiny cages, visibly exhausted. Some had been on the road for days, transported in flimsy wire-mesh cages with no food or water. Twenty cats were forced into a single cage. Because of the cross-country transport in such deplorable conditions, our investigators saw dead cats on top of the cages, dying cats and dogs inside the cages, and dogs and cats with open wounds. Some animals were lethargic or frightened, and others were fighting with each other, driven insane from confinement and exposure.

Up to 8,000 animals are loaded onto each truck, with cages stacked on top of each other. Cages containing live animals are commonly tossed from the top of the trucks onto the ground 10 feet below, shattering the legs of the animals inside them. Many of the animals we saw still had collars on, a sign that they were once someone's beloved companions, stolen to be made into fur coats.

You Can Help!

Please write a letter to the Chinese ambassador urging China to enact an animal welfare law that will stop the cruel handling of dogs, cats, and other animals at markets and during transportation:
His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong Ambassador of the People's Republic of China Embassy of the People's Republic of China 2300 Connecticut Ave. N.W. Washington, DC 20008 202-328-2574 202-328-2582 (fax)

I'd like to meet:

There are many different reasons why individuals abuse animals. Animal cruelty covers a wide range of actions (or lack of action), so one blanket answer simply isn’t possible. Each type of abuse has displayed certain patterns of behavior that we can use to help understand more about why people commit the crimes we encounter today.

Animal cruelty is often broken down into two main categories: active and passive, also referred to as comission and omission, respectively.

Passive Cruelty (Acts of Omission) Passive cruelty is typified by cases of neglect, where the crime is a lack of action rather than the action itself - however do not let the terminology fool you. Severe animal neglect can cause incredible pain and suffering to an animal.

Examples of neglect are starvation, dehydration, parasite infestations, allowing a collar to grow into an animal’s skin, inadequate shelter in extreme weather conditions, and failure to seek veterinary care when an animal needs medical attention.

In many cases of neglect where an investigator feels that the cruelty occurred as a result of ignorance, they may attempt to educate the pet owner and then revisit the situation to check for improvements. In more severe cases however, exigent circumstances may require that the animal is removed from the site immediately and taken in for urgent medical care.

Active Cruelty (Acts of Comission)

Active cruelty implies malicious intent, where a person has deliberately and intentionally caused harm to an animal, and is sometimes referred to as NAI (Non-Accidental Injury). Acts of intentional cruelty are often some of the most disturbing and should be considered signs of serious psychological problems. This type of behavior is often associated with sociopathic behavior and should be taken very seriously.

Animal abuse in violent homes can take many forms and can occur for many reasons. Many times a parent or domestic partner who is abusive may kill, or threaten to kill, the household pets to intimidate family members into sexual abuse, to remain silent about previous or current abuse, or simply to psychologically torture the the victims, flexing their "power".

Dogs are pack animals. In the wild, canines live, eat, and sleep with their family. In the absence of dogs, humans become their "pack." A chained dogs feels rejected and doesn't understand why.

Imagine being chained to a tree year after year. You watch the door hoping someone will come play. No one ever does. You long to run, but you can only pace. You shiver in winter and pant in summer. Eventually, you stop barking. You have given up hope.

We have many forms of entertainment: movies, music, friends. Your dog only has YOU. If you can't give a dog a good life, should you have one? It is up to caring people like you to improve the lives of chained dogs. Some think, "It's none of my business." But it is the business of compassionate people to speak up when living creatures are treated like objects. You will feel good about yourself for helping a chained dog!

Spay/Neuter

Number of cats and dogs entering shelters each year: 8–10 million (HSUS estimate) Number of cats and dogs euthanized by shelters each year: 4–5 million (HSUS estimate) Number of cats and dogs adopted from shelters each year: 3–5 million (HSUS estimate)

Number of cats and dogs reclaimed by owners from shelters each year: Between 600,000 and 750,000—15–30% of dogs and 2–5% of cats entering shelters (HSUS estimate)

Number of animal shelters in the United States: Between 4,000 and 6,000 (HSUS estimate)

Percentage of dogs in shelters who are purebred: 25% (HSUS estimate)

Average number of litters a fertile dog can produce in one year: 2 Average number of puppies in a canine litter: 6–10

Puppy mills are nothing new. These mass dog-breeding operations have been around for decades, but they continue to be a problem because unsuspecting consumers keep buying those adorable puppies in the pet store window. Or on some slick Internet site. Or even through an ad in the trusted local newspaper.

But behind the friendly facade of these pet shops, web sites, and newspaper ads, there often lies a puppy mill. These canine breeding facilities frequently house dogs in shockingly poor conditions, particularly for "breeding stock" animals who are caged and continually bred for years, without human companionship and with little hope of ever becoming part of a family. After their fertility wanes, breeding animals are commonly killed, abandoned or sold to another mill. The annual result of all this breeding is hundreds of thousands of puppies, many with behavior and/or health problems.

The puppies will be shipped cross country by truck to be sold in pet shops, but many are also sold via newspaper classifieds or Internet sites — and are often accompanied by false claims such as, "We'd never sell puppies from a puppy mill."

The Laws Aren't Enough, because a puppy mill is a business, the facility is designed purely for profit, not comfort. Laws are on the books to provide minimum-care standards for puppy-mill animals, but enforcement has historically been spotty at best. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) licenses and inspects puppy mills for violations of the Animal Welfare Act; likewise, some state laws are designed to protect the charges in the average puppy mill. But puppy mills can successfully navigate around these laws, whether by selling directly to consumers (thereby avoiding USDA licensing requirements) or simply by avoiding the reach of law enforcement (with so few USDA inspectors and minor fines, it's easy to stay in business).

Music:


Animal Testing Facts

Animal testing costs the American public over $136 billion annually. Animal testing is costing your family more than $300 dollars a year. Alternatives cost a significantly less amount and produce far better results. Humans and animals are different in many ways. Many drugs approved for human use based on animal studies have had to be taken off the market at a later date because of side effects not revealed in animal studies. More than 100,000 people have been hospitalized and later died from toxic reactions to medications in 1994 that were not predicted by animal tests. Many patients who were administered the general anesthetic Methoxyflurane lost function of their kidneys because animal experiments failed to reveal possible kidney toxicity.

The arthritis medication Flosint proved fatal to humans after passing tests on rats, monkeys, and dogs. Opren, a cough medication tested successfully on monkeys and other animals, killed 61 people and caused severe reactions in thousands of others. Antidepressant Zelmid tested on rats and dogs with no problems, caused severe neurological problems in humans. After being tested on numerous animals, Practolol caused blindness in 78 people and killed 23 others.

There are numerous other examples.

Drugs that pass animal tests end up harming or killing humans about 61% of the time.
Since 1901, 2/3 of all Noble Prizes in medicine have been awarded to scientists that used alternative technologies, not animal experiments in their research. Results derived from animal experiments have had a very minimal effect on the dramatic rise in life expectancy in the 20th century.

Between 25 and 50 billion animals are meaninglessly killed in laboratories each year.

Besides saving countless animal lives, alternatives to animal tests are efficient and reliable. Unlike crude, archaic animal tests, non-animal methods usually take less time to complete, cost only a fraction of what the animal experiments they replace cost, and are not plagued with species differences that make extrapolation difficult or impossible. Effective, affordable, and humane research methods include studies of human populations, volunteers, and patients, as well as sophisticated in vitro, genomic, and computer-modeling techniques.

Forward-thinking companies are exploring modern alternatives. For example, Pharmagene Laboratories, based in Royston, England, is the first company to use only human tissues and sophisticated computer technologies in the process of drug development and testing. With tools from molecular biology, biochemistry, and analytical pharmacology, Pharmagene conducts extensive studies of human genes and how drugs affect those genes or the proteins they make. While some companies have used animal tissues for this purpose, Pharmagene scientists believe that the discovery process is much more efficient with human tissues. “If you have information on human genes, what’s the point of going back to animals?” says Pharmagene cofounder Gordon Baxter.(1)

Alternatives for Research

Comparative studies of human populations allow doctors and scientists to discover the root causes of human diseases and disorders so that preventive action can be taken. Epidemiological studies led to the discoveries of the relationship between smoking and cancer and to the identification of heart disease risk factors.(2) Population studies also demonstrated the mechanism of the transmission of AIDS and other infectious diseases and also showed how these diseases can be prevented.(3)

In the course of treating patients, much has been learned about the causes of diseases and disorders. Studies of human patients using sophisticated scanning technology (e.g., MRI, PET, and CT) have isolated abnormalities in the brains of patients with schizophrenia and other disorders.(4)

Cell and tissue culture (in vitro) studies are used to screen for anti-cancer, anti-AIDS, and other types of drugs, and they are also a means of producing and testing a number of other pharmaceutical products, including vaccines, antibiotics, and therapeutic proteins. The U.S. National Disease Research Interchange provides more than 120 types of human tissue to scientists investigating diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, glaucoma, and other human diseases.(5) In vitro genetic research has isolated specific markers, genes, and proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease, muscular dystrophy, schizophrenia, and other inherited diseases.

Those who experiment on animals artificially induce disease; clinical investigators study people who are already ill or who have died. Animal experimenters want a disposable “research subject” who can be manipulated as desired and killed when convenient; clinicians must do no harm to their patients or study participants. Animal experimenters face the unavoidable fact that their artificially created “animal model” can never fully reflect the human condition, whereas clinical investigators know that the results of their work are directly relevant to people.

Alternatives for Testing

Alternatives to the use of animals in toxicity testing include replacing animal tests with non-animal methods, as well as modifying animal-based tests to reduce the number of animals used and to minimize pain and distress. Non-animal tests are generally faster and less expensive than the animal tests they replace and improve upon.

To date, several non-animal test methods have been formally validated and accepted by some countries as replacements for an existing animal test. Examples include:

• An embryonic stem cell test, using mouse-derived cells to assess potential toxicity to developing embryos, has been validated as a partial replacement for birth-defect testing in rats and rabbits.(6)
• The 3T3 Neutral Red Uptake Phototoxicity Test, which uses cells grown in culture to assess the potential for sunlight-induced (“photo”) irritation to the skin.
• Human skin model tests such as the validated EpiDerm™ test, which has been accepted almost universally as a total replacement for skin corrosion studies in rabbits.(7)
• The use of human skin leftover from surgical procedures or donated cadavers can be used to measure the rate at which a chemical is able to penetrate the skin.
• The use of a clinical patch test in human volunteers, which can confirm that a chemical will not cause irritation or allergic skin reactions.

Movies:

Dressed in camouflage, stalking and killing animals for "sport". Sounds more like terrorism,doesn't it? Hunting, which some would have us believe is a form of sport and recreation, is nothing more than an assault on animals and nature. The fact is, less than seven percent of the U.S. population hunts. Notwithstanding, on federal land alone, hunters kill more than 200 million animals yearly - crippling, orphaning, and harassing millions more. The annual death toll in the U.S. includes 42 million mourning doves, 30 million squirrels, 28 million quail, 25 million rabbits, 20 million pheasants, 14 million ducks, 6 million deer, and thousands of geese, bears, moose, elk, antelope, swans, cougars, turkeys, wolves, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, boars, and other woodland creatures. (Compiled by The Fund for Animals with data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state wildlife agencies.)

Television:

What's Wrong with the Use of Animals in the Circus? Animals used in circuses spend most of their days in boxcars, cages, or chains, in lives very different from those they would naturally live.
Elephants, tigers, and other "performing" animals are wild animals. Whether they were captured in their native lands or bred in captivity, and even if they appear docile or at ease around humans, they remain wild at heart.
Wild animals used in circuses originate from different parts of the globe, and have unique and specific needs for diet, health, vet care, social interaction, stimulation, exercise and movement, living environment, climate, etc. Yet these animals are all trained using methods of domination, and all live and travel together under the same conditions.
It is impossible for the unique needs of every animal to be met. Worse yet, outright neglect and mistreatment of animals in the circus is rampant throughout the industry. Inadequate laws fail to protect animals exploited in the circus — and the general public who face serious health and safety threats from the use of wild animals in performing shows.
Training
The circus industry would have us believe that the animals in the ring have been exposed their entire lives exclusively to positive-reinforcement training methods. But common sense dictates that elephants in the wild don't eagerly stand on their heads and that tigers don't naturally jump through hoops.

Books:

Fats on Horse Slaughter:
How many horses are slaughtered each year?
Each year nearly 100,000 horses are slaughtered in the United States and processed for human consumption. In addition, many thousands of live horses are transported across the border to Canada for slaughter. After these horses are killed, their flesh is shipped to Europe and Asia for human consumption. Their owners are often totally unaware of the pain, fear, and suffering their horses endure before being slaughtered.
Who eats horse meat?
Horse meat is not eaten in the United States; it is exported to serve specialty markets overseas. The largest markets are France, Belgium, Holland, Japan, and Italy. The only three horse slaughter plants in the United States are foreign-owned.
How do unwanted, surplus horses end up at slaughterhouses?
Most horses destined for slaughter are sold at livestock auctions or sales. The cruelty of horse slaughter is not limited to the act of killing the animals. Horses bound for slaughter are shipped, frequently for long distances, in a manner that fails to accommodate their unique temperaments. They are usually not rested, fed, or watered during travel. Economics, not humane considerations, dictate the conditions, including crowding as many horses into trucks as possible.
Often, terrified horses and ponies are crammed together and transported to slaughter in double-deck trucks designed for cattle and pigs. The truck ceilings are so low that the horses are not able to hold their heads in a normal, balanced position. Inappropriate floor surfaces lead to slips and falls, and sometimes even trampling. Some horses arrive at the slaughterhouse seriously injured or dead. Although transportation accidents have largely escaped public scrutiny, several tragic incidents involving collapsed upper floors and overturned double-deckers have caused human fatalities, as well as suffering and death for the horses.
How are the horses killed?
Under federal law, horses are required to be rendered unconscious prior to slaughter, usually with a device called a captive bolt gun, which shoots a metal rod into the horse's brain. Some horses, however, are improperly stunned and are conscious when they are hoisted by a rear leg to have their throats cut. In addition, conditions in the slaughterhouse are stressful and frightening for horses.
Which kinds of horses are affected?
Horses of virtually all ages and breeds are slaughtered, from draft types to miniatures. Horses commonly slaughtered include unsuccessful race horses, horses who are lame or ill, surplus riding school and camp horses, mares whose foals are not economically valuable, and foals who are "byproducts" of the Pregnant Mare Urine (PMU) industry, which produces the estrogen-replacement drug Premarin®. Ponies, mules, and donkeys are slaughtered as well. Many of the horses that HSUS investigators have seen purchased for slaughter were in good health, and bought for only a few hundred dollars.

Heroes:

Seal Hunting: A Cruel Hunt That Must Be Stopped Canada's annual seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet. In 2006 the Canadian government allowed fishermen to club and shoot at least 354,344 seals in the North Atlantic—almost all of them babies as young as 12 days—just to earn a few extra bucks by selling seal skins. In fact 98 percent of the seals killed were three months of age or younger, and veterinary reports indicate that many seals have been skinned while still conscious and able to feel pain. The HSUS's ProtectSeals team was on the ice at this year's hunt to document the unspeakable violence that takes place far from the eyes of the world. Our stories and video footage has helped expose the cruelty of the hunt to the international community and put in motion national bans on the import of seal skins. As an individual, you can help protect seals by joining our Canadian seafood boycott. You will be in good company: Hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of restaurants, stores, and other companies have already signed our Canadian seafood pledge.
The Alaskan Wolf Slaughter - By "Mr. Ed"The greatest wolf massacre in North America since the 1950s is now sadly underway, and, unbelievably, it is occurring in Alaska – the last true wilderness area we have left.
Governor Frank Murkowski has reinstated the barbaric practice of aerial hunting, and marksmen in Alaska now gun down wolves from the air that are extremely easy targets against the fallen white snow. They can also run these wolves to exhaustion, then land and shoot them point blank. And these aerial gunners are allowed to kill males, females, and even wolf pups as part of this program.
Murkowski's Board of Game has already approved the killing of over 1,000 wolves. And they are likely to increase that number dramatically next year.
According to Alaska Department of Fish and Game regulation 5AAC 92.125, seven aerial wolf killing programs have been approved, with a goal to kill between 1,200 and 1,400 wolves.
And one of the areas where aerial hunting is now allowed is along the Canadian border near Tok, Alaska. There is a scientifically significant group of wolves living in this area, which as a result of years of intense study and research using aircraft, are particularly vulnerable to aerial gunners. Though this group of wolves spends a majority of their time on the federally protected Yukon Charley Preserve, they seasonally leave this preserve to follow the caribou herds, making them extremely easy targets for aerial gunners.
The Federal Airborne Hunting Act was enacted by Congress way back in 1971 to stop such aerial slaughter, yet it has been reinstated in Alaska.
Alaskan citizens, both in 1996 and in 2000, voted to ban the aerial killing of wolves. Nevertheless, Governor Murkowski signed a bill two years ago overturning the most recent ban.
Numerous scientific studies have shown that wolves are beneficial to the overall health of natural ecosystems, especially in Alaska, to help keep their moose and caribou populations healthy and strong.
Wolves are also important to Alaska’s billion-dollar tourism industry, yet it seems its Governor is bowing only to sport hunters who resent the fact that wolves are allowed to hunt moose and caribou, too.
Maybe non-hunting tourists should now boycott Alaskan wilderness vacation and ship cruise trips. I wonder if these sport hunters will spend enough money in Alaska all by themselves to keep its tourist industry healthy and viable?
“It’s deplorable that Governor Murkowski continues to back the extermination of wolves in key areas across the state even though his so-called predator control programs lack scientifically-based standards and guidelines to monitor the program,” stated Karen Deatherage, Alaska Associate for Defenders of Wildlife.
“Lower 48 and urban trophy hunters are clearly the only beneficiaries of the governor’s ill-advised policy.”
Many of us also believe that Interior Secretary Gale Norton should enforce the Federal Airborne Hunting Act and halt this renewed aerial wolf slaughter in Alaska immediately. To date, she has refused to act.
Wolves have been persecuted in North America for far too long now, and they are increasingly losing their legislative protection in the few remaining areas they still cling to in the lower 48 states.
Must we take the only true wilderness area left in North America away from them, too?