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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals want to build a 5-foot tombstone where lobsters may have died after a crash on Route 1 in Brunswick, Maine, last week. According to the Brunswick Police Department several of the crustaceans that a Cozy Harbor Seafood truck was carrying got crushed as a result of the rollover. [Snip] The organization sent a letter to the Maine Department of Transportation asking if it could create the roadside memorial where the lobsters lost their lives.

An animal rights activist was beaten with a duck by a Spanish woman defending one of the country's most bizarre and controversial festival traditions. The man was whacked with the bird while he filmed the annual "duck chase" in the Catalonian seaside town of Roses, where every August ducks are thrown into the Mediterranean and then caught and brought back to the shore by swimmers. "Continue, continue. Continue to abuse, I am filming you. A little bit of empathy for the animals. They also have a life, like your children or your family," the man who was filming can be...

PETA is asking the small town of TURKEY, TEXASto change its name to Tofurky to help promote compassion for the animal this Thanksgiving.

A UK supermarket chain has sparked outrage by stocking squirrel meat on the shelves of one of its stores. Neil Duggard, branch manager of Budgens at Crouch End, North London, has said there is "huge interest" in the meat which was once a staple of the British diet. Animal rights groups are up in arms, however. "it is very sad that Budgens are allowing profit to be made from wildlife massacre," said Juliet Gellatley of Viva. "If this store is attempting to stand out from the crowd by selling squirrel, the only message they are giving out is that they...

Winston Churchill once predicted that it would be possible to grow chicken breasts and wings more efficiently without having to keep an actual chicken. And in fact scientists have since figured out how to grow tiny nuggets of lab meat and say it will one day be possible to produce steaks in vats, sans any livestock. Pork chops or burgers cultivated in labs could eliminate contamination problems that regularly generate headlines these days, as well as address environmental concerns that come with industrial livestock farms. However, such research opens up strange and perhaps even disturbing possibilities once considered only the...

An animal rights group has declared Baltimore schools the "Most Progressive Public School District of 2009" for going vegetarian in school cafeterias once a week. The "Meatless Monday" menu that Baltimore City Public Schools adopted this school year earned it a "Proggy Award" from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "Proggy" is PETA shorthand for "progress." Tapping into a national campaign, the "Meatless Monday" program is intended to make lunches more healthful, stretch the district's food budget and raise awareness about the environmental impact of large-scale meat production, Tony Geraci, the district's food and nutrition director, has said. The...

Two PETA employees accused of stealing a hunting dog and discarding its electronic tracking device are scheduled to go to trial today in Southampton General District Court. Carrie Beth Edwards and Andrea Florence Benoit face grand larceny and petty larceny charges. Southampton County police say they pulled over Edwards and Benoit in a van registered to Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and found the dog inside.

Aftenposten's food writer Yngve Ekern has been charged with animal cruelty by animal rights group NOAH after an article about cooking crabs. The case against Ekern has been dismissed and instead referred to the Conciliation Board, reports trade newspaper Journalisten on its web site, but there will be repercussions. Ekern angered animal activists with his description of preparing crabs on the beach while his children were watching. He described throwing the crabs into hot oil after bashing them on a cutting board, a process that didn't kill all of them. The article also outlined how to boil crabs, and included...

NORFOLK - Two employees from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have been charged with abducting a hunting dog in Southampton County. About 10 a.m. Wednesday, a witness reported seeing two women in a vehicle with PETA markings take the dog from the side of Meherrin Road, said Detective Cpl. Richard Morris of the Southampton County Sheriff's Office. A witness alerted the county animal control officer - who happened to own the dog. The officer stopped the vehicle soon after and, finding his dog inside, turned the case over to a colleague, Morris said. The dog's radio tracking...

More U.S. Zoos Closing Elephant Exhibits Maryann Mott for National Geographic News March 2, 2006 After more than a century of displaying elephants, the Bronx Zoo in New York announced plans last month to shut down its elephant exhibit after the animals die. The announcement comes at a time when some U.S. zoos are debating whether to continue keeping fficials decided to close the Bronx exhibit for the benefit of Maxine, Patty, and Happy—all in their mid-30s and residents at the zoo for some three decades. "Committing to elephants into the future would require us to build up a new...

Each year around Thanksgiving, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals makes the evening news with some new campaign to get people to stop eating turkey. This year PETA wants me to believe that if I enjoy my annual serving of turkey at Thanksgiving, then I'm probably going to get the Asian bird flu. In order to make sure I'm aware of the threat, PETA members will "lie naked in flower-decorated coffins outside the Department of Agriculture" — just in case I walk by. As an alternative, PETA says I should ingest something called "tofurkey."Although I'll pass on the tofurkey,...

TRENTON, New Jersey (Reuters) - Six animal rights activists being tried under a law that equates their activities with terrorism turned the lives of employees of a British drug-testing company into a living nightmare, prosecutors said on Thursday. It is the first New Jersey trial in which federal prosecutors are using a law that says aggressive activists who disrupt a company can be charged as terrorists. The defendants are accused of disrupting the business of Huntingdon Life Sciences, or HLS, a UK-based firm with operations in New Jersey that uses animals to test drugs, with the aim of driving it...

PETA gets rude welcome in Brownsville Group braves sprinkler system to spread message of chicken treatment By Gilberto Salinas The Brownsville Herald April 14, 2005 — Why did the chicken cross the road? Well, it depends who you ask in Brownsville. A protesting trio from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), one of which was dressed in a chicken outfit, stood their ground Wednesday at The Chicken Stop as they briefly protested next to the local eatery. Then they crossed Boca Chica Boulevard to picket the nearby KFC for the restaurant suppliers’ treatment of chickens. But if...

The La Crosse man who's asked the state to allow hunters to kill stray cats says he's been getting death threats. Mark Smith told La Crosse police he's gotten angry phone calls and messages at work and at home. Police reports say one call made while Smith was working at the La Crosse Fire Department suggested it should be "open season on firefighters." Another woman told Smith that if the state Legislature approved his request Smith would be hunted down and killed. Smith has asked the Wisconsin Conservation Congress to vote on his proposal at an April eleventh meeting. That...

Cows are also capable of feeling strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety — they worry about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness. The findings have emerged from studies of farm animals that have found similar traits in pigs, goats, chickens and other livestock. They suggest that such animals may be so emotionally similar to humans that welfare laws need to be rethought. Christine Nicol, professor of animal welfare at Bristol University, said even chickens may have to be treated as individuals with needs and problems. “Remarkable cognitive abilities...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A retailer of hip fashions for young women has responded to a nationwide boycott called by an animal rights group by agreeing to remove clothes with rabbit fur from its stores and pledging not to sell any real fur in the future. The clothing chain Forever 21 became the target of protests last month after the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the company ignored requests to stop selling rabbit fur. PETA said it would next target Wet Seal Inc., a Forever 21 competitor.

Meat Increases the Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease “Extensive evidence points to the rich Western diet as the fundamental cause of Alzheimer’s disease: … Worldwide, the incidence of AD [Alzheimer’s disease] is more common among people who follow meat- and dairy-centered diets, than among those people who eat a more plant-based diet.” —Dr. John McDougall, McDougall Wellness Center Indeed, a flood of research shows that the toxins in meat, including chicken and fish, increase your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, while the antioxidants in vegetables help prevent this deadly disease. Click here to learn more. In the wake of former President...

Tempers flared when dozens of homeless people expecting to receive a free fur coat descended on a downtown shelter, only to learn that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had just 25 to give away.....

Then Leonard and Priscilla Smith encountered longtime animal rights activist Angi Metler, who ended up locking herself inside a bear trap in the front yard of the elderly couple's cottage in Highland Lakes when their discussion about the area's black bears went bad. That meeting that warm late summer day has lead to a series of legal charges being levied by the Smiths against Metler, by the police against Metler, by Metler against Priscilla Smith -- and most recently by the state against Metler. As a result, Metler will end up taking her battle into Vernon's municipal courts. And the...

You know things are getting bad when a conference sponsored by seemingly mainstream groups like the Ocean Conservancy and the Pew Charitable Trusts includes a panel on "direct action" featuring the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's "Captain" Paul Watson. An open promoter of violence, Watson declares there's "nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win." Yesterday he told the self-described "seaweed rebels" at the conference on ocean health: "We can no longer afford to eat any seafood." After announcing that Sea Shepherd is "proudly a pirate organization," Watson insisted: ... we have got to cease and desist and...