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ROME (AFP) — One of Italy's leading animal rights groups said Monday it was launching an Internet petition to demand Pope Benedict XVI stop wearing fur during religious ceremonies at the Vatican.Lorenzo Croce, chairman of the Italian Association for the Defence of Animals and the Environment (AIDAA), denied being provocative or wanting to make an anti-religious statement."We just want to ask him in a message of love and peace to give a strong signal towards the protection of animals and the environment through a small but very significant personal sacrifice," Croce told the Italian news agency ANSA.Since his election Pope...

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans. Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans. "This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity," said Pedro Pozas,...

Self righteousness can be a disease afflicting the true believers in any cause. But the animal rights movement seems to be home to more than its share of people who believe their cause is so right that they are excused from normal human constraints. They have no more consideration of others than the beasts they whose interests they place above humanity's. More than two decades ago, a childhood friend who grew up to become a world-renowned medical researcher, whose work has improved the lives of countless people suffering a horrible affliction (and who has had the extraordinary honor among medical...

Remember the campaign against smokers? It started quietly and grew to hysteria. From bans to added taxes, smokers were left to wonder what hit them. Tobacco was (and continues to be) a legal substance. Now, following the same pattern, a push has started against red meat.

SKOWHEGAN, Maine - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has sent a proposal to the Somerset County commissioners to lease their jail for the world’s first Lobster Empathy Center. The central Maine county is constructing a new jail and has put the century-old jail in downtown Skowhegan up for sale. The Realtor handling the sale called the offer "likely a publicity stunt." "A prison is the perfect setting to demonstrate how lobsters suffer when they are caught in traps or confined to cramped, filthy supermarket tanks," PETA wrote in a June 2 letter to the commissioners. "The center will...

Gotta love PETA. Just gotta love ‘em. Well, not really. One of the animal rights group’s more obscure pressure campaigns involves trying to convince the Queen of England to give up the natural black-bear fur hats that Buckingham Palace guards have worn for 200 years. Because — y’know — British monarchs have always responded so well to public pressure from nitwits. Are black bears endangered? Nope. The species covers most of North America. And black bear populations are growing in Canada, where Her Majesty’s funny hats come from. So what’s the big deal? PETA hates people who wear fur. And...

MADISON, Wis. - While the organizers of Madison's Brat Fest try to set a weekend record for brats consumed, another brat group has more modest expectations. The Alliance for Animals has teamed up with Whole Foods to offer tofurkey beer brats at the Veggie Brat Fest across town. Organizers say veggie brats are a healthier and more humane way to enjoy bratwurst, but they acknowledge it'll be hard for the trend to catch on in Wisconsin. Organizers handed out more than 600 veggie brats Saturday. That's less than one percent of the estimated 96,000 brats consumed by Saturday at the...

Canandaigua, N.Y. - After heavy lobbying from animals-rights groups including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Canandaigua Academy Principal Lynne Erdle has terminated the so-called “chicken project” which has a class of students each year raising chickens and killing them. Lindsay Rajt, manager of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said Friday that Erdle sent an e-mail to the organization saying that school officials “recognize the concern” and had discontinued the project, which had been part of a high school ecology class for the past three years. “In no way were we trying to create a controversy,” wrote...

VIENNA, Austria — Austrian authorities say they are questioning 10 animal rights activists suspected of arson, sabotage and other crimes. Investigators say six of the suspects have been placed in pretrial detention for their alleged involvement in militant animal rights groups. Officials allege that the suspects are behind numerous arson fires and vandalism targeting food, clothing, pharmaceutical and agricultural companies. Prosecutors say the 10 were arrested earlier this week after a monthslong investigation into radical animal rights groups. Austrian media reported today that one of the suspects has begun a hunger strike while in custody. Investigators say the suspects used...

Editor’s Note: Today’s story comes to us from the European Fishing Tackle Trade Association. Catch and Release fishing will be banned in Switzerland from next year, it was revealed this week. And anglers in the country will have to demonstrate their expertise by taking a course on humane methods of catching fish, under new legislation outlined by the Bundesrat - the Swiss Federal Parliament. The new legislation states that fish caught should be killed immediately following their capture, with a sharp blow to the head from a blunt instrument. Under the new regulations, the use of livebait and barbed hooks...

BERKELEY -- Berkeley police detectives investigating a two-month string of animal rights-related vandalism targeting the homes of UC Berkeley scientists will begin probing possible connections to a spate of similar crimes in Santa Cruz, including last weekend's attempted home invasion of a local biomedical researcher. Sgt. Mary C. Kusmiss, a Berkeley Police Department spokeswoman, said detectives have not identified suspects in the rash of sidewalk chalking, brazen daylight trespassing and bullhorn-powered yelling incidents that have unfolded every Sunday afternoon since New Year's Day outside the homes of at least six Berkeley researchers who use cats, mice, rats and other animals...

Santa Cruz, Calif. (AP) -- The FBI is investigating possible links between animal-rights activists in Southern California and a weekend attack on the home of a University of California, Santa Cruz researcher. Patti Hanson, an FBI spokeswoman, said the bureau was looking into possible connections to "domestic terrorism." A demonstration by six masked protesters in front of the UCSC scientist's Westside home Sunday afternoon turned violent when the group pounded on the door and were confronted by the researcher's husband, police reported. The incident invited comparison to recent attacks on UCLA researchers that were linked to animal-rights groups. No one...

Animal rights group asks Sri Lankan rebels to leave animals out of conflict after zoo attack COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - An international animal rights group called on Sri Lanka's separatist Tamil Tigers to "leave animals out" of the armed conflict, two weeks after a grenade attack blamed on rebels at the island's main zoo. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, said in a letter dated Feb. 15 to Velupillai Prabhakaran, the reclusive rebel leader, that "the explosive device that was set off near the zoo's bird enclosures terrified many animals at the zoo." PETA president Ingrid...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Animals rights advocates are squawking at a measure that would make fried chicken Kentucky's official picnic food. State Rep. Charles Siler is sponsoring legislation to assign the designation to KFC's "finger lickin' good" chicken, first served by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1940. The late colonel's fried chicken deserves the title because of the worldwide attention and economic benefit it has brought to the state, Siler said. KFC, a subsidiary of Louisville-based Yum Brands Inc. (YUM), has 11,000 restaurants in more than 80 countries. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals bristles at the idea. The animal...

PETA Headstone Hides Anti-KFC Secret Recipe Animal Rights Group Erects Headstone Near Col. Sanders' Grave POSTED: 6:28 pm EST January 11, 2008 LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- An animal rights group placed a tombstone with a hidden message in the Louisville cemetery in which the founder of KFC is interred, reported WLKY-TV. The grave marker was originally approved by the Cave Hill Cemetery, but officials said they were tricked. Now they want it removed. The headstone is actually not meant to be a memorial for a person. Instead, it's for animals -- all part of an effort by PETA, or People for...

PETA Requests Vegetarian Diet in Jail for Cannibalism SuspectBy KENNETH DEAN Staff Writer Sheriff's officials were astounded Thursday by a letter requesting the man accused of murdering his girlfriend and possibly participating in cannibalism be placed on a vegetarian diet to keep him from being "involved in any senseless killing" while incarcerated. The letter was faxed to the Smith County Sheriff's Jail from the national headquarters of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Thursday morning. The Tyler Morning Telegraph received a copy of the letter before officials and notified Sheriff J.B. Smith. "You have to be kidding me,...

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has ordered the Navy to adopt stringent new safeguards intended to improve protection of whales and dolphins during its sonar training exercises off Southern California. The ruling, issued Thursday by Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, orders the Navy to limit its use of medium-range sonar to an area beyond 12 nautical miles from shore. Closer to the shore, marine mammals have exhibited frenzied and disoriented behavior during the emissions of sonar blasts as part of the Navy’s practice missions. Judge Cooper’s order also outlined...

Animal-rights advocates have escalated protests against UC Berkeley researchers in recent months, visiting their homes at midnight and even leafleting their children's soccer games. And today could be the most confrontational day yet. Protesters have been saying it will be "a day of action" against UC Berkeley faculty members who use animals for research. Advertisements found on Web sites such as Craigslist and MySpace, do not include details about the protest, and messages sent to an e-mail address in the ads were not returned. The protests, according to the listings, are being held because "40,000 nonhuman animals are currently held...

The monks at Mepkin Abbey have supported their contemplative lives for 40 years largely by supplying eggs to local grocery stores. No more. The abbey has succumbed to a campaign undertaken last year by the animal-rights activist group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Too bad. In announcing its decision to phase out its operation over the next year and a half, a Mepkin spokesman said PETA's campaign had become a distraction to the Trappist community: "While the monks are sad to give up work that has sustained them for many years, a hard and honorable work of which...

NEW YORK (AP) - The horse-drawn carriages that clip clop around Central Park could be banned under City Council legislation to be introduced at the urging of animal advocates who say the horses are treated inhumanely. Councilman Tony Avella, who plans to introduce the bill next Wednesday, said the horses that have entertained tourists and New Yorkers for decades are exposed to cruel conditions and are at risk of injury or death as they weave through city traffic. In September, a horse died after it was spooked by street musicians with drums and bolted down Central Park South. It was...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling for a boycott of M&Ms, Twix candy bars and other snack foods made by Mars Inc, claiming the company funds experiments that kill mice, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. "In violation of its own written policy, the candy company is currently funding a study at the University of California, San Francisco, that uses rats. The rats are force fed by having plastic tubes shoved down their throats, and they are then cut open and killed," PETA said in a statement. "In response to this new information, PETA...

Animal-rights saboteurs have claimed responsibility for vandalizing the Portland home of a research scientist who uses monkeys to study the causes of premature birth in humans. In a communique obtained by The Oregonian today, the Animal Liberation Front acknowledged striking two autos owned by Dr. Miles Novy with spray-paint graffiti and paint stripper. "Novy's reproductive research on primates has resulted in this senseless torture of one of natures most magnificant creatures," ALF saboteurs wrote in a message sent to the Animal Liberation Press Office. "This blatant disregard for the earth, animals and it's resources shall not go unseen by the...

SAN FRANCISCO - A lawsuit by animal-rights advocates accusing UCSF of illegally spending state money on painful and unnecessary experiments on dogs and monkeys was dismissed Tuesday by a San Francisco judge, who said Congress has designated federal regulators, not the courts, to oversee the research. "You want to have the court become the regulator of this particular lab," Superior Court Judge Patrick Mahoney told a lawyer for six health professionals who filed the taxpayer suit against the university. "I don't think that's what Congress intended." The plaintiffs wanted Mahoney to halt what they called illegal experiments and appoint a...

PETA, ELF, ALF are people who need to be taken out of society so we can enjoy life as we see fit. Legislators are next.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Thousands of minks escaped from a fur farm in western Denmark — possibly set free by animal rights activists, police said Monday. Authorities and residents were chasing down about 5,000 minks from the farm near Asp, 200 miles northwest of Copenhagen, police said. Investigators believe animal rights activists raided the farm overnight to set them free . . .

He's now got a human name — Matthew Hiasl Pan — but he's having trouble getting his day in court. Animal rights activists campaigning to get Pan, a 26-year-old chimpanzee, legally declared a person vowed Thursday to take their challenge to Austria's Supreme Court after a lower court threw out their latest appeal. A provincial judge in the city of Wiener Neustadt dismissed the case earlier this week, ruling that the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories had no legal standing to argue on the chimp's behalf. The association, which worries the shelter caring for the chimp might close, has been...

For lunch in her modest apartment, Madeline Nelson tossed a salad made with shaved carrots and lettuce she dug out of a Whole Foods dumpster. She flavored the dressing with miso powder she found in a trash bag on a curb in Chinatown. She baked bread made with yeast plucked from the garbage of a Middle Eastern grocery. Nelson, 51, is a former corporate executive who can afford to dine at upscale restaurants. But she prefers turning garbage into gourmet meals without spending a cent. On this afternoon, she thawed a slab of pate that she found three days before...

The animal rights advocates came with a video of a stampeding circus elephant shot dead in the street. The circus animal supporters, many wearing Shriners' fezzes, argued that nobody wants to see a circus without lions, tigers and elephants. On Wednesday, City Hall became the Big Top for a divisive, standing-room-only hearing on whether Minneapolis will ban circus shows featuring wild animals. After two hours of tense debate that featured nationally recognized animal experts, the council's public safety and regulatory services committee moved the issue forward without a recommendation. The full council will vote on the matter next Friday. If...

The founder of The Body Shop, which grew from one shop in southern England to an international chain, has died, the chairman of Body Shop International confirmed Monday. Dame Anita Roddick, 64, died after suffering a major brain hemorrhage, her family said in a statement to the UK Press Association. Her husband, Gordon, and daughters, Sam and Justine, were all with her at St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, England. The Body Shop chain became a massive success selling "green" cosmetics as customers were becoming environmentally aware.

Dogged by oddballs By MICHAEL COREN Last week I wrote a column arguing that people who are obsessed with animals to an extreme and irrational degree are mentally ill. I wrote that we need to care about animals and should never abuse them, but that people matter more. Even bad people. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize. I was wrong. People who treat animals as if they were human and have an animal rights fetish are not mentally ill. They are psychotic and dangerous. In the past week I have received hundreds of supportive letters, but at...

THE HOME OF DR. ARTHUR ROSENBAUM isn’t hard to find. He lives a few blocks south of Sunset Boulevard, near the UCLA campus, in a white two-story house with a front yard jammed with aspen trees. There is a short driveway on the side of the home, and during the evening, a bright, white light illuminates the carport. If someone wants to sabotage the doctor’s car under the cover of night, a flashlight isn’t needed. On Sunday, June 24, just that kind of person struck. Rosenbaum, a highly regarded pediatric ophthalmologist who had been regularly harassed by animal-rights activists for...

“It’s nature. I’m sorry it’s negatively affecting you,” STERLING, MA - A sump pump rumbled in the cellar of her Sterling home and a hose gurgled in the front yard as Mary B. Honan waited for a state Department of Conservation and Recreation official to arrive at her house earlier this week. The feisty Irish lilt in her voice falling flat, Ms. Honan declared herself the loser of a four-year war. “The beavers have won,” she said before the deputy director arrived. A native of Ireland, Ms. Honan fell in love with the energy of the United States in the...

SEATTLE - A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday to stop Weyerhaeuser Co. from logging in spotted owl habitat on four parcels of private land in Washington. U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman did not grant, however, an additional request by the Seattle Audubon Society to stop the state of Washington from granting permits to log in spotted owl habitat. The injunction from logging covers spotted owl habitat within 2.7 miles of the center of four circles of land in southwestern Washington that are owned by Weyerhaeuser. "It really shows the Endangered Species Act still has some teeth in...

Washington (CNSNews.com) - A woman with short hair and glasses stands on a chair in a small meeting room on the first floor of the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. She's reading off the names of states and senators, directing dozens of people to meetings starting at 11 AM. When she's through, most people listening leave to start their lobbying efforts. The rest converge on a table of food provided by the natural and organic grocery store Whole Foods. Monday was the last day of the annual Taking Action for Animals Conference. After a weekend featuring speakers and...

A man who set firebombs in seven large SUVs last March pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison Wednesday. Grant Barnes... using the methods of the eco-terrorist group Earth Liberation Front... When Barnes was arrested, police found a box of seven of the devices in the back of his car. Police said they are replicas of bombs shown on ELF's Web site.

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.

PETA has a message for Michael Moore: You’re the Sicko. The animal-rights group is blasting the filmmaker as a hypocrite for criticizing the U.S. healthcare system in his new documentary, “Sicko,” because they say he’s in such poor health himself. “There’s an elephant in the room, and it is you,” PETA president Ingrid Newkirk wrote in a letter to Moore. Newkirk urged the rotund Moore to become a vegetarian, which many nutritionists say is a good way to lose weight, and visit PETA’s Web site GoVeg.com for veggie recipes. Writes Newkirk: “As they say at Nike (sorry!): ‘Just do it.”

These are dangerous times for waterfowl in Chicago. With the city's ban on foie gras — a delicacy made of duck and goose liver — days away from going into effect, upscale restaurants in the city are serving it up like never before. They've put together special menus featuring it in course after course — searing it, chilling it, throwing it into salads and turning it into sauce. At the same time, foie gras (pronounced fwah-GRAH) enthusiasts are cooking up a lawsuit to keep it on menus or put it back after the ban takes effect Aug. 22, holding fundraisers...

The constant calls, the people frightening his children, and the demonstrations in front of his home apparently became a little too much. Dario Ringach, an associate neurobiology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, decided this month to give up his research on primates because of pressure put on him, his neighborhood, and his family by the UCLA Primate Freedom Project, which seeks to stop research that harms animals. Anti-animal research groups are trumpeting Ringach’s move as a victory, while some researchers are worried that it could embolden such groups to use more extreme tactics. . . ....

Anglers attacked by animal extremists By Nigel Bunyan (Filed: 19/08/2006) A gang of masked animal rights activists has attacked a group of anglers, prompting fears that extremists are determined to widen the scope of their campaign of intimidation. The 35 masked extremists had earlier disrupted a grouse shoot before being moved on by police. A handful of people, some of them families, was enjoying a day out at the Bank House fly fishery, at Caton, near Lancaster, when the saboteurs arrived. Lucy Belson, of Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria, was fishing with a friend when they suddenly found themselves at the mercy...

A naked performance artist who says she experienced fantasies of "interspecies metamorphoses" while working with dead pigs has angered British animal rights activists. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals criticized an exhibition where artist Kira O'Reilly sits naked for hours with a dead pig, planned for Friday evening at the Newlyn Art Gallery in Penzance, southwest England.

A dead raccoon was found in the back of a truck owned by the North Port Animal Control Department in Florida. No one knows how it got there. Flies and vultures were seen buzzing the truck, but it wasn't until a vulture landed on it that an officer bothered to investigate. When she did, she discovered the rotting raccoon, which police said had been dead for a week. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants the officer assigned to the truck, Jessica Miller, charged with animal cruelty, and subjected to psychological evaluation and counseling. "PETA is asking that if...

The animal rights activist formerly known as Kentuckyfriedcruelty.com is now just plain, old Christopher Garnett. The staffer at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was one of three workers who changed their names to support the organizations goals. Two have now returned to their given names. "I think maybe its time had come and gone," said Karin Robertson, who had been known as Goveg.com since March 2003. The switch was intended to draw people to the organizations Web site, Roberston said. It worked: Web traffic to the site shot up, as did requests for vegetarian starter kits. Following their...

Animal Rights Group Claims Credit for Botched Arson Attempt- (07/31) The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) web site is claiming responsibility for a failed arson attempt in Los Angeles. On June 30, an incendiary device, intended for the home of a UCLA psychiatry professor, was placed at the wrong address. Fortunately, for the elderly homeowner the device did not detonate and no one was injured. ALF claims that the intended target of the explosive device was keeping monkeys to study "psychological, psychiatric and social problems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, substance abuse, criminality and violence." Arson investigators stated that had...

Animal rights activists are protesting an art professor's plan to fit more than 20 pigeons with smog-monitoring gadgets and release them from a San Jose arts festival Saturday evening. -snip- In theory, the birds will fly around for an undetermined period of time, carrying on their backs electronic instruments used to measure and transmit information about smog levels at their altitude over San Jose. Eventually the birds are supposed to return to their owner's home about 30 miles away. -snip- Earlier this year, da Costa said she wasn't sure if the pigeon launches have real scientific value but she defended...

London, England (AHN) - An animal rights activist in a small English fishing village prevented a contest in which fishermen hurl giant dead eel at each other by sending a threatening e-mail. The activist said he would film the contest to attract negative media attention to the village's annual tradition of "conger cuddling." Crowds have gathered in the village of Lyme Reggis every year for more than three decades to watch two teams of fisherman stand on wooden platforms and swing 25-pound dead eel at each other. The object of a conger cuddling match is to knock the opposing team...

Lobster defenders are seeing red after two local men were nabbed for allegedly snapping the tails off live crustaceans and tossing the traumatized creatures back into the sea. Anthony T. Gozzo, 52, of Billerica and his partner, Mark E. Turcotte, 20, of Lowell were arraigned in East Boston District Court yesterday on 202 counts of possessing mutilated lobster. “I certainly hope these fishermen are punished to the fullest extent of the law for this sick crime,” said Matt Prescott of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - which isn’t crazy about lobster boiling, either. Environmental police spotted the pair...

People for the Impartial Treatment of Animals (PITA) spokesperson Flora Freebird explained, "If people insist on the enslavement of animals, then those animals should be entitled to just compensation for the freedom they are denied as well as the work they perform."

Three animal rights extremists who attacked a terrified 75-year-old grandmother and her family for simply displaying a pro-hunting sticker on their car were today jailed for a total of three-and-a-half years. Natasha Avery, 39, Heather Nicholson, 38, and 19-year-old Daniel Wadham shouted 'scum' and 'perverts' at the grandmother who was with her 21-year-old grandson and his mother as they were stuck in a traffic jam in Richmond, Surrey. During the incident - branded "disgraceful" by the Judge - Nicholson and Wadham tried to drag the grandson out of the car by his legs and spat in his face before Nicholson...

The number of attacks by extremists on researchers using animals has decreased, according to figures released by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) yesterday. In the first six months of this year, 15 incidents were recorded at people's private homes, compared with 32 in the same period last year. The figures also show a drop in almost every area of activity by anti-vivisectionists, with demonstrations down from 670 to 424. "Good progress has been made ... in combating animal rights extremists," said Philip Wright, the ABPI's director of science and technology.