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Our Mission Statement Canada’s annual seal slaughter begins on April 9th. In the face of intense international outrage and far-reaching bans on seal fur and other seal “products,” the Canadian sealing community is trying desperately to discredit the animal advocates who are speaking out against it. But the facts don’t lie. These are the eight most important things that you need to know about the seal slaughter, and how you can help end it. 3. Seal “products” from the commercial slaughter have been banned in 36 countries because of cruelty. All major markets for seal “products” have now closed. Belarus, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Taiwan, the United States, India, the 28 countries of the European Union, and Russia (which previously imported 95 percent of Canada’s seal “products”), have all banned imports of products made from seals killed in Canada’s commercial slaughter. In addition, China has said “no” to seal meat, despite years of efforts by sealers to create a market there. . This is an important distinction when talking about animal rights. People often ask if animals should have rights, and quite simply, the answer is “Yes!” Animals surely deserve to live their lives free from suffering and exploitation. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the reforming utilitarian school of moral philosophy, stated that when deciding on a being’s rights, “The question is not ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’” In that passage, Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for suffering is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language or higher mathematics. All animals have the ability to suffer in the same way and to the same degree that humans do. They feel pain, pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and motherly love. Whenever we consider doing something that would interfere with their needs, we are morally obligated to take them into account. Supporters of animal rights believe that animals have an inherent worth—a value completely separate from their usefulness to humans. We believe that every creature with a will to live has a right to live free from pain and suffering. Animal rights is not just a philosophy—it is a social movement that challenges society’s traditional view that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use. As PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has said, “When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife.” , PETA president Ingrid E. Newkirk provides hundreds of tips, stories, and resources. It’s PETA’s must-have guide to animal rights. park SeaWorld reached a fever-pitch. As a result, public condemnation of SeaWorld led to a tanking stock price, and the company’s attendance, revenue, and profits continued to plummet. PETA secures the first conviction for the production and distribution of disturbing “crush videos,” after supplying evidence to law-enforcement officials in Houston and encouraging federal authorities to press charges against Ashley Nicole Richards for violating the Federal Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010. methods to replace all animal studies in the program. The EDSP, as it is known, requires the testing of more than 10,000 chemicals for possible effects on the body’s hormonal systems, and in its original form, had the potential to kill millions of animals. EPA’s announcement means the agency is largely following the roadmap that PETA scientists have laid out for the program over the past decade through ongoing meetings with EPA, participation in working groups, submission of numerous technical documents, and the publication of several articles. Following a PETA India investigation documenting the abuse of thousands of horses, donkeys, and mules in antitoxin production, the PETA International Science Consortium funds the development of a non-animal replacement for the diphtheria antitoxin, ordinarily made by repeatedly injecting horses with toxins and drawing large volumes of their blood. Until recently, rats were being used in cruel experiments to test—of all things—raspberries. The National Processed Raspberry Council and the Washington Red Raspberry Commission had been funding misguided experiments that looked at the effects of raspberries on everything from diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease to balance and coordination. But following discussions with PETA, both groups have confirmed that they will no longer fund experiments on animals. PETA pressed, and we got results: Multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical and medical-device maker Sanofi has committed to not killing animals anymore in training sessions for sales personnel. This comes after PETA uncovered evidence that the company was using live animals to demonstrate invasive medical-device procedures for sales representatives. Following pressure from PETA and U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), the U.S. Coast Guard has become the first branch of the military to suspend the shooting, stabbing, and killing of animals in trauma training drills while it studies available human simulators and other non-animal training methods that could be used instead. The Coast Guard confirmed that the moratorium came into effect after a PETA exposé prompted an official review by the agency. Just weeks after PETA contacted House Foods to ask it to stop conducting experiments on animals, the company ended its long-standing practice of force-feeding mice and injecting them with chemicals in order to make health claims about its products. House Foods’ animal tests date back to 1996. Working with the company Good Clean Love, PETA convinces the US Food and Drug Administration to accept results from simple non-invasive skin tests on human volunteers instead of requiring that rabbits and guinea pigs be injected with lubricants. This precedent-setting ruling not only spared the lives of the specific animals who would have been used, but sets a clear guide to allow other companies to also use tests that don’t require animals.