Program areas at PETA
Research, investigations, and rescue peta receives hundreds of complaints related to animal abuse and neglect each week and works to rescue the abused, neglected, and at-risk Animals and arrange care for them. We also investigate cruelty cases, conduct investigations, gather evidence of legal violations, and take action to ensure the enforcement of laws and regulations. Peta fieldworkers are out every day in impoverished regions, where dogs are often chained or penned outdoors. Our outreach is not limited to the continental u.s. peta's mobile spay/neuter clinics sterilized 9,573 Animals in fy 2023. the clinics completed 2,400 free surgeries, 587 of which were on pit bulls, and nearly 4,000 surgeries at half the usual cost or less. Two of peta's mobile clinics traveled to the underserved area of galax, in southwestern Virginia, to offer free spay/neuter surgeries along with vaccines and microchips. the total number of Animals sterilized was 150. At another Virginia clinic in hayes, 116 cats were sterilized at low or no cost. We teamed up with the humane society of puerto rico to host a two-day clinic. Nearly 200 Animals were vaccinated and spayed or neutered, all free of charge. During fy 2023, peta held five spay/neuter clinics in cancn, mexico, where a total of 1,392 dogs and cats were sterilized free of charge. We collaborated with the local municipal shelter and with veterinarians and went into low-income areas where services are limited. We also participated in fieldwork on several occasions and delivered doghouses, food, flea prevention and deworming medication, toys, treats, and more, all free of charge. In addition, we assisted with vet care and transferred surrendered dogs to the shelter. Peta's poochella adoption event was a success and helped find several dogs new, permanent homes. We worked with north carolina law enforcement to seize and find homes for dozens of pigs from a hoarding situation. After we pressured Missouri officials for months, they removed approximately 30 dogs from a hoarder's junkyard, where they had no shelter during an arctic blast. We provided Ohio officials with enough evidence to seize approximately 30 sick and neglected dogs who were confined to filthy cages 24/7 in a hoarding situation. the future farmers of america program at a California high school was using rubber bands and duct tape to dehorn baby goats. At least one young goat was shaking and screaming in pain. After we contacted the school district superintendent, we were swiftly assured that the goat had been seen by a veterinarian and that the banding would cease. After hearing from peta, west Virginia officials stopped using avitrol, a poison intended for killing pigeons. the management of a london hotel agreed to stop allowing Animals at children's events after two distressed lambs were hit by several children and heard bleating for hours. When a peta undercover investigator visited a Virginia pet store that sells dogs obtained from out-of-state puppy mills for as much as 15,000, an employee said that no lifetime warranties are available for english bulldogs or other breathing-impaired breeds because they will inevitably suffer from health problems, sometimes fatally. the new york post broke the story. We went undercover backstage at the westminster kennel club dog show for a behind-the-scenes look at breeders and handlers candidly discussing the breathing-impaired breeds being shown there and the absurd lengths that they go to in an attempt to win, such as applying makeup to dogs' faces to meet the show's ridiculous and inhumane standards. After we notified the Pennsylvania state police that federal officials had repeatedly found guinea pigs dead, deprived of veterinary care, and attacked by their severely stressed companions at a breeding operation-but had not rendered the survivors any relief-the police went to the property and charged the breeder with 10 counts of cruelty to Animals. the facility no longer has any guinea pigs, and its operator has surrendered her usda license. After a Utah man allegedly started a wildfire while trying to burn a spider, our call for him to be charged with cruelty because of all the wild Animals who died in the blaze sparked extensive coverage. After a Wisconsin man was arrested for allegedly starting at least eight marshland fires, we urged prosecutors to add cruelty-to-animals charges, given the countless wild Animals who suffered and died in the blazes. After a California man was arrested for allegedly starting a fire that killed at least three cats and left others with burns and lung damage, we urged the district attorney to add cruelty-to-animals charges. the prosecutor thanked peta for our work and is considering our request. Animals in the entertainment industry the daily mail broke peta's undercover investigation into bear country u.s.a., a drive-through roadside zoo in south dakota that displays infant Animals who have been violently torn away from their mothers. Peta's investigator caught workers on camera admitting to using explosives to scare mothers out of their dens, instructing staff to kick baby bears, and denying elderly Animals adequate care. Bear cubs were kidnapped when they were no more than 8 weeks old. As the screaming newborns were stuffed into a van, workers ran chainsaws (without the chains) in order to cover up the sound so that the bear mothers wouldn't realize what was going on. Following months of behind-the-scenes talks with peta, the mirage in las vegas announced that the big cats who had formerly been owned by siegfried & roy were moved from the hotel's secret garden to two sanctuaries approved by the global federation of animal sanctuaries. Peta and the coalition to end horse racing subsidies, which was initiated by peta and which comprises human services, fiscal policy, education, and animal welfare organizations, worked with new york assembly members and senators to introduce legislation that would end the state's 230 million in subsidies and redirect the funds into education. the Washington post broke peta's yearlong investigation into unregulated quarter horse racing in Georgia, at which we exposed jockeys and trainers who injected horses with meth and cocaine, electroshocked them into running faster, and whipped them repeatedly, which often led to catastrophic breakdowns and horse deaths. Based on peta's evidence, the lamar county sheriff's office charged a bookie for felony commercial gambling for taking wagers on unregulated races and charged six jockeys for cruelty to Animals. the american veterinary medical association and the american association of equine practitioners announced new policies against unsanctioned horse racing following our investigation. After peta senior vice president kathy guillermo shared our findings, the California horse racing board passed a groundbreaking regulation to prevent jockeys, trainers, and owners from participating in or even attending illegal races. With this measure, California became the first state in the nation to ban its licensees from involvement in unsanctioned quarter horse races. Peta's videos from this investigation have had tens of millions of views. After peta called for the suspension of racing and timed workouts at churchill downs, the track, in an unprecedented move, complied and announced that it was closing and moving the rest of its meet to a nearby racetrack. This garnered massive media and put pressure on all u.s. Racing. Peta kept the focus on the deaths-not the races-and we filmed the 11th horse to die at churchill downs this season. Thanks to peta's undercover investigation into racehorse slaughter in south korea, another horse has been brought back to the u.s. any given saturday, the 19-year-old american stallion who ran in the 2007 Kentucky derby and won a 1 million stakes race, has been returned home safe after eight years in south korea. He now lives at a Kentucky sanctuary for retired racehorses. Following a legal settlement with tri-state zoological park, robert candy, and animal park, care & rescue, Inc., that forced the notorious roadside zoo to close after years of animal welfare violations and two lawsuits, peta executed a five-day rescue operation involving 72 Animals of 30 species-our largest-ever rescue of Animals from a roadside zoo. We enlisted the help of 14 reputable sanctuaries and accredited zoos from Maryland to California, which are now caring for the Animals, including bears, a squirrel monkey, a bengal cat, domestic and exotic birds, alligators, and others. Earlier, peta had also rescued three big cats, two coatimundis, and a kinkajou from tri-state, bringing the total number of Animals to 78. Four chimpanzees-april, anna, lucy, and cash-were rescued from Ohio's union ridge wildlife center (urwc), a roadside zoo formerly operated by notorious animal exploiter and convicted felon cy vierstra, and transferred to the accredited save the chimps sanctuary in Florida. Their resc
International grassroots campaigns peta organizes campaigns to inform the public about the abuse and killing of Animals in the experimentation, food, clothing, and entertainment industries, among other types of cruelty. In 2023, peta organized and led 693 demonstrations and sent out millions of letters through its online advocacy campaigns to urge companies and individuals to make changes that benefit Animals. Animals in the experimentation industry the university of Washington (uw) was ordered to pay peta nearly 540,000 in fees and penalties, following our public records lawsuit. the court found that uw had improperly withheld records detailing financial and leadership crises as well as the deaths of monkeys at its Washington national primate research center. A court also ruled that members of a public animal care committee at uw have no right under the first amendment of the u.s. constitution to keep their identities secret. In 2021, peta submitted public records requests for the appointment letters of members of the university's institutional animal care and use committee (iacuc), suspecting that its members may have illegal conflicts of interest. We expect that this decision will have far- reaching consequences and make it harder for all iacucs to operate secretly or without accountability to taxpayers, who fund experiments. A federal judge denied the government's request to dismiss peta's first- of-its-kind lawsuit against the national institutes of health (nih) and government officials, which alleges that funding sepsis experiments on Animals abuses the agency's discretion and violates its obligation to fund research to improve human health and minimize the use of Animals in experiments-nih has even acknowledged that mice and humans don't experience sepsis in the same way. the ruling means that peta has alleged facts sufficient to allow the case to proceed. Peta learned that nih has officially shut off the spigot of money flowing to the colombian organizations at the center of an 18-month peta investigation. the agency rescinded the eligibility of the caucaseco scientific research center and the malaria vaccine and development center to receive u.s. Taxpayer money. It's unlikely that these laboratories will ever torment Animals in pointless experiments again. One hundred and eight monkeys and 180 mice were seized. the survivors are now recovering. We worked with four Virginia state senators to expose dozens of violations of the federal animal welfare act at three taxpayer-funded universities. We uncovered critical welfare violations at these schools, which fought tooth and nail against bills that would have penalized them for such violations. At old dominion, a rabbit was left to languish for over an hour while staff searched for euthanasia solution. At eastern Virginia medical school, four chinchillas dropped more than 30% of their body weight in an experiment, and monkeys were denied adequate care for severe low blood sugar, including one monkey who was deprived of emergency care for seven hours, "remained barely responsive,- and was paralyzed. At Virginia tech, a piglet starved over the course of six days and a calf died because experimenters failed to place an iv catheter required to administer rescue therapy after having made the animal sick with an infectious disease. the senators vowed to fight for more transparency and accountability for laboratories in the next legislative session. After peta wrote to officials in sri lanka, the government nixed a plan to export 100,000 macaques to china, where they likely would have ended up in laboratories. Peta received an unprecedented 35% of the votes in favor of our shareholder proposal to charles river laboratories, which asked the company to report to shareholders on the origin of all monkeys it imports. This came after we contacted the company's top shareholders. We needed only 5% in order to reintroduce our resolution, but now the company knows that its shareholders are very unhappy with its lack of transparency. Following the vote, some shareholders filed a class action suit against the company. Charles river is also currently under federal investigation for alleged monkey laundering. A chinese company planned to build a massive facility in Florida, to import, quarantine, and warehouse monkeys, establishing another link in the deadly wildlife-trade chain. Following our urgent warnings to gov. Ron desantis, the company confirmed to peta that the plan has been scrapped. Congress passed the fda modernization act 2.0, removing the mandate for animal tests for new drugs and giving the u.s. food and drug administration (fda) the authority to consider superior, non-animal methods instead of relying on painful, scientifically flawed animal tests. After relentless pressure from peta, from actor lily tomlin, and from more than 125,000 dedicated supporters, we received confirmation that ford motor company would definitively slam the brakes on its animal testing. Despite its assurance in 2009 that it didn't conduct or fund such tests, we uncovered its financial involvement in a gruesome experiment in which 27 pigs were killed in barbaric crash tests. Following a rigorous 21-month peta campaign, the automaker updated its public policy at peta's request to close all loopholes that had previously allowed the funding of animal testing. Following discussions with peta, general motors also announced an upgraded formal policy that now prohibits conducting or paying for any animal testing. the automaker had stopped using Animals in crash tests in 1993 after an 18-month peta campaign but didn't expressly prohibit paying others to conduct tests on Animals. for the third year in a row, peta received confirmation from a senior thai military official that cobra gold, a joint multinational military exercise held in thailand and attended by the u.s. military, would not involve any animal killings during its survival training drills. Previously, these drills had required troops to kill chickens with their bare hands, consume live scorpions and tarantulas, skin and eat live geckos, and decapitate cobras and drink their blood. Peta's expos first led to a halt to these atrocities in 2021. New documents recently obtained by peta show that the gruesome decompression sickness experiments on sheep funded by the u.s. navy-which had been awarded more than 389,000 in taxpayer money-at the university of wisconsin-madison were abruptly stopped up to two years ahead of schedule, following our letter to secretary of the navy carlos del toro and public records requests to the navy and the school. the sheep formerly slated for these tests will be spared the agony of cardiovascular collapse, spinal cord injury, and paralysis. A court ordered Oregon health & science university to pay peta more than 400,000, after going to extreme and illegal lengths to keep videos of cruel experiments on voles hidden, during which the Animals were given the equivalent of 15 bottles of wine a day in an attempt to draw conclusions about the impact of human alcohol consumption on infidelity. We worked with reuters to expose the great lengths to which usda leaders went in order to avoid enforcing the animal welfare act at envigo's beagle-breeding mill in the wake of our investigation. Through foia requests, we found that officials had deleted citations and details of puppies' painful deaths and dogs' severe suffering from inspection reports and cut one report from 107 pages down to just 22. Usda leaders also relieved a seasoned veterinarian and a well-respected inspector of their duties on the case and severely limited the remaining inspectors' ability to do their jobs, even as the department of justice was preparing to execute a search warrant at the facility and ultimately liberate all the survivors. Reuters revealed that a federal grand jury was hearing testimony on all this and on envigo's horrific history of violations. After the reuters report, the head of the usda's animal care division, betty goldentyer, abruptly resigned, ending her 35-year career with the usda. Following a relentless six-year peta campaign against canine muscular dystrophy experiments at Texas a&m university, the university confirmed that the surviving healthy dogs (who had been transferred to its veterinary school from the notorious laboratory) had been released for adoption. More than 50 dogs in total were released and adopted into homes, the breeding of dogs for these experiments was stopped, and the lab was closed. After hearing from peta, peta australia, and humane research australia, macquarie university in sydney decided to prohibit the forced swim test. the school's animal ethics committee reviewed the scientific literature on the test and reached the same conclusion as peta scientists: the forced swim test is bad science. Following a peta campaign lasting over 17 months, the university of Tennessee health science center, which oversees the college of
Public outreach and information peta conducts informational campaigns and publishes materials for children, high school and college students, and educators as well as factsheets, booklets, fliers, posters, and a magazine, peta global, for the public and supporters. Peta's campaigns-which reach millions of People and receive extensive international media coverage-involve renowned celebrities, interactive social networking, website features, blog posts, and public service announcements (psas), which are typically placed for free in high- exposure outlets. In fiscal year 2023, peta secured free advertising space worth nearly 4.8 million and logged more than 114,000 interactions with the media via news releases, letters, tweets, and radio, tv, print, and online interviews.
Cruelty-free merchandise program peta encourages and facilitates cruelty-free living by providing compassionate People around the world with consumer products-such as personal care products and household cleaners that aren't tested on Animals, animal care products, and animal rights t-shirts-informational videos and books, animal-rescue equipment, and campaign materials. These items are available online through the peta mall and the peta catalog. This fiscal year, peta added 406 new companies to our beauty without bunnies list of companies that don't test on Animals, including celebrity brand ariana grande's r.e.m. Beauty, bringing the new total to 6,300.