Fwd: Challenge cruel animal abuse on college campuses

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ingrid Newkirk <newsmanager@peta.org>
Date: 2010/10/13
Subject: Challenge cruel animal abuse on college campuses
To: akmb1987@gmail.com

Dear Anne, Darla, a friendly cat with very expressive eyes, deserved to be adopted into a good home. Instead, she was sold by the North Utah Valley Animal Shelter to the University of Utah (the U) for $15. University faculty soon began tormenting her in archaic and painful intubation training exercises in which a hard plastic tube was repeatedly forced down her delicate windpipe; for decades, hundreds of other facilities have conducted such training by using humanlike simulators instead of animals. Animals like Darla are suffering and dying right now on campuses across the U.S. Please support PETA's "Stop Animal Testing" Challenge today to have your gift DOUBLED to save animals in laboratories. Thanks to supporters like you, PETA's undercover investigation of the U led Utah legislators to amend state law so that government-run animal shelters would no longer be forced to sell homeless animals like Darla to laboratories, and all but one of the state's shelters have closed their doors to experimenters. As you read this e-mail, countless sensitive animals just like Darla are being confined to barren cages in university laboratories, waiting until it's their turn to become another casualty of painful and horrifically cruel animal tests. By making a special challenge gift to PETA online today, you will help us throw open laboratory doors and give a voice to the animals inside. The suffering endured by animals inside university laboratories is nothing short of heartbreaking. That's why PETA's dedicated staff spends countless hours scouring professional journals, reviewing records of animals abused in laboratories, tracking down grant recipients, and investigating local laws in an effort to find—and stop—abuses by campus experimenters across North America. Changing a university culture built on cruel and archaic experiments is not easy, but PETA is committed to doing all that we can to do just that. A little more than a year ago, PETA discovered that experimenters at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW) were killing sheep in painful and deadly decompression experiments that were in direct violation of the state's Crimes Against Animals statute. When pressed by a Wisconsin animal rights group, the local district attorney even went so far as to acknowledge that these experiments, in which animals died in agony, violated the law—yet he refused to either stop the tests or prosecute those involved. Rather than simply accepting the prosecutor's inaction and allowing more sheep to die excruciatingly painful deaths from the "bends," PETA and the local animal rights group immediately petitioned the circuit court in the region to prosecute the university under the laws that it had so clearly violated. Earlier this year, the court granted our petition and appointed a special prosecutor, who is right now determining whether nine people involved in these cruel experiments will face criminal and civil prosecution. Universities like UW don't want people to know what happens to animals in campus laboratories—so we must do everything that we can to expose them. PETA is right now engaged in lawsuits against UW and the University of Maryland–Baltimore for violating their respective states' public records laws by refusing to release documents related to animal experiments in their laboratories. These schools are conducting cruel, wasteful, and in some cases, illegal experiments on animals, and we intend to bring all their abuses to the light of day. Please help us keep the fight for animals in laboratories going strong. By making a generous gift that will be matched dollar for dollar, you'll do twice as much to support our work to investigate, expose, and stop horrific experiments on animals. Thank you for supporting our fight. Very truly yours, Ingrid E. Newkirk President P.S. PETA is determined to raise $250,000 by the end of the month through this special "Stop Animal Testing" Challenge. Your generosity today will help us sustain our fight for animals like Darla. Can I count on your support today? Please donate online now to have your gift doubled. Click to update your e-mail preferences or to unsubscribe. This e-mail was sent by PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510 USA.