Major Supplier to Taiwan’s 7 Eleven Stores Bans Animal Tests After PETA Push

From 2013 to 2018, Lian Hwa conducted and/or funded
 at least five laboratory experiments
that involved no fewer than 178 animals.

 

Mumbai  9th Oct 2015(Sana Sayed): There’s more progress in the global effort to end experiments on animals! After more than six months of talks with PETA and our friends at Kindness to Animals (KiTA) in Taiwan, Lian Hwa Foods Corp.—a popular snack food company based in Taiwan and a major supplier of ready-to-eat foods at 7-Eleven stores there—banned animal tests not explicitly required by law.

Previously, Lian Hwa supported invasive and lethal animal testing methods to justify claims that it made in marketing materials to consumers about the supposed human health benefits of its products and ingredients, which include oats, probiotics, and mulberry leaves. But after hearing from PETA, the company has established a new, forward-thinking policy stating, “Lian Hwa Foods … does not conduct, sponsor, or entrust/outsource to third-parties to conduct animal testing unless expressly required by regulations” (English translation of original Mandarin policy).

PETA is calling on other food companies in Taiwan to stop funding or conducting needless experiments on animals.

These tests have entailed force-feeding, electroshocking, drowning, starving, bleeding, poisoning, dissecting, and/or killing more than 8,000 animals over the past two decades. Lian Hwa now joins Standard Foods Group and Vitalon Foods Group—the largest and third-largest health food companies in Taiwan, respectively—in banning such tests, none of which Taiwanese law requires, after hearing from PETA.

Previously, PETA also successfully pressured the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) to adopt two major reforms: first, removing horrific drowning and electroshock tests on animals from the regulation concerning companies attempting to make anti-fatigue health claims for marketing their products and, second, updating its safety testing regulation for health foods to prioritize “non-animal test methods that are internationally recognized.”

PETA and more than 96,000 of our conscientious supporters are now calling on the TFDA to ban animal tests in a separate draft regulation for companies attempting to make joint-protection health claims for marketing foods and beverages.

What You Can Do

Please take action today to urge other Taiwanese companies still testing on animals for marketing food and beverage products to step into the 21st century and end these horrific experiments that don’t advance human health, are not required by law, and have no place in modern research.

Lambs Skinned Alive—Help

Mumbai 18th Aug 2015(Sana Sayed): A gut-churning PETA video exposé reveals that life is hell for lambs and sheep exploited for so-called "responsibly sourced" wool on so-called "sustainable" farms. A witness found workers in Argentina hacking into fully conscious lambs, starting to skin some of them while they were still alive and kicking, and otherwise mutilating, abusing, and neglecting lambs and sheep on farms in the Ovis 21 network—Patagonia's wool supplier.

As you can see in the video footage, workers plunged knives into gentle lambs' throats, sawed through their necks, snapped their heads backwards, and drove knives into their legs to skin them. A manager used a tool similar to pliers to cut pieces out of their sensitive ears. Another worker cut off their tails.

No matter where wool comes from, whether it's "responsibly sourced" or from a "sustainable" farm, it's the needless product of a cruel business. There is simply no way to raise and kill animals for the mass market in a humane way. To protect sheep from such abuse, please, refuse to buy wool. It's easy to check the label when you're shopping. If it says "wool," leave it on the shelf.

Tell FedEx and UPS to Stop Transporting Hunting Trophies

Mumbai 15th Aug 2015(Sana Sayed): Trophy hunter and Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer smiles over the corpse of an animal, who, like Cecil, only wanted to be left in peace.

As you have likely heard, a much-beloved lion named Cecil was recently lured out of the safety of Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, shot with a crossbow by a Minnesota dentist, and left to suffer for 40 hours before he was shot again this time with a gun and killed. Cecil was then beheaded and skinned, leaving his family of cubs fatherless and vulnerable. In the wake of this atrocity, many airlines have announced that they will no longer transport animals killed by trophy hunters. However, FedEx and UPS are still providing transport services for hunting trophies.

Trophy hunting is a spineless pastime in which over privileged cowards pay a hefty price to be handed a weapon so that they can gun down innocent and magnificent animals. These hunts leave wild animals without their mates, parents, and offspring. Hunters, who lack compassion and respect for these living creatures, simply want another carcass that they can mount on their wall. As other renowned companies are taking a stand against this despicable pastime, it's time that FedEx and UPS follow suit.

Take Action for Cecil the Lion

To protect other lions like Cecil, please urge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a final rule listing lions as "threatened" and banning the importation of lion heads, tails, and skins in order to stop all trophy imports into the United States. 

Mumbai 9th Aug 2015(Sana Sayed): Cecil the lion, the patriarch and defender of a family of dozens of cubs, was recently killed by a Minnesota dentist who wanted a lion's head on his wall. The dentist, Walter Palmer, along with his hunting party, tied a dead animal to a vehicle to lure Cecil out of Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. He blinded Cecil with a spotlight and then shot him with a high-powered crossbow. Cecil hid in the bush, no doubt suffering greatly from a steel arrow in his body. When Cecil was found 40 hours later the mighty white hunter shot him and had him beheaded and skinned.

Hunting is a coward's pastime. To get a thrill at the cost of a life, this overblown, over-privileged little man gunned down a beloved lion with a high-powered weapon, leaving a family of cubs vulnerable to attack. All wild animals are beloved by their own mates and offspring, but to hunters who lack empathy, understanding, and respect for living creatures they are merely targets to kill, decapitate, and hang up on a wall as a trophy. The photograph of this dentist smiling over the corpse of another animal, who, like Cecil, wanted only to be left in peace, will disgust every caring soul in the world. 

The United States must stop allowing the importation of lion heads, tails, and skins into the United States. 

Mali is perhaps one of the world's saddest elephants

Please urge authorities to take immediate
action to transfer Mali to a sanctuary. 

Mumbai 26th Jul 2015(Sana Sayed): Mali was still a nursing baby when she was taken from her home in Sri Lanka, where she was just learning how to swim, roughhouse with her cousins, and find her own food. For more than 35 years, Mali has been confined to a barren, concrete enclosure at the Manila Zoo.

Wild elephants engage in activities for up to 20 hours every day, moving about and socializing with other elephants. The entire Manila Zoo measures only 0.055 square kilometers, and Mali's enclosure is one small piece of that. For her physical well-being, Mali needs grass to cushion her aching joints and room to move, not a cramped pen. For her emotional health, Mali needs the company of other elephants. She hasn't seen another elephant in more than 30 years.

Mali has been denied proper veterinary care. In the entire time she has been at the zoo, she has never received proper preventative foot care—something every reputable zoo in the world provides—or even basic blood work. Joint and foot problems are the leading cause of death in captive elephants, and elephant expert Dr. Henry Richardson, who flew to Manila to examine Mali at PETA Asia's expense, determined that Mali already suffers from potentially fatal cracked nails and foot pads, which are open to infection, and overgrown cuticles. Since PETA Asia alerted the zoo to Mali's problems, the zoo hasn't brought in a single elephant expert to help her. 

But Mali has an opportunity for a second chance at life. A sanctuary would be able to provide Mali with vast spaces to roam, ponds to bathe in, fresh vegetation, foraging opportunities, and the company of many other elephants.

Her health and her sanity depend on it.

9 Things No One Told You About Hunting

Millions of animals are killed by hunters each year. 

Mumbai 15th Jul 2015(Sana Sayed): Hunters make up many excuses to justify their pastime. However, cruel, unnecessary killing—which is what hunting is—has no justification. 

1. REAL sports involve competition between consenting parties and don’t end with the deliberate death of one unwilling participant.

2. Wildlife departments often cull majestic predators, such as wolves, bears, and coyotes, to prevent predation on elk, caribou, and deer so that hunters will have more animals to gun down.

3. Natural phenomena such as predators, starvation, and disease kill primarily the sickest and weakest individuals. Hunters, on the other hand, strive to kill the larger, stronger animals because they want to hang their heads on a wall, and this weakens the remaining population.

4. Most hunting occurs on private land, where laws that protect wildlife are often ignored or difficult to enforce.

5. When animals are killed, families are broken up, often leaving young animals to perish of starvation or attacks by other animals. For animals such as wolves, who mate for life and live in close-knit family units, hunting can devastate entire communities.

6. Hunters often accidentally injure and kill animals other than the ones who are being hunted, including horses, cows, dogs, and cats. Sometimes hunters even injure or kill themselves or other humans, such as hikers and other hunters.

7. Dogs used for hunting are often kept chained or penned and are denied routine veterinary care. Some dogs are lost during hunts, and others are turned loose at the end of hunting season to fend for themselves.

8. Hunted animals often don’t die painlessly or quickly. Many animals must be shot multiple times. A British study found that some wounded deer suffered for more than 15 minutes before dying.

 

9. When injured animals escape from hunters, they usually endure prolonged, painful deaths as a result of predation, shock, or exposure.

Stop the bloodshed by refusing to go hunting and by sharing this page and educating people about hunting.