September 15, 2009

Take the Factory Farming Challenge and Have Your Gift Doubled

Through dozens of investigations of factory farms and slaughterhouses, PETA has done more than any other organization to expose the hideous abuses inflicted on animals who are bred, confined, and killed for their milk and flesh. By unflinchingly confronting the horrors that are inflicted on these animals behind closed doors, our investigators force corporate giants and the public to face them as well.

With your help, we now have a unique opportunity to do even more. A group of generous PETA donors, who believe deeply in this work, have put up $200,000 of their own money as an online challenge to dedicated supporters like you to stop the cruelty on factory farms and to support all our efforts in behalf of abused animals everywhere.



By donating and having your gift doubled during our Factory Farming Challenge, you can help us write the historic next chapter in the story of the fall of the industrialized meat industry. Recently, we achieved three groundbreaking milestones in our fight against factory farming:



The first ever convictions for abusing or neglecting factory-farmed pigs in Iowa, the nation's top pork-producing state, came as a result of our investigation of a farm there that breeds piglets killed for Hormel products. Three men were sentenced to prison terms and fined; four defendants were ordered not to work with any animals.



The first felony indictments for cruelty to factory-farmed birds in U.S. history were issued following a PETA investigation of turkey farms in West Virginia owned by Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., the world's leading poultry-breeding company. The case is ongoing, but two men have already been convicted; one was sentenced to 12 months in jail the stiffest penalty ever levied by an American court for abuse of a factory-farmed animal.



The world's largest kosher slaughterhouse went bankrupt shortly after a PETA investigator exposed its Humane Methods of Slaughter Act violations, including allowing living cows to suffer from gaping cuts that had been sawed into their necks.

Investigations like these have led to critical new corporate animal welfare standards everywhere, from farms to fast-food restaurants. These new standards are not only revolutionizing the industry as a whole but are also improving the living and dying conditions of countless individual animals. These cases have also helped us convince growing numbers of people to recognize the whole factory-farming system for what it is institutionalized cruelty to animals and dump meat for heart-healthy, animal-friendly diets.

PETA is bringing about reforms like these, which means that millions of individual cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals are spared the nightmare of life on a factory farm and death in a slaughterhouse.

But for every one of these animals, many more are living in pain and fear right now on factory farms. It is for them that PETA is working nonstop to expose and confront this abuse, and we cannot sustain our efforts without the support of caring friends like you.

Please take the Factory Farming Challenge donate to PETA today to have your gift for animals doubled dollar for dollar. This is the moment when your financial support can do the most for animals. Thank you.