PETA

By Paula Moore

Imagine if someone invaded your home, tore you away from your family, drove you hundreds of miles away and then let you go. You don’t know where you are, and you’re desperate to get back home. You’re surrounded by hundreds of strangers, all as confused as you are. You’re scared and hungry and must fight to stay alive through all weather extremes. Some of the others succumb to exhaustion or starvation. Some are killed by hunters or predators. It may sound like a plot twist from The Hunger Games, but it’s real.

This is the fate of birds who are forced to fly for their lives in the abusive and often illegal pastime known as pigeon racing. That the victims of this cruel sport are animals and not humans should not make their suffering any less appalling.

PETA recently completed a 15-month undercover investigation into some of the largest pigeon-racing operations in the U.S. PETA’s investigators documented massive casualties of birds during races and training, rampant “culling” (killing), abusive training and racing methods and illegal interstate gambling.

In many of the races—which can be up to 600 miles long—more than 60 percent of the birds become lost or die along the way. Because these birds were raised in captivity and cannot fend for themselves in the wild, those who don’t make it home will likely starve to death. Pigeon racers even have a name for races that are particularly lethal: “smash races.”

During one race in Queens, for example, only four out of 213 birds ever returned. Out of nearly 2,300 baby birds shipped to the Phoenix area for training for the 2011 American Racing Pigeon Union Convention Race, only 827 survived to race day. Of those, only 487 birds had completed the 325-mile race by nightfall.

Pigeons are among the most maligned urban wildlife, yet they are complex and fascinating birds. Their hearing and vision are both excellent and have been used to save lives in wartime and to help find sailors lost at sea.

A study released in December showed that pigeons can learn abstract numerical rules—something that until recently, we thought only humans and other primates could do.

They are also loyal mates and doting parents. Both parents share in the care and nurturing of their hatchlings. Pigeon racers exploit these qualities by separating birds from their mates and babies so that they will race their hearts out, frantic to get home. After the racing season is over, the babies—no longer of any use to the racers—are often killed.

One racer told PETA’s investigators that the “first thing you have to learn” in pigeon racing is “how to kill pigeons.” Another recommended killing these gentle birds by drowning them, pulling their heads off or squeezing their breasts so tightly that they suffocate. Any bird who isn’t considered fast enough or isn’t wanted for breeding is killed.

Like other forms of animal exploitation, pigeon racing is driven by money. PETA penetrated racing organizations in which a quarter of a million dollars is bet on a single race. Pigeon racing generates an estimated $15 million a year in illegal gambling proceeds and involves felony gambling, racketeering and tax evasion. Not surprisingly, the high stakes lead to cheating. Some racers administer performance-enhancing drugs—including steroids and morphine—to their birds. One racer even admitted that he kills hawks—federally protected birds—because they prey upon his pigeons and then disposes of their bodies.

Pigeons are rock doves, a symbol of peace, and they deserve to be left in peace. PETA is calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate and prosecute unlawful pigeon-racing operations. The rest of us should shun this cruel sport. Animals should not have to pay with their lives for someone’s sick idea of entertainment.

Paula Moore is a senior writer for the PETA Foundation, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; http://www.peta.org/.

By Jennifer O’Connor

Right now, if you’re reading this in the comfort of your armchair or a cozy kitchen nook, please give a moment’s thought to the dogs who are running through blinding snowstorms, subzero temperatures and howling winds in Alaska’s Iditarod. Some will likely not survive. The Iditarod is a life-and-death contest—but only for the four-legged participants.

Dogs routinely pay with their lives in this race. Since no records were kept in the early days of this event, it’s impossible to know the exact death toll, but more than 140 dogs are recorded as having perished. That’s not including the countless dogs who are killed when breeders decide that they aren’t fast enough.

The Iditarod’s 1,150-mile course means that dogs run more than 100 miles a day for almost two weeks straight. Their feet become bruised, bloodied, cut by ice and just plain worn out because of the vast distances they cover. Many dogs pull muscles, incur stress fractures or become sick with diarrhea, dehydration, intestinal viruses or bleeding stomach ulcers. Dogs have frozen to death and died from inhaling their own vomit. Sled dog myopathy—being run to death—has claimed many lives.

“Overdriving” or “overworking” an animal is considered a violation of cruelty-to-animals laws in most states—but not in Alaska. There are no race regulations that prohibit whipping a dog, and The Speed Mushing Manual recommends whipping as an effective way to get dogs to run faster.

Mushers ride, eat and sleep (and until it was banned, chilled out smoking pot) while the dogs pull and pull and pull. The official Iditarod rules require that the dogs be given a total of only 40 hours of rest—even though the race can take up to two weeks. Rule 42 of the official Iditarod guidelines states that some deaths may be considered “unpreventable.” According to the rule’s offensive euphemism, dogs don’t “die”—they “expire.”

Dogs love to run, but even the most high-energy dog wouldn’t choose to run 100 miles day after day. Iditarod organizers downplay the dogs’ suffering and work to hide abuse from the public. Even when mushers are caught beating dogs, as musher Ramy Brooks was in 2007, they barely receive a slap on the wrist. One of Brooks’ dogs later died, but rather than banning this bully for life, the Iditarod committee allowed Brooks to race again.

Life for dogs off the trail is equally grim. Most kennels keep dozens of dogs who live on short chains, with only overturned barrels or dilapidated doghouses for shelter. Their world is a 6-foot diameter of mud, ice, feces and urine. Slow runners are discarded like defective equipment. There have been many cases in which chained dogs have been abandoned and left to starve to death. Others have been shot, stabbed and bludgeoned to death.

Iditarod mushers brag about their “accomplishment,” but there’s no glory when someone else does all the work. And there’s no honor in running dogs to death.

Jennifer O’Connor is an animals-in-entertainment campaign writer with the PETA Foundation, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

By Kathy Guillermo

What excuse is given for denying some beings the protection afforded by the law? At various times in history, it has been race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation or ethnicity. All these reasons boil down to essentially the same thing: Those other beings—the ones who were denied their rights to freedom, to marry whom they chose, to be educated, to worship as they wished, to work at the jobs of their choosing—were different from those in charge. The differences were more important than the similarities until someone went to court to challenge it.

This is what happened last week in the U.S. District Court in San Diego. But in this case, the difference is species. For the first time ever, a federal court considered whether or not a Constitutional amendment applies to five orca whales enslaved by SeaWorld.

There is no question that these five animals are being held in involuntary servitude. They need and deserve the protection afforded by the Constitution.

Plaintiffs Tilikum, Katina, Kasatka, Ulises and Corky—orcas now confined to suffocatingly small concrete tanks at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, and San Diego—were heard through their attorneys in this first-ever case to assert that a constitutional right should extend to nonhuman animals. The legal team, led by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) general counsel Jeffrey Kerr and PETA’s outside litigation counsel, civil rights attorney Philip Hirschkop—who argued the landmark Loving v. Virginia case that declared unconstitutional the laws banning interracial marriage—argued that SeaWorld is holding the orcas against their will in violation of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s ban on slavery. The suit was brought on the orcas’ behalf by PETA, three marine-mammal experts and two former SeaWorld trainers.

In this case, as in the others, what matters is not the difference between the enslaved and the enslavers. As Mr. Kerr stated in court, slavery does not depend on the species of the slave any more than it depends on race, gender or ethnicity. “Coercion, degradation and subjugation characterize slavery, and these orcas have endured all three,” he argued.

Indeed they have. These intelligent, complex orcas, who have their own language and customs that they would pass on to their young and who should be swimming a hundred miles every day, have instead spent three decades incarcerated in tiny pens and being ordered by humans in orca-colored wetsuits to leap for dead fish. They were forcibly taken from their families and homes and are held captive at amusement parks where they are denied everything in life that matters to them. They cannot make the simplest choices for themselves. They cannot eat, associate with others of their own kind or even swim except when allowed to by their captors. They have involuntarily lined the pockets of SeaWorld’s owners and have been subjected to artificial insemination or sperm collection in order to breed more performers for more SeaWorld shows for more profit.

This is the very definition of slavery.

When human animals violate the 13^th Amendment, it should not matter that the enslaved are nonhuman animals. The five orcas have had one day in court in this precedent-setting case. They deserve more. They deserve their freedom.

Kathy Guillermo is a vice president for PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

By Gemma Vaughan

Horses haven’t been slaughtered in the United States for the last five years. But Congress recently restored funding for U.S. inspectors to oversee horse slaughter, paving the way for horses to be killed and butchered here in the U.S. once again. While killing horses anywhere is contemptible, the decision does provide an opportunity to reexamine this entire issue.

A ban on killing horses in the U.S. doesn’t help horses—it prolongs their suffering. And they will continue to suffer as long as the industries that breed horses for profit—horseracing, rodeo and the carriage trade—keep exploiting these animals for our “entertainment.”

When horse slaughter was banned in the U.S. in 2006, it didn’t stop horses from being killed. Mercenary ranchers who make their living from horse flesh simply jam horses into undersized trucks and haul them for hundreds—sometimes thousands—of miles to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico.

Horses who manage to survive this grueling journey often arrive at the slaughterhouse with gashed foreheads, broken bones, compound fractures, eye infections and other injuries. They meet their end with a bolt gun, an often slow and agonizing death caused by the carelessness of workers who fire poorly aimed bolt after bolt until the animal finally dies. They are then bled out and skinned, usually in full view of other terrified horses.

Anyone who cares about animals should condemn horse slaughter altogether and call for an absolute ban on both the export of live horses and slaughter in the U.S. One doesn’t work without the other.

Horses have been exploited for human purposes and profit since the beginning of time, and we need to take an honest look at the disconnect between society’s horror over eating horses and its tacit approval of exploiting them in so many other ways. Many of the horses who end up in slaughterhouses used to pull carriages, perform in rodeos or cross the finish line but are now too worn-out to continue.

Even though horses tend to be skittish and sensitive, they are still forced to provide carriage rides on busy city streets and, at this time of year, in shopping mall parking lots for seasonal promotions. Fighting crowds, dodging traffic and trying not to slip on icy streets while hauling oversized loads day after day takes a toll. Accidents have occurred in nearly every location where carriage rides are allowed and many horses have died. But as long as people pay to ride, horses will continue to be worked until they can’t take another step.

The horseracing and rodeo industries are equally culpable for sending horses to their deaths. Horses are bred over and over until “winners” are produced. But not every horse makes money, and continual breeding has led to a critical overpopulation of horses: too many horses, not enough good homes. And just like dogs and cats, unwanted horses are often abandoned, neglected, starved and left to die without veterinary care. Thousands are sold to meat buyers and go from grassy fields to blood-soaked killing floors.

If eating horse flesh appalls you, so should the industries that provide the bodies. People can make a real difference by staying away from the racetrack, shunning carriage rides and steering clear of the rodeo.

Gemma Vaughan is a cruelty caseworker with PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

By Kathy Guillermo

If you thought your 9-year-old son had the makings of a great football player, would you force him, under threat of whipping, to conduct extreme physical drills designed for the top college prospects just to impress NFL scouts? Fortunately, that wouldn’t come until some 10 years and a hundred pounds later.

Thoroughbred racehorses aren’t so lucky. Before they are ever entered in a race, juvenile horses, some of whom are not even 2 years old, are being forced to sprint at top speeds on fragile, undeveloped bones and joints for an eighth of a mile—sometimes to their deaths. This is an ugly first step into an industry that exploits animals as commodities and then throws them out like trash when their bodies are worn out and broken.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) went undercover to document what happens at the “under tack shows” that thoroughbred auction companies put on before the annual auctions. The sprints are meant to impress potential buyers, and young horses are made to run at speeds faster than they ever would in an actual race.

PETA’s video footage shows terrified horses panicking and running into guard rails. Some suffer career-ending injuries or catastrophic breakdowns in which their still-developing bones snap like twigs.

One of the horses captured on video suffered a compound fracture of her cannon bone while being pushed hard to sprint at breakneck speed at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Auction in Timonium, Maryland, on May 19. Fragments of bone can be seen exploding from her foot.

Because the auction failed to cancel the event despite unsafe weather and track conditions, PETA has asked the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office to bring cruelty-to-animals charges against the auction.

PETA also videotaped another young horse who suffered a fatal burst aorta when pushed to sprint in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company auction in Florida on June 19. The danger of sprinting in severe heat is well known in the racing industry, and some tracks cancel races in such weather. PETA is urging the county attorney to file charges against the company for violating Florida’s anti-cruelty laws.

Recklessly endangering—and even killing—very young, inexperienced horses simply to put on a show for potential buyers is animal abuse, plain and simple. It’s also what happens when animals are viewed as “investment opportunities” rather than individual beings.

PETA has sent thoroughbred auction companies a list of simple, lifesaving recommendations, including preventing horses under 2 years of age from sprinting, eliminating the timing of sprints, mandating that under tack shows be postponed in unsafe weather conditions and banning whips and other devices that force the horses to run at excessive speeds. It’s time for the “sport of kings” to do right by the animals it claims to love.

Kathy Guillermo is vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

If your family is planning a vacation in the waning weeks of summer, there is an easy way to save time and gas and avoid bringing home awful memories: Simply drive past decrepit roadside zoos and other cruel tourist traps that use animals. Vacationers with money to spend keep these archaic exhibits in business, and animals will continue to suffer and die as long as people heed the call of highway billboards and pull over.

I’ll never forget my own family’s summer trip through Tennessee. Growing restless in the back seat of the car, my sisters and I nagged our dad to stop and see the Three Bears Gift Shop in the Pigeon Forge tourist area. That stop became family lore about how our trip ended with three girls bawling their eyes out after seeing depressed, mouldy-looking bears in concrete pits being pelted with food. Decades later, Three Bears still exists, and another generation of bears is living in the same deprived conditions. Take my word for it: Don’t go.

Bears in the Cherokee area of North Carolina are in similarly abysmal conditions. Three roadside zoos—Cherokee Bear Zoo, Chief Saunooke Bear Park and Santa’s Land—display neurotic, hungry bears in desolate concrete pits or cramped cages in which they pace back and forth, walk in endless circles, cry, whimper and beg for tourists to toss them a morsel of food. Bears are intelligent, curious and energetic. They enjoy digging, constructing cozy nests, climbing and searching out berries and other treats. The bears in Cherokee’s zoos have nothing to do but walk a few steps or sleep on a concrete floor.

The otherwise glorious destination of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is marred by a place called T.I.G.E.R.S. This outfit rips baby animals away from their frantic mothers to be used as photo props. Do not be fooled by any claims of altruism—it’s all about the money. The operator of this roadside zoo also hauls animals around the country. Last year, an adult tiger escaped, and some years earlier, a lion mauled a model during a photo session.

If you’re thinking of heading to Six Flags in Vallejo, California, or Jackson, New Jersey, please cross these theme parks off your list. Elephants are forced to perform tricks and give rides to park visitors. Since 1995, eight elephants have died at the Six Flags Vallejo park, which still uses cruel bullhooks to “control” elephants. In one three-month period, 26 animals died at the New Jersey location.

Don’t let SeaWorld’s well-financed advertising department lull you into thinking that this is the right place for your family. Dolphins and orcas are confined to a life of swimming in endless circles in barren, concrete tanks. Nearly two dozen orcas have died in SeaWorld facilities in the last 25 years, but none died of old age. Dozens of bottlenose dolphins have also perished. If discount tickets are still enticing you, consider this: Do you want to take the chance that your child might experience the same horror as those who witnessed an orca batter a SeaWorld trainer to death last year?

When you hit the road this summer, please include compassion on your itinerary. Don’t pass a few hours at places where animals will continue to languish in misery long after you’re back home.

Jennifer O’Connor is a staff writer with the PETA Foundation, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

By GemmaVaughan

While the deadly E. coli outbreak in Germany is making headlines, people might be shocked to learn that right here at home, E. coli lurks in a most unexpected place: the petting zoo. Yes, those seemingly innocuous fair and carnival attractions can put people’s health at serious risk—so it’s best to walk on by.

E. coli infection is far from a rare occurrence. All around the country numerous people—mostly children—have been made ill by this potentially deadly bug after visiting petting zoos. E. coli can spread through having direct contact with animals, by inhaling or ingesting the bacteria (such as when a child sucks his or her thumb or pacifier) or by coming into contact with something an infected animal has touched. The bacteria have been linked to everything from sawdust to sippy cups. Many children with E. coli infections have suffered acute kidney failure requiring long-term dialysis and transfusions. Some have needed kidney transplants.

No one attends a local fair expecting to come home with a debilitating or even life-threatening disease. But the summer fair season is just getting underway, and potentially dangerous animal displays will be presented, right alongside the Tilt-A-Whirl and cotton candy. Hauled around from city to city and forced to interact with constant streams of excited and sometimes careless children, animals who are used in petting zoos can become stressed and afraid. It’s little wonder that many are in poor health.

It’s not just petting zoos that put fairgoers at risk. Why would any parent trust a transient carnival worker to keep a child safe on a five-ton elephant or a cranky camel? There’s no stopping an animal who becomes spooked or who just has had enough. While giving rides at theNew YorkStatefair, an elephant panicked, injuring a 3-year-old girl and knocking down and stepping on the handler.

Animals don’t like being hauled around in cramped tractor trailers, and they are often skittish and unpredictable. A handler was airlifted to the hospital after a camel who was being used for rides inMiamiknocked him to the ground and stomped on him.

And why would you put your little one in the arms of a predator? Tiger cubs look adorable, but they have teeth and claws that nature means them to use. Cubs are frightened without their mothers and often react as any scared youngster would: by striking out.

A 4-year-old boy was clawed by a tiger on display at the Saratoga County Fair in New York and needed 14 stitches for a 1-inch gash on his head. AtFlorida’s St. Johns County Fair, a handler suffered puncture wounds and a 14-year-old boy was knocked down and scratched by a tiger before police used a stun gun to stop the attack. A 5-year-old boy suffered facial cuts requiring plastic surgery after being attacked by a tiger at a photo booth at the North Dakota Sate Fair.

If the word “zoonosis” isn’t familiar to you, brace yourself. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians have issued warnings about the multiple bacterial, viral and parasitic agents associated with animal contact. Ringworm is very common in camels and is highly contagious, as is tuberculosis in elephants. Those cool chameleons one can win in the ping-pong toss often harbor salmonella.

For the sake of your little ones as well as for the animals who are exploited at these fairs, the safest course of action when it comes to petting zoos, photo ops with tigers, game booths offering animals as prizes and rides on elephants and camels is to avoid them altogether. Both kids and animals will be better off.

Gemma Vaughan is an animals-in-entertainment specialist for PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

By Martin Mersereau

Despite an outcry from thousands of people—including everyone from PETA pal and pit bull adopter Alicia Silverstone to the president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League to convicted dogfighter Michael Vick—Google has refused to pull an app called KG Dogfighting (formerly called Dog Wars) from its Android Marketplace.

The developers say the app—in which players train and fight dogs against other players—is “just a video game,” but for living, breathing animals, the consequences of glamorizing cruelty are deadly serious. At best, this game trivializes the horrendous suffering that dogs endure at the hands of dogfighters and sends the dangerous message that abusing animals is entertaining. At worst, it is a training manual for wannabe dogfighters and may pique some players’ interest enough to inspire them to move from virtual dogfighting to the real thing—which is a felony offense in all 50 states.

There are no winners in dogfighting, only victims. Dogs who are forced to fight are typically kept in tiny cages or outdoors on heavy chains 24 hours a day, and they are starved, beaten and taunted into aggression. Dogfighters frequently steal unattended cats and dogs from people’s yards to use as bait to train dogs to attack.

In the pit, dogs tear each other to shreds in fights that can last for hours, until both dogs are exhausted and at least one is seriously injured or dead. The “winners” are forced to fight other dogs again and again. The losers pay with their lives: They are often used as bait, or they are electrocuted, drowned, shot or hanged. PETA’s fieldworkers witness the devastating results of dogfighting firsthand. One pit bull they rescued, named Music, looked like a bag of bones. He was shivering, severely dehydrated and covered with scars and scabs. His ears were shredded from fights, and he had lost his mind from living on a chain his entire life.

KG Dogfighting makes a game out of this horrific cruelty, yet the app’s creators claim that they are helping animals because they plan to donate some of their profits to animal rescue organizations. Ironically, animal shelters may find themselves in need of donations to care for dogfighting victims because of this cruel game.

What’s more, anything that encourages people to abuse and kill living beings for “fun” also jeopardizes public safety. Dogfighters and others who abuse animals are cowards, and studies show that animal abusers’ victims often include humans. Law enforcement officials know that raids on dogfighting operations can be especially dangerous because illegal drugs, gambling and weapons are often involved. According to news sources, KG Dogfighting’s website points out that players have a gun to use during police raids.

Americais a nation of dog lovers, and the public has made it known loud and clear that Google needs to do the right thing and pull this ill-conceived app. There is simply no excuse for promoting, making light of or otherwise trying to pass off cruelty to animals as “entertainment.” It isn’t a game, and the public isn’t buying it.

Martin Mersereau is the director of PETA’s Emergency Response Team, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

By Kathy Guillermo

U.S. thoroughbred racing is an industry of numbers. Consider the projected statistics for 2011 alone. The number of horses running in the Kentucky Derby: no more than 20. The number of thoroughbred foals born: 24,900. The number of thoroughbreds who will die on the track: 1,000. The number of thoroughbreds cast off by the racing industry: 21,000. The number of thoroughbreds sent to slaughter in Canada and Mexico: 10,000.

Crunch those numbers and the conclusion is obvious. There are too many thoroughbreds born, too few retirement options, and way too many violent deaths.

The racing industry should be ashamed of these numbers—and of course every number isn’t a number at all, but a living, breathing being. When horses who have given their all can no longer race because they’re injured or too old, or when they stop turning a profit, most owners and trainers rid themselves of these animals by sending them to a livestock auction. One out of every two thoroughbreds sold at auction ends up in a slaughterhouse.

The Jockey Club, through which all foals must be registered and which is the only horse racing authority in a position to impose a fee that applies to all thoroughbreds in all racing states, responded to this crisis with its Retirement Checkoff program, a voluntary donation that can be made when owners submit required registration papers. In 2010 this program generated only $43,000 from 30,000 foal registrations—a paltry $1.44 per horse. Even with the Jockey Club’s supplemental donation toward retirement, this absurdly inadequate amount cannot begin to provide for the enormous annual costs of caring for tens of thousands of horses, multiplied by many years of retirement. Recent reports of thoroughbreds being denied adequate food and care in the stables that are supposed to be supported by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation tragically prove this point.

The racing industry needs to deal with this life and death issue. Thoroughbred retirement is a racing industry obligation, not a voluntary donation.

While the best bet for the horses would be an end to breeding, racing, and killing thoroughbreds altogether, at the very least the racing world must provide a decent retirement for the horses it no longer wants.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has come up with a plan—the Thoroughbred 360 Lifecycle Retirement Fund—to jumpstart this effort. This proposal would require a mandatory $360 retirement fee with every foal registration, a $360 fee for every transfer of ownership, and a $360 fee for each stallion and broodmare registration.

This is affordable for thoroughbred owners and would generate more than $20 million toward retirement. It wouldn’t solve all the problems—clearly the fund would have to be used wisely. This would require proper planning and administration. But without a substantial sum, nothing will be done. Thoroughbreds will continue to be trucked across our borders to their deaths by the tens of thousands.

The Jockey Club should implement this plan before this Triple Crown season ends. Trainers and owners have turned their backs on the animals they claim to love for far too long.

Kathy Guillermo is vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

By Jennifer O’Connor

Just four short years ago, a white ball of fluff captured the attention of the world. Now hearts are broken with the news that Knut, the polar bear at the Berlin Zoo, had a convulsion, collapsed and died as hundreds of visitors watched. Even in death Knut was on display.

He was marketed as the poster child for “cute,” but Knut was a deeply troubled bear. He spent his days pacing incessantly, bobbing his head repeatedly and exhibiting so much captivity-induced mental distress that one German zoologist called him a “psychopath.” Chased, bitten and harassed by his three cellmates and besieged by onlookers, Knut never knew a moment’s peace or privacy. Polar bears are naturally solitary animals who shun human contact and don’t seek out the company of other bears.

Like all baby animals bred in zoos to bring in paying customers, the adorable cub quickly grew to adulthood. As his marketing and merchandising appeal waned, the Berlin Zoo attempted to unload the less cute adult Knut to another zoo. But Berliners wanted to keep their star. The crowds will move on, but it’s too late for Knut.

Polar bears thrive in enormous Arctic expanses and open water—which no zoo can provide. An Oxford University study found that polar bears suffer physical and mental anguish in captivity and noted that a typical polar bear enclosure is about one-millionth the size of the animal’s minimum home range. Captive polar bears all over North America have died young of causes such as eating debris thrown into the cage, fights with cagemates and reactions to anesthesia.

Bears of all species fare very poorly in zoos. In some bear exhibits, the animals’ constant pacing wears a visible path into the ground, and sometimes one can see the actual paw impressions in the soil where the bears step in the same spot over and over again. These animals aren’t just bored; they are in a state of profound despondency.

Try to imagine living in the same cramped place for the rest of your life. Animals who are genetically designed to roam, swim or fly freely are no more able to adjust to lifelong captivity than we are. That’s why prison is considered society’s harshest punishment.

We are appalled when we learn that Montezuma put albinos and hunchbacks on display for people’s amusement. Yet how is locking animals in cages and letting streams of people gawk, point and laugh at them any different? Just like us, animals want and deserve to live their lives as nature intended.

The next time you consider taking your kids or grandchildren to the zoo, please ask yourself this: Would you wish that kind of bleak existence on your loved ones? Is having a way to occupy the kids for a few hours reason enough to support the lifelong captivity of intelligent and social animals? Do you really want to teach your child that this is the right way to treat the animals they care about?

Keeping animals in cages from birth to death, forcing them into breeding regimens to churn out ticket-selling babies and sentencing animals to a lifetime of deprivation must come to an end. If your family cares about animals, don’t support their cruel confinement. Before you buy a zoo ticket, please remember that animals’ quality of life matters just as much to them as yours does to you.

Jennifer O’Connor is a staff writer with the PETA Foundation, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.