But I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon happening in the Tinderverse: people posing for photos with dead animals or living exotic ones. F*cking creepy, right?!

So let’s start with the dead animals. I can’t quite figure out why people think that taking pictures with carcasses would be appealing to anyone, especially when the bodies are bloody or disfigured. Ew. Every time I see this, I vom a little in my mouth.

Perhaps it’s an attempt to assert dominance or show off.

Maybe they think that it makes them look like a badass.

Well, no matter their end goal, killing animals is not cool. Hunting and fishing are cruel forms of “entertainment” that serve no real purpose in modern society. Wildlife overpopulation is not a real threat—it’s just an excuse used to justify killing animals. And it only gets worse when hunters take pictures with the deceased animals, dismember their victims, and then hang their head on the wall or lay their skin on the floor. Whether you’re vegan or not, this is scary behavior. Heads up, Tinder world—this is not attractive to anyone! #SwipeLeft

Killing animals is unacceptable—but is taking pictures with live exotic animals OK?

That’s going to be a hard no. These pictures don’t necessarily make me barf, but they still freak me out. And honestly, I just feel really bad for the animals. So your attractiveness goes down on this one, too, folks.

What the people who posted these pictures may not realize is that exotic animals who are used for things like photo ops with tourists are usually torn away from their mothers as babies. They’re often beaten into submission by trainers when they’re young and forced to live in cramped enclosures.

Not only is forcing them to live in captivity for our entertainment cruel, it’s also dangerous for humans! Animals have been known to lash out because of the stress and misery they endure in captivity. So whether they live on land or in the sea, let’s leave animals where they belong—in the wild with limited human interaction.

What You Can Do

Politely inform people on Tinder about the cruelty behind their photos. Never support tourist traps or attend events or parties at which animals are used for entertainment—and urge your friends and family to do the same. Every dollar spent at these places and every selfie taken with helpless captive animals supports their suffering.

Have you noticed this nasty trend, too? Spread the word! 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BM_pOQnA2Ii/

We put the schools’ football fans to the test—the taste test, that is—as we hosted the first-ever vegan tailgate party for Harvard 2008 to 2016 alumni.

Tailgating is a large part of college football, and since the number of college students who are going vegan is on the rise, it only makes sense to “veganize” traditional tailgate party foods. #TouchdownForTofu

peta2 staffers grilled up about 500 vegan burgers for hungry alumni, and the reactions were overwhelmingly positive. #GrillinWithoutKillin

Look at that bite!

The hand-formed burgers from Field Roast pleased not only football fans but also football players. Look at those rings!

Even NFL football players are seeing the benefits of vegan eating both on and off the field. Current wide receiver for the San Diego Chargers Griff Whalen and former Chicago Bears lineman David Carter are both vegan and credit their plant-based diet with enhancing their recovery time. #GrainsEqualGains 

Rise and grind! Get better today #finsup #strongertogether #plantbased #plantpowered #vegan #athlete #motivationmonday

A photo posted by Griff Whalen (@griffwhalen) on Aug 1, 2016 at 3:35am PDT

I almost forgot…It's my 3 year #VEGANNIVERSARY! #The300PoundVegan #bestdecisionever #february14 #crueltyfreebody #govegan #vegan #VegansOfIG

A photo posted by David Carter (@the300poundvegan) on Feb 14, 2016 at 6:42pm PST

“Thanks to the wide array of mouthwatering vegan meats available, it’s never been easier to tackle cravings while leaving animals off your plate—even while tailgating before the big game,” says peta2 Director of International Youth Outreach Ryan Huling.

Interested in hosting a #VeganTailgateParty on your campus? Check out these delicious and easy recipes for your next parking-lot party, and contact us at College@peta2.com to learn more!

In order to drive this point home, our new college exhibit simply can’t be missed. We’re setting up on the quads and lawns of major universities with two massive inflatables that represent the resources it takes to create a single meal, contrasting meat vs. vegan foods. 

With the fate of the planet on the line, it is up to all of us to do the most we can, and the simplest (and most important!) thing we can do is to choose vegan at each meal. It takes 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, whereas 1 pound of pasta would require only about 45 gallons of water. Couple this with the fact that nearly 15 billion land animals and fish are routinely killed in the U.S. each year, and it’s no wonder that students are asking themselves some very serious questions.  

So, what do you do when you see these giant columns on your campus? Grab a free copy of our Guide To Going Vegan, take a pic of yourself, and share it with the world to let everyone know that you are on “the right side of history”!Want to help host fun and informative events like this one on your college campus? Find out how to become a peta2 campus rep or e-mail College@peta2.com.

peta2 took on Greek life this semester by hosting the first-ever #VeganFratChallenge. The dudes of Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) at Brown University ate completely vegan for a week and were educated on animal rights and, well, basic vegan cooking—’cause who really knows how to do that in college? #LivingOffRamen

peta2 stocked the frat’s kitchen with tons of cruelty-free food from some of our fave brands, including Daiya and Beyond Meat.

At first, the brothers of AEPi were skeptical about switching up some of their favorite foods… but they quickly realized that pretty much everything they ate before could easily be “veganized”!

The guys enjoyed vegan versions of spaghetti and meatballs, mac and cheese, tacos, cookies, and burgers—all while saving animals at the same time.

What hunks, right?

They had great things to say about the vegan grub, like “Vegan bacon tastes better than regular bacon!” And a few even discovered some new favorite foods, like smoothies.

The guys also watched Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret—which is easy to stream now that it’s on Netflix—and learned that animal agriculture is the single greatest contributor to climate change.

They ended the challenge with a nice vegan barbecue, and several of the guys have told us that they plan to continue eating vegan because of all they’ve learned.

It’s no surprise that “bro culture” is starting to see the benefits of a vegan lifestyle. A lot of athletes have realized that the best way to get the nutrition they need is through plants. For example, Chicago Bears lineman David Carter, MMA fighters Mac Danzig and Jake Shields, former heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson, and 2014 Mr. Universe Barny du Plessis are all vegan, and they surely get enough protein!

@metconcreative Thanks for making this I love it! #The300PoundVegan #veganmuscle #GoVegan #Repost from @metconcreative: Glad to see you back on IG and hope your injury heals soon! You're a big #inspiration (literally and figuratively)

A post shared by David Carter (@the300poundvegan) on Nov 30, 2014 at 11:55am PST

By the end of the week, these fellas turned into bros with hearts of gold and compassion for animals.

All the recipes that AEPi used during peta2’s #VeganFratChallenge were super-easy to tackle. And an oven wasn’t even used once! You can try making this dish, which was a favorite among the guys, at home:

Just some #frat boys enjoying some #vegan comfort food! #VeganFratChallenge #AEPi #BrownU #peta2life

A post shared by peta2 (@peta2) on Sep 30, 2015 at 3:20pm PDT

Vegan Mac and Cheese

1 16-oz. box elbow macaroni or penne noodles
4 Tbsp. vegan margarine (try Earth Balance brand)
1/2 yellow onion, minced
4 Tbsp. flour
3 cups unsweetened, unflavored nondairy milk
1 1/2 cups nutritional yeast (we like Bob’s Red Mill brand, which can be found in the natural-food section of most grocery stores or health-food stores)
2 1/2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
Salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste

• Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Drain and set aside.
• Heat the vegan margarine in a pot over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until soft and slightly browned.
• In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour and nondairy milk until all the clumps are gone.
• Add the flour mixture and the nutritional yeast to the pot of onions and whisk until well combined.
• Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper and continue cooking, whisking frequently, until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Tip: If the sauce is too thin, add more flour until you achieve the desired thickness. If it’s too thick, add more nondairy milk.
• Pour the sauce over the pasta and mix well. Enjoy!
  
  Makes 4 servings

Interested in trying out the #VeganFratChallenge at your school? Contact us at College@peta2.com

When peta2 University of California–Berkeley campus rep Kitty Jones and her student group, the Berkeley Organization for Animal Advocacy, heard about the planned goat sausage cooking demonstration taking place at the festival, they took action to speak up for goats.

In the middle of the cooking demonstration, Kitty and several other activists held up signs and began chanting loudly to remind everyone that the sausage used in the demonstration was made from the bodies of once-living goats who did not want to die.

Do you have what it takes to speak up for animals? 

If so, you can get paid for promoting animal rights at your school by becoming a peta2 campus rep!

The peta2 Campus Rep program seeks to empower the most dedicated animal rights supporters at colleges and universities across the country. The program pays students $500 for successfully completing one “action” every other week throughout the semester.

Actions can include giving away free vegan food (provided by peta2) on campus, vegan tabling, meeting with administrators to discuss offering vegan options in the dining halls, holding demonstrations, or conducting any other outreach event to help educate others on animal rights. Campus reps get to host powerful touring exhibits, such as “I, Chicken,” and receive assistance from touring peta2 outreach teams as well as the opportunity to install a Guide to Going Vegan Stand on their campus.

Fill out the form below for more information about becoming a peta2 Campus Rep!

First, California State University–Long Beach dropped ticket sales, and then Baylor University ended its alumni events. And now, students at the University of Central Florida, the University of California–Davis, and California State Polytechnic University–Pomona are working toward the same goal: getting their schools to cut ties with a company that confines intelligent, social animals to what amounts to a bathtub for orcas.

E-mail College@peta2.com to find out if your university is selling discounted tickets to SeaWorld and for help getting it to stop!

You could earn $500 a semester! Apply to be a peta2 campus rep now!

Rainbow and Mango, seen here with devices implanted into their skulls, have now been adopted.

Like dozens of other cats in the lab over the past two decades, Mango and Rainbow had holes drilled into their skulls, metal posts screwed into their heads, and steel coils implanted in their eyes. The cats were also subjected to stressful and frightening experiments during which they were restrained by the head for hours on end while they were forced to listen to sounds coming from different directions. Many suffered from recurrent infections and other painful complications.

Experimenters kept abusing Double Trouble for months until eventually they deemed the project a failure and killed and decapitated her.

Double Trouble was tormented for months in a taxpayer-funded sound-localization experiment. The gentle orange tabby developed serious infections, became depressed, and started to twitch, and half her face became paralyzed. Records show that Double Trouble’s anesthetics wore off during one surgery and that she woke up to what was likely a painful and horrifying experience as experimenters were cutting into her head and skull.

Experimenters kept abusing Double Trouble for months until eventually they deemed the project a failure and killed and decapitated her.

In 2014, following a complaint filed by PETA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed cat abuse in taxpayer-funded brain experiments at UW-Madison and fined the school more than $35,000 for seven separate violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

After hearing about Double Trouble’s story and learning about the other cats abused in the lab, thousands of people like YOU took action demanding that UW-Madison end these cruel experiments. Thank you to everyone who helped make this tremendous victory possible!

Although this UW-Madison lab has closed its doors for good, animals used for experiments are still suffering at other universities every day. Here’s how you can help them: 

1. If you or someone you know works in your school’s lab, contact us if you see something wrong. 2. Write a letter to the editor of your campus paper about the cruelty behind animal experimentation. 3. Join or start an animal rights group on your campus. 4. Spread the word about animal experimentation! Share this story with your friends and family.

peta2 campus rep Katherine Gross fought for more vegan options, and now ASU has agreed to open vegan stations at every dining hall on campus!

The school, which previously earned a C on peta2’s Vegan Report Card, is now flying high with an A, based on the latest improvements. The first vegan station, called Daily Root, is now open in the school’s student union, and it’s now serving up delicious vegan options, including Thai curry “chicken” linguine, “beef” enchiladas, breakfast scrambles, blackened tofu with paella, and jalapeño “chicken” paninis.

Vegan brownies, carrot cake bites, and veggie gumbo are just a few of the delicious options served at Daily Root, ASU’s first vegan dining station.

ASU is just the latest school to jump on the vegan bandwagon, and several schools in recent years have even opened all-vegan dining facilities as a result of student pressure.

More and more colleges are adding vegan options to their menus. Oklahoma City University claims to be the only campus in the U.S. with a dedicated raw vegan bar and raw vegan chef.

Want to fight for animal rights at your school? E-mail us at College@peta2.com, or apply to be a paid peta2 campus rep!  

1. Start an animal rights club.

Starting an animal rights club is an AWESOME way to A) get even MORE of your friends into animal rights, B) get peeps to work on campaigns with you (see options below!), and C) maybe even make some new compassionate friends. It’s also a good way to beef up your college applications and show those universities what an injustice-fightin’ superstar you are.

2. Ditch dissection.

Cane Toad Dissection | Rob and Stephanie Levy | CC By 2.0

Seriously, cutting up dead animals in biology class to learn about … life? THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Dissection is a cruel industry, and MILLIONS of animals are killed for it every single year. Many states give you the right to refuse classroom dissection—and it’s ALWAYS worth speaking your mind and asking for an alternative project.

3. Get your teachers on board.

A project on animal rights for homework? Um, yes! The humane-education division of PETA, TeachKind, is an awesome resource to share with your teachers—it’s full of animal-related lesson plans and tips for the classroom that will inspire them to start teaching animal rights. They can even request to have a peta2 staffer visit your school to give a classroom presentation. Send them a link to TeachKind.org and ask them to check it out ASAP.

4. Get your school lunches on point.

If thinking about your cafeteria’s food makes you hurl, it’s time to take charge. Make it a goal this semester to persuade your school to trade out the bland French fries or green beans for an actually tasty and filling vegan option, like a veggie burger! Yummmmm.

5. Say BUH-BYE to cruel field trips.

Squirrel Monkey at Lincoln Children | Babymestizo | CC BY-SA 3.0

End-of-year field trips to zoos, circuses, marine parks, or other miserable places that keep animals in captivity? Heck, no! Be bold in 2015—if your school is planning a cruel field trip, either write a letter to or meet with your principal and ask him or her not to support businesses that exploit animals and to choose a different destination.

6. Make sure your school doesn’t use glue traps.

Glue traps are BEYOND cruel death sentences for rodents and any other animals who find themselves trapped on their sticky, adhesive surfaces. Sadly, some schools actually use these awful things to ensnare animals—even though they cause animals slow, agonizing deaths. Find out if your school uses glue traps, and if so, take charge and explain to your principal why they shouldn’t be used.

7. Deck the halls … with posters!

Get permission from your school to hang some posters up in the hallways, on bulletin boards, or in the cafeteria. Then grab a few friends (or your fellow animal rights club members ) and get creative making some eye-catching posters that’ll get people thinking.

8. Hold a fundraiser to help animals.

Fundraisers are so easy and so helpful. Find a teacher to help you, and then round up your friends and classmates and ask them to bring in old blankets, towels, leashes, and dog and cat toys so that you can donate them to a local open-admission animal shelter. Or you could ask permission to host an all-vegan bake sale during lunchtime and donate the money you raise to help animals in need. Feel good, get brownie points, and help animals. Win, win, win!

9. DON’T do a fundraiser that hurts animals.

Stupidest things ever? Donkey basketball, pig-kissing contests, goldfish-eating events, and other idiotic fundraisers that involve exploiting animals for “entertainment.” If your school hosts anything like this, make a stink! Go talk to your principal, have fellow students sign a petition, and offer to help your teachers come up with other ways to raise money and have fun.

10. Get crafty with your book covers.

It’s a new year, so it’s probably time to refurbish your tore-up book covers. Turn the mundane into an awesome chance to show off your artistic skillz AND get your activism on by making adorable book covers with animal rights messages. It’ll give ya something to live for during geometry class. #snooze

11. Let peta2 help you!

Have a question about tackling an animal issue at school? Want us to send ya some free leaflets and stickers so you can table during lunch and spread the word about going vegan, shopping cruelty-free, and helping animals? We’ve got your back—e-mail us at peta2@peta2.com any day, any time, and we’ll get back at you as soon as we can.

And don’t forget to download peta2’s FREE iPhone app so you can complete missions on the go!

PETA’s “I, Chicken” virtual reality experience has visited every corner of the country. Using wireless goggles, motion-capture cameras, and a powerful computer—with guidance from leading psychologists—”I, Chicken” drops humans smack-dab into the life of a chicken, including wing-flapping, chicken talk, dust baths, and other natural chicken behavior.

Steve-O landed in hot water after releasing a video showing him correcting a road sign to say, “SeaWorld Sucks.” Guy speaks the truth, so we at PETA contacted him to make good on our promise to arrange to pay his $239 fine and he accepted. Ain’t a thang.

Sunder was being held captive, chained and shackled, in a shed by a wealthy politician in India who ignored all government orders to release the elephant. Thanks to PETA India, and people like YOU around the world who took action, he’s now livin’ large in Bannerghatta Biological Park.

 2014 also brought a HUGE milestone for PETA―our 100,000th spay/neuter surgery. Then along came World Spay Day and the debut of our newest mobile spay/neuter clinic. So we decided to celebrate—with a 24-hour spay/neuter marathon.

Did you know rabbits could scream? Well, PETA Asia found that out in the first-ever undercover investigation into the angora wool industry, which showed rabbits tied down and screaming in pain as fur was ripped out of their skin. This exposure led to a ban on the sale of angora wool by dozens of international companies, including H&M, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Lands’ End.

Larry French | PETA

A mama pig and her seven piglets, along with two older siblings, were rescued from a dilapidated pen in a trailer park in North Carolina and are now living happily at the 400-acre Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary in Maryland.

The Salt Lake City Council voted unanimously to ban horse-drawn carriages, an archaic, dangerous tradition that consistently harms both humans and horses.

A bizarre story that involved the apparent kidnapping of a days-old Holstein calf found in the backseat of a car in California has a more sensible ending. PETA teamed up with Farm Sanctuary to pick the calf up at an animal shelter and take her to the Farm Sanctuary shelter in Acton, where she can spend the rest of her life in peace.

In a groundbreaking PETA victory more than three decades in the making, the U.S. military agreed to replace the use of animals in six different areas of medical training with modern human-patient simulators. Instead of training medical personnel to cut into and repeatedly force hard plastic tubes down the throats of countless animals, students can get better training on dummies that mimic human injuries.

Plus, PETA made a landmark donation of 66 state-of-the-art TraumaMan surgical simulators that completely replaced animal use in Advanced Trauma Life Support training programs throughout Bolivia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Mongolia, Panama, and Trinidad and Tobago.

In January 2014, Rose McCoy, who was 12 at the time, stood up for captive orcas by using her body as a barricade against SeaWorld’s float at the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. Rose and 16 other compassionate protesters were arrested for their actions. When asked why she did it, here’s what Rose told The Dodo: “I can’t wait to look back on this time and realize that I was part of a movement that changed things for animals for the better.” You rock, Rose!

A week after PETA exposed noncompliant HIV/AIDS experiments on monkeys at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that caused animals massive suffering and endangered human health, Charles Rupprecht, the former chief of the CDC’s rabies program who led the experiments—and was banned from the CDC’s animal laboratories because of his poor record—was forced to resign from his position at Ross University, where he served as associate dean and head of oversight for experiments on animals.

What happens when you combine compassion, professional athletes, and tattoos? A peta2 “Ink, Not Mink” ad, of course! Professional skateboarder Ryan Sheckler says, “Be aware of what you’re actually doing and what materials you are using. You’re taking life from an innocent animal.” #MarryMe?! He’s not the only celeb who cares: Rachel Crow, Christina Grimmie, Best Coast, Audrey Kitching, Daniella Monet, Megan Massacre, and Jason Biggs all showed support for peta2 in 2014! ♥

New York City championed animals! Thanks to Mayor Bill de Blasio, 220 horses currently being forced to navigate heavy carriages through Manhattan traffic will soon be retired.

Virginia Beach SPCA

Less than a year ago, Holly Berry’s home was a muddy backyard, where she was chained so tightly that she couldn’t move more than a few feet in any direction. Thanks to PETA and the Virginia Beach SPCA (VBSPCA), she has since been rescued and adopted, and … drum roll … won a gold medal in the VBSPCA’s 5K race! Holly Berry loves to run and she jogged with her dad almost every day in preparation for the big race.

PETA exposed cruel National Institutes of Health experiments in which baby monkeys are torn away from their moms just hours after birth. They’re forcibly addicted to alcohol and subjected to scary experiments that measure and worsen their depression and anxiety. The hundreds of photographs and over 500 hours of never-before-seen high-def footage show that these nauseating experiments are NOT worth the cost—more than $30 million in taxpayer funds in just the past seven years alone, not to mention the horror that the animals endure.

Remember back in 2013 when PETA learned that employees at a slaughterhouse in Mississippi—Southern Quality Meats, Inc.—were jabbing and electro-shocking helpless mother pigs? Well, the slaughterhouse closed in June!

After three years of campaigning by PETA and its international affiliates, China Southern Airlines announced it has officially banned all shipments of primates to laboratories!!! Looking at you, Air France, for our 2015 report.

What do you get when you mix the hottest vegan fashions, cutting-edge designers, $1,000 in great giveaways, and a slew of sinfully delicious cupcakes? PETA’s first-ever Vegan Fashion Shop-Up, of course!

Credit: Michael Wright/WENN.com

Speaking of fashion, we all know Ariana Grande to be a Renaissance woman when it comes to singing, dancing, and acting. Oh, and she is super-compassionate and has even brought fashion activism into her diva wardrobe! And in November, Ariana celebrated her one-year veganversary. We ♥ you, Ari!

After PETA obtained eyewitness video footage showing that cows were living in their waste at a dairy farm, the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources cited the farm for six violations of state law. The agency corroborated PETA’s findings, reporting that “animal waste was observed [up] to 3 feet deep” in the areas where cows had to stand, eat, walk, and try to rest.

PETA launched an animal utopia on the popular Minecraft system.

Disturbing eyewitness investigations by PETA and its international affiliates exposed the wool industry for the horror it is. Video footage reveals that workers threw, beat, stomped on, kicked, mutilated, and killed sheep as they sheared them in the U.S. and Australia, the world’s top wool exporter.