PETA AU Global Issue 3 2020

How PETA Is Revolutionizing

Teala Dunn | Photo: © Piper Ferguson • Makeup:Anthony Merante • Hair: Bradley Leake | Frogs: ©iStock.com/GlobalIP

Science Education

PETA’s Frogsaver Lily Pad – which attaches to a pool ladder or wall or the edge of a garden pond – saves small animals by helping them get out of the water. Learn more at PETA.org/Store . I

Honorary PETA Director Alan Cumming once starred in a PETA ad campaign calling on Dairy Queen to add a vegan option. Today, the acclaimed star of the stage and screen is royally pleased that the ice cream chain has introduced a vegan version of the classic Dilly Bar. Available now at DQs across the US and soon to be distributed internationally, it’s made with coconut cream and covered with vegan chocolate. Cows on dairy farms are treated worse than serfs. They are violently inseminated on “rape racks.” Once they give birth, their calves are taken away from them so that humans can consume their milk – a perversion that persists even though much of the world’s population can’t properly digest dairy. Once cows’ bodies wear out – generally by age 4 or 5 – they’re sent off to the slaughterhouse. Their male calves are typically killed for veal, while the Dairy Queen Debuts New Dairy-Free Dessert

I t looks like a frog and feels like a frog, but it isn’t a frog: It’s SynFrog ™ – an astoundingly lifelike model with the potential to prevent millions of sentient beings from being killed and cut up for school lessons each year. It features a synthetic membrane that gives students the same feel as cutting through a real frog’s skin but without the cruelty of killing an animal – not to mention the yuck factor and the dangerous formaldehyde preservatives – and allows them to remove the “organs” for examination. SynFrog came to “life” after PETA proposed the idea to SynDaver, an innovative maker of hyper-realistic human and animal surgical training models, in 2018. It turned out that the company had had the same idea, and a winning partnership was launched! PETA chipped in US$150,000 to fast-track the model’s development, and it’s now available worldwide. Reinventing the Frog As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk points out in her book Animalkind , frogs are excellent communicators who use unique combinations of chirps, croaks, whistles, and other sounds – some even dance! – to establish territory, deter rivals, attract mates, and warn others of danger. Like real frogs, SynFrog is also an excellent communicator – it communicates compassion for animals. And unlike the monochromatic internal organs in formaldehyde-preserved animals, SynFrog accurately represents colorful living tissues. It also teaches students biology without forcing them to choose between their ethics and a science education. Ever since PETA first exposed the seedy dealers that supply animals for dissection years ago – and released video footage showing that rabbits were drowned and cats were embalmed while still alive, among other horrors – students have been setting down their scalpels and teachers have been cutting cruelty from their curricula. PETA’s undercover investigations have blown the lid off companies like Bio Corporation, where eyewitnesses saw live pigeons packed into crates and

Allan Cumming “Not a Dairy Queen”: © Allan Cumming by Mike Ruiz • Torn paper: © iStock.com/yasinguneysu • Calf: © Animal Equality

drowned and live crayfish injected with liquid latex. Workers described frozen turtles who came back to life and were refrozen and cats purchased from animal shelters for a few dollars each. Following PETA’s investigation, Bio Corporation was charged with 25 counts of cruelty to animals.

Teala Dunn is one of the stars teaming up with PETA to help students cut out dissection.

Making It Easier to Be Green In many US states and parts of Canada, laws allow students to choose an alternative to animal dissection.

Everywhere else, they can invariably opt out as a moral choice – and PETA is ready to help them do just that.



India banned dissection for undergraduate and

postgraduate zoology and life science courses after PETA India pointed out that the use of non -animal methods to teach anatomy and complex biological processes has been shown to be as effective as – or often more effective than – the use of animals. Other countries are phasing out dissection, in part because of students’ distaste for it and also because of the superior options presented by PETA and its international affiliates.



females are exploited as milk machines like their mothers.

Countless frogs are captured every year to be killed for dissection. Not only does SynFrog spare frogs’ lives, it’s also improving science education.

Take Action Now Treat cows and yourself by dethroning dairy and going vegan. Get recipes and tips at PETA.org.au/Living .

I

Do it for him!

Take Action Now Parents, teachers, and students: To learn how to get SynFrog and other humane

Tell everyone it’s time to get the knives out (of education) with this stylish tee from PETA.org/Store . I

dissection options into classrooms, please visit PETA.org/SynFrog and PETA.org/TeachKind .

Everyone: Please urge Project Lead the Way – a company that creates science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curricula – to ditch dissection in favor of superior, humane, non-animal teaching methods at PETA.org/PLTW .

Global

16 FROG DISSECTION CROAKS

17