PETA Global 2022 Issue 1

“Octopuses are so extremely intelligent that even though they could learn to do human tasks, they won’t, because they’re smart enough to recognize that we don’t have their best interests at heart.”

Cork board: © iStock.com/ozgurkeser • Pins: © iStock.com/Altayb • All other imagery: © Dan Piraro/Bizarro.com

Through his daily newspaper feature, Bizarro , Piraro challenges speciesism and illustrates just how bizarre it is to see our fellow Earthlings as toys, trophies, and lab tools.

“Keeping a bird in a cage is like keeping a cat in a straitjacket or a dog chained to a post: It’s cruel. Imagine yourself tied to a tree for the majority of your life just because the local birds and squirrels enjoyed the sound of your snoring.”

Award-winning, syndicated cartoonist Dan Piraro uses his artistic chops and wicked sense of humor to show things from another perspective – in other words, to empathize.

It’s a Bizarro World: Dan Piraro Illustrates the Comic Side of Animal Rights

“One of my pet peeves is how soulless developers will destroy habitat, then name the tasteless housing complex after it. If you see a gated community named ‘Eagle Bluff,’ you can bet there isn’t an eagle within 100 miles – but there probably used to be.”

“It’s anthropocentric to judge another species’ intelligence by how similar it is to humans’. Chickens can’t fix bicycles, but then they haven’t much need for a working bicycle, so why should they? I now try to appreciate other species’ intelligence for what it is instead of in comparison to mine.”

Take Action Now Share Piraro’s work to help wake people

up to the absurdity of humans’ treatment of animals. And visit PETA.org.au/ActionTeam to sign up to participate in creative, world-changing outreach.

In 2002, Piraro created a cover for Animal Times magazine ( PETA Global ’s predecessor), and he’s provided many other thought-provoking cartoons since then.

“I’ve adopted many animals in my lifetime, and I don’t think someone with just-the-right-looking dog or cat could possibly be any happier than I’ve been with my mutts. It’s hard to believe humans breed animals like fashion accessories – at the expense of others in shelters who happen not to go as well with a designer sofa.”

Global

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ARTISTIC LICENSE

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