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Right now, elephants in India—some with tuberculosis, most with rotted, painful feet—are being beaten with bullhooks to make them fearful, compliant, and willing to let tourists ride on their backs. They’ve been beaten badly since they were removed from their mothers and put into chains. But right now, PETA and PETA India are battling to end the elephant slave trade.

PETA President Ingrid Newkirk visited Amber Fort, Jaipur, where more than 100 elephants are held captive, beaten, and forced to give rides to tourists. Many have rotted feet, some are blind in one eye, some have human-contagious tuberculosis, and all are enduring a lifetime of servitude. Wearing shackles and chains and with her hands painted blood red in protest, Newkirk sat beside two volunteers in elephant masks and described to the media what she witnessed when, just after dawn one morning, she visited the nearby elephant training center where these gentle giants are kept:

“I heard the beatings before I saw them. There was the thwack of a heavy stick against elephant hide. Then, as I rounded the corner, surprising the men, I saw them with a raised thick stick.  They threw the sticks into the bushes, but I grabbed one and put it under my coat, taking it with me when I left. One of the two elephants was small, blind in one eye—which is common—and her sides were heaving, likely from severe stress,” she said. “These poor elephants need to be freed from slavery and sent to sanctuaries where they can stay with other elephants, walk about freely without chains, and without fear. In the quest for tourists, they have been made to suffer for years.”

The documentary Gods in Shackles as well as eyewitness videos have exposed elephants being beaten and forced to work in the tourism industry. After PETA and our international affiliates presented the evidence to travel agencies, websites, and book publishers, more than 50 of them have ended promotions of captive elephant attractions, including TripAdvisor, Thomas Cook, and Gate 1 Travel. And we won’t stop until the elephant slave trade is history.

During the trip, Newkirk also spoke up for much smaller—but also abused—animals: fish.

Commercial fishing is abuse of animals on a colossal scale, cruelly killing hundreds of billions of them worldwide every year—far more than any other industry. Newkirk asked people to pause and relate to who‘s on their plate.

Ahead of #InternationalAnimalRightsDay PETA founder @IngridNewkirk shares fish are just like us in their desire to live. #GoVegan pic.twitter.com/0bumYhwOFm

— PETA India #BanAnimalCircuses🎪 (@PetaIndia) December 7, 2018

Please help end cruelty to animals large and small. Urge travel companies to end their promotions of elephant rides and, for your next meal, give deliciously realistic vegan seafood a try.

There’s a pretty good chance that you’ve eaten foods made from animal rectums recently. You might even be eating one right now. Read on to find out if your diet warrants its own Sir Mix-A-Lot song. Some of these may surprise you.

Hot Dogs and Bologna

Snoop Dogg couldn’t handle finding out how hot dogs are mizzade. Can you? The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations explains the “process” behind “processed meat products” like hot dogs and bologna: “The raw meat materials used for precooked-cooked products are lower-grade muscle trimmings, fatty tissues, head meat, animal feet, animal skin, blood, liver and other edible slaughter by-products.” OK, kids, who wants some edible slaughter byproducts?

These body parts usually come from pigs, turkeys, and chickens after the bigger cuts of meat have been removed and also include connective tissue, tails, organs, and, quite possibly, rectal tissue. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that hot dogs are made of “mechanically separated meat,” defined as a “paste-like and batter-like meat product produced by forcing bones, with attached edible tissue, through a sieve or similar device under high pressure ….” there are no laws prohibiting processing plants from using rectal tissue in processed meats. And the United Nations body that develops meat-quality standards and helps facilitate international trade lists “rectum” as an acceptable “edible meat co-product.”

The leftover body parts are heat-treated in order to soften them and kill bacteria, and the mixture is blended into what the FAO appropriately calls a meat “batter.” This is treated with salt, spices, starch, sweetener, and other additives and then pumped into casings (more on those in a minute). The FAO offers pictures of edible slaughter byproducts and meat batter on its website, if you really want to see them. (And here are some great vegan hot dogs if you don’t.)

Sausage

Almost 50 percent of sausages are made from meat “batter” mixes. But even if you pay more for those that are supposedly made from more expensive animal parts, the chances are good that you’re still eating digestive tract. That’s because many sausages are held together in “natural casings.” What are natural casings, you ask? According to the FAO, they’re the “small and large intestines from sheep, goats and pigs, but also from cattle and horses.” Intestines are used as casings for frying sausages, frankfurters, hot dogs, barbecue sausages, chorizos, salamis, and more.

The FAO describes the processing steps for small intestines and provides pictures of each, including “[s]tripping out intestinal content,” “[r]emoval of ‘slime’ by using spoon,” and “[f]lushing”—which is precisely what people would do to their sausages if they knew how they were made. For an intestine-free meal, try Beyond Meat sausages, which are so good that stores are having trouble keeping them stocked.

Calamari

Americans will deep-fry anything, right? Even pig anus.

The popular NPR show This American Life, reportedly following a revealing conversation with a meat-processing plant manager, first exposed that calamari served in restaurants could actually be pig rectum. The manager, the plant that he worked for, and even the company’s sales team confirmed that “pork bung,” as it’s called, was packaged and sold and they had heard of people eating it as imitation calamari.

The USDA was quick to tell This American Life, “Products we inspect … cannot purport to be a product of another species.” But as the show pointed out, “So it’s against the rules. But people break the rules. A recent study of seafood … used DNA testing and found that all across the country fish is regularly being labeled as other species in restaurants and in grocery stores. … In Miami, more than 30% of fish was being sold as something it wasn’t. In New York, the number was 39%, Boston 48%, Los Angeles—are you ready—55%. 55.”

Fraud involving seafood is commonplace. And considering that pork bung costs about half as much as squid, the claims aren’t hard to believe. Additionally, at least one Los Angeles restaurant owner reportedly admitted under oath that he was serving pig anus.

If you want something that is what it says it is (plants and seasonings), opt for vegan seafood. Or for crispy fried goodness, order vegetable tempura and sneak some more (breaded, fried, dipped in marinara) veggies into your day.

Ice Cream

If you’ve eaten strawberry, raspberry, or vanilla ice cream, the cold, sugary mass melting in your mouth might have been part beaver anal gland secretion, as reported by Organics.org. That’s especially likely if your frozen dessert advertised a “natural flavor” or a “natural ingredient.” Because, you know, nothing is as natural as a human eating something that came out of a beaver’s anal glands. The additive is called “castoreum” (as in “castor sacs”) and has a flavor similar to berries. It’s also often used as a “natural flavor” in gelatins, puddings, candies, gums, and baked goods.

To avoid consuming anal gland liquids and cow’s breast milk, try one of the many vegan ice creams offered by Ben & Jerry’s, Arctic Zero, Whole Foods Market 365, Breyers, Halo Top, and even Target.

*****

Grossed out by all the foods made from rectums? Well, eating the body parts of dead animals is pretty disgusting. If you’re ready to quit eating flesh like the walking dead, PETA can hook you up with a free vegan starter kit.

Holiday commercials and viral videos make it seem like it must be a great idea to shove an animal wearing a big red bow under a Christmas tree while heartwarming music plays in the background. But by January, many of those “present” animals will have joined the more than 6 million who enter shelters in the U.S. every year.

Some animal shelters even get in on the craze, offering discounted or free adoptions and encouraging people to give animals away as gifts. Their intentions may be good, but they likely don’t realize that they’re exacerbating the homeless-animal crisis.

First, the holidays are the absolute worst time to bring a new animal into your home. Even normally quiet homes are often filled with people talking and laughing, kids playing with noisy new toys and games, music playing, doorbells ringing, and more. A house filled with strangers coming and going and loud noises is frightening even for the animals who already live there—and much more so for a timid newcomer. Also, during the holiday season, many things that can harm animals are often left within easy reach, including ribbons, ornaments, electrical cords, and sweets as well as other foods and drinks. And people don’t always have the time to give newly acquired animals the attention and care that they require.

When shelters offer animals up for a pittance (or for free), they devalue them and encourage impulse adoptions by eager people who haven’t considered whether they or their gift recipients are ready to invest the substantial amount of money, commitment, and care that the animals will need. And animals can be acquired as cheap gifts by people who can’t afford to care for them. After the holidays, many of these “present” animals end up back at the shelter or, worse, sentenced to a life of isolation on a chain or in an outdoor pen or dumped on the street.

• A shelter in Fargo, North Dakota, reports that in its area, more than 700 animals are turned over to shelters right after the holidays every year.
• An adoption group in tiny Edinburg, Texas, gets more than 400 animals. It says that the surrenders normally start with a phone call from someone saying, “I got this [animal] for Christmas…and I can’t take care of it.”
• A humane society in Reading, Pennsylvania, says that most of its post-Christmas drop-offs are puppies and kittens. They’re dumped soon after the holiday when training them requires too much time.
• By January 4 last year, one Georgia animal shelter was posting on Facebook begging for adopters because of the onslaught of returned dogs it was bombarded with.

But some groups and shelters are catching on and taking affirmative steps to spare animals the trauma of being adopted into a home only to be abandoned once again:

• An Idaho shelter that sees many animals who were adopted as presents returned after the holidays every year spoke with local news media and urged people not to give animals as surprise gifts.
• A North Carolina adoption group that had noticed that calls were starting by noon on the day after Christmas instituted a policy banning people from acquiring animals to give as gifts.
• A facility in Mississippi started banning all adoptions between December 20 and January 1 after animals were often taken right back.
• Many of the largest animal shelters in Germany have banned adoptions between December 15 and January, and say that anyone who doesn’t understand that, “is probably the wrong person to adopt.”

If your family is truly ready to commit to giving an animal a lifetime (up to 20 years) of care, which includes veterinary visits, housetraining, food and treats, toys, bedding, exercise, playtime, and anything else that’s needed, the best option is to take the entire family to the shelter when you adopt. That way, you can ensure that the animal you choose is the right fit and that everyone is ready to make the commitment. Parents need to understand that young children are ill-equipped to care for an animal properly and that adults are legally responsible for the animal’s welfare.

If you know that someone on your list is genuinely ready to adopt, prepared to commit to a lifetime of care, and actively seeking a companion animal, opt to give a shelter gift certificate to cover the cost of the adoption. That way, the recipient can choose an animal who best suits his or her lifestyle and can bring the new companion home after the holiday whirlwind dies down. Or make up a gift basket of toys, treats, bowls, leashes, and other supplies so that the recipient can decide when it’s the right time.

And if your local shelter is advertising reduced or free holiday adoptions to try to move animals out the door, please send it this article and urge it to reconsider.

Animals deserve better than to be dressed up in bows, shoved under a tree, and then tossed out with the wrapping paper.

Make that 341! Retail giants Williams-Sonoma, Inc., Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.,  and Qurate Retail Group have banned mohair across their brands. Fast Retailing is one of the largest global apparel retailers, with brands that include Theory, Helmut Lang, and J Brand. Qurate owns QVC, HSN, zulily, Ballard Designs, Frontgate, Garnet Hill, Grandin Road, and Improvements, bringing the total to 341 clothing companies and retailers that have pledged to stop selling mohair after working with PETA.

It hasn’t taken long. In May, The Washington Post broke PETA Asia’s disturbing investigation of the abusive mohair industry, and companies immediately stopped sourcing the material. They now know that hair was crudely shorn off goats who were punctured with pliers and cut open during shearing and whose gaping wounds were roughly sewn up with no pain killers. After all this, the animals were barbarically slaughtered on a farm or they were electrically shocked and their throats were cut at a slaughterhouse.

Goats don’t deserve this. No one does.

Let’s make it 342. Keep telling the market that you don’t want cruelly obtained mohair: Urge Free People to join compassionate retailers around the world in banning it.