Welcome to Email News: Why I go to court for animals

Donate just $5 or more right now and help us reach our $100,000 goal by Sunday!

Dear Aaaaaaa,

For years, Ben and Bogey were confined to small, virtually barren enclosures at a notorious North Carolina roadside zoo.

Bogey paced incessantly in her cramped concrete-floored cell and bit the bars of her cage, behavior that was likely a result of being confined to a space about 0.0004 percent of the minimum range that bears occupy in nature. Ben suffered from eye lesions so severe that in 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited the roadside zoo after our complaint. His eyes remain permanently scarred today.

As a lawyer with the PETA Foundation, I've committed my career to helping animals like Ben and Bogey. With the support of generous PETA members, we've helped dozens of bears—along with other animals abused for entertainment—leave their barren cages or pits and get a new lease on life. But there are hundreds more who need our help.

We're hoping to raise $100,000 to support the PETA Legal Fund by March 31, and we need your help to reach our goal! Can you give our trailblazing legal work for animals an immediate boost by donating right now?

Over the course of my years here, I've seen us grow into the largest and most effective legal team working for animal rights in the world, and I know the work that we're accomplishing for animals is nothing short of historic:

When corporate giants push states to pass insidious "ag-gag" laws designed to stop people from documenting animal abuse on farms and in slaughterhouses, we challenge them every step of the way until we can get them overturned.
When protesters were sued using laws designed to fight organized crime, we took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which adopted PETA's argument and struck down a previous ruling.
When SeaWorld condemned wild-caught orcas to decades of cruel confinement, our work to get them out of the tanks led a U.S. court to consider constitutional rights for animals for the first time—a case that's still creating heated debates in the media and law schools on the ethics of captivity.

PETA's legal team does far more than file lawsuits: We're changing how the law—and the world—looks at the rights of all animals to live free from exploitation, abuse, and neglect. It's vital work that we simply cannot do without your support.

Please donate just $5 or more right now and help keep our legal work for animals going strong.

It took years of inspections, complaints, and a lawsuit, but Ben and Bogey's story has a happy ending: The roadside zoo finally agreed to release them, and today, they're enjoying their new home at a vast, serene sanctuary, where they're finally able to run, roam, climb, and swim.

Ben and Bogey are only two of the 72 bears our team has helped rescue in the last five years alone, but right now, there are hundreds more just like them who need help. Will you come to their aid?

Your gift today will push us closer to our goal—and help us rescue more animals like Ben and Bogey.

Thank you for your compassion and support.

Kind regards,

Brittany Peet
Director
Captive Animal Law Enforcement
PETA Foundation