Boycotts Protesting Animal Abuse
The following is a list of boycotts organized to advance animal welfare. Kind Choices has examined the claims made by the organizers and considers them valid. Also refer to the "What You Can Do" page for information on animal-friendly living.
Note that some of these boycotts are not relevant to vegetarians and vegans, so hopefully you are boycotting them already. They are here to inform non-vegetarians and as a reference for organizations in the Animal-Friendly Giving Guide. Organizations in the Guide agree not to accept as advertisers or sponsors any company or organization on this list.
Please also consider boycotting products tested on animals and examining the impact of your purchases in general. For a list of companies that don't test on animals see the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics' Shopping Guide. For more information about the social and environmental impact of your purchasing decisions, see Co-op America's Responsible Shopper campaign.
Anheuser-Busch
Organizer: Showing Animals Respect and Kindness
Anheuser-Busch sponsors rodeos with their Budweiser brand and bullfighting with their Corona brand. In bullfighting, bulls endure extreme torture and a lingering death, sometimes to be butchered alive.
Campaign URL: SharkOnline.org
AT&T/Cingular
Organizer: Showing Animals Respect and Kindness
AT&T/Cingular remains a major sponsor and the "Exclusive Wireless Provider" for the Professional Rodeo Cowboy's Association, even after the organization SHARK (Showing Animals Respect and Kindness) informed them about the cruelty inherent in rodeo and the PRCA's long and disturbing history of abusing animals and lying about it.
Campaign URLs: ATTcruelty.com, CingularSponsorsCruelty.com and HelpingAnimals.com
Australian Wool
Australia permits two especially cruel practices in sheep farming, mulesing and live export. Mulesing means cutting chunks of skin off of lambs' rumps without anesthesia. The scar that results is supposed to prevent maggot infestations, but often doesn't. The live sheep that are exported to the Middle East endure a grueling journey in densely packed ships. Some are trampled to death. Others starve when they cannot reach food or water. Sick and injured sheep may be tossed overboard or ground up alive on the ship. PETA encourages people to avoid purchasing wool, but for those who insist on buying wool they ask that they avoid Australian wool until mulesing and live export have ended.
Campaign URL: SavetheSheep.com
Burberry
Organizer: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals"
While J.Crew, Ann Taylor, Polo Ralph Lauren, and others have gone fur-free, Burberry continues to use fur in its designs. The animals raised for Burberry's fur and all fur suffer from confinement and isolation in filthy wire cages. They suffer from harsh weather and neglect and are denied any opportunity to engage in their natural behaviors. Their short lives end in painful deaths by suffocation, electrocution, gassing or poisoning. These methods aren't always effective and animals are sometimes skinned alive. PETA is asking people to boycott Burberry until it adopts a permanent fur-free policy.
Campaign URL: BloodyBurberry.com
Canadian "Seafood"
Organizers: The Humane Society of the United States, the International Fund for Animal Welfare
Each year since 2005, a few thousand fisherman club hundreds of thousands of baby seals to death on Canada's east coast. These seals, most of them less than three months old, die long, torturous deaths. Some are even skinned alive. Less than one twentieth of the fishermans' income comes from the hunt. Most of it comes from catching crustaceans, especially Snow Crabs. The intent of the boycott of Canadian "Seafood" is to reduce demand for it enough to counter any economic incentive for the seal hunt. Kind Choices encourages everyone to go vegan. However, if you insist on eating sea animals, please do not eat those imported from Canada.
Campaign URLs: ProtectSeals.org, StoptheSealHunt.org">StoptheSealHunt.org
Showing Animals Respect and Kindness
Coca-Cola sponsors bullfighting, greyhound racing, the Iditarod dog sled race and rodeos. For more information about the horrific cruelty to animals inherent in these practices, see SharkOnline.org
Campaign URL:
Dodge/Chrysler
Organizer: Showing Animals Respect and Kindness
Dodge/Chrysler is one of the largest sponsors of rodeos in the U.S., giving 6.6 milllion dollars to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Dodge/Chrysler also sponsors the National High School Rodeo Association and allows their dealers to sponsor bullfighting.
Campaign URL: DodgeRodeoCruelty
Holiday Inn
Organizer: Showing Animals Respect and Kindness
Holiday Inn is a major sponsor of rodeos
Campaign URL: SharkOnline.org
Iams
Organizer: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals"
Iams pays for invasive experiments to be conducted on dogs, cats, mice and other animals at a contract testing laboratory. In one of these painful and unnecessary experiments chunks of muscle were cut out of dogs' thighs and the dogs were left on a cold concrete floor. The conditions the animals are kept in are also deplorable. A PETA undercover investigator witnessed dogs and cats crazed from confinement in barren steel cages and cement cells, dogs surgically debarked, desperately ill dogs and cats languishing in their cages without veterinary care and dogs sweltering in the summer heat. PETA is asking people to boycott Iams until they stop testing on animals.
Campaign URL: Iamscruelty.com
KFC
Organizer: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals"
While PETA advocates a vegan diet, they recognize the importance of improving the welfare of animals raised and killed for food. Currently, chickens raised and killed for food at KFC suffer beak mutilations, intense confinement and breed-related illness, and many are scalded alive during the slaughter process. PETA is asking KFC to adopt the animal welfare program developed by five members of its own animal welfare board that would improve the chickens' quality of life and health and reduce pain and trauma during their slaughter. PETA encourages people to boycott KFC at least until they adopt this program and, preferably, to go vegan.
Campaign URL: KentuckyFriedCruelty.com
Lowe's
Lowe's refuses to join CVS, Rite Aid, Albertsons, and Safeway in banning glue traps. Small animals, including birds, suffer long and painful deaths in these traps, often spending days trying to get free, even chewing off their own limbs, only to become further ensnared in the adhesive.
Campaign URL: HelpingAnimals.com
Petland
Organizer: In Defense of Animals
Petland is the largest pet store chain in the U.S. and a major purchaser of puppies from puppy mills, as well as kittens and other small animals. One of their larger suppliers, Do-Bo-Tri Kennels, has been repeatedly charged with violations of the animal welfare act. IDA encourages people to adopt animals rather than buy them and to boycott Petland until they stop selling animals.
Campaign URL:
http://www.idausa.org/campaigns.html (click on "Petland" in the campaign menu on the left)
PetSmart
Organizer: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals"
An undercover PETA investigator documented the neglect of more than 100 small animals at the PetSmart in Manchester, Connecticut. Though the store has a Banfield Hospital right inside it, and PetSmart boasts of it as having an "outstanding pet care team" and an "exceptional pet care record," these animals never received effective veterinary care and died slow, miserable deaths, out of customers' sight. PETA is asking people to boycott PetSmart until they stop selling all animals.
Campaign URL: PetSmart
Southwest Airlines
Organizer: Showing Animals Respect and Kindness
Southwest Airlines sponsors rodeos in the southwestern U.S., including one in Tucson where horses were documented on video being covertly shocked with an extremely powerful device in violation of a Tuscon City Ordinance.
Campaign URL: SharkOnline.org
Toyota
Organizer: Showing Animals Respect and Kindness
Toyota is a major sponsor of the International Pro Rodeo Association
Campaign URL: SharkOnline.org