MEAT FACTS
    In the U.S., more than 120 million animals a week are killed for food.
    Almost all the pork, bacon, and ham consumed in the U.S. comes from 85 million pigs who live in stacked crates or barren cement stalls.
    Animals too weak, sick or injured to move upon arrival at the stockyard are tied to the back of a truck and dragged to an area where they are piled on top of each other for easy killing and butchering. These "downed" animals may lie suffering for days without food or water.
    In winter, animals can freeze to the sides of trucks during transport; in summer, they can die from heat exhaustion.
    The risk of death from a heart attack is 50 percent for an average American man, but only four percent for a pure vegetarian man.
    Countries with the lowest consumption of animal protein have the lowest incidences of cancer of the breast, prostate, and colon.
    One acre of trees is spared each year by every individual who switches to a purely vegetarian diet.

MILK AND VEAL FACTS
    At least half the 10 million dairy cows in the U.S. spend their lives in crowded, concrete-floored milking pens or barns. Artificially inseminated on what factory farmers call "the rape rack," the dairy cow's male calves are sold to the veal industry within two days.
    Veal calves spend their short lives chained inside tiny crates and are killed when they are just 12-16 weeks old. Deliberately starved of vital nutrients, the calves suffer from anemia and other diseases.
    Factory-farmed cows are sprayed with pesticides and dosed with antibiotics, hormones, and tranquilizers. The residues of these chemicals are passed on to those who consume the animals' flesh and milk.
    Milk is not "a natural." Cow's milk is suited to the needs of calves who double their weight in 47 days, have four stomachs, and weigh 300 pounds within a year. It contains three times as much protein and 50 percent more fat than human milk.
    Feeding cow's milk to human babies can cause colic, bleeding in the intestines, allergies, and anemia and has been linked to the development of juvenile diabetes. In adults, it has been implicated in heart disease, certain cancers, stroke, adult onset diabetes, and osteoporosis.

CHICKEN FACTS
    Nationwide, six billion chickens are killed for food every year, more than one for every human on Earth.
    Egg-laying hens often live five to a cage only 18 inches wide, although a chicken's wingspan is 32 inches.
    "Broiler chickens" are raised in buildings that house up to nine birds per square foot.
    Egg producers suffocate or grind up alive 280 million male chicks a year.
    An egg contains approximately 250 milligrams of cholesterol.
    Chicken meat has as much cholesterol per ounce as beef.
    Government studies have found as many as 90 percent of chicken carcasses contaminated with salmonella bacteria.
    Chicken processors handle some 5,000 bird corpses per hour. Chicken bodies dropped on the floor are often returned to the processing line.
    A chicken factory can use 100 million gallons of water a day.

EXPERIMENTATION FACTS
    60 to 100 million animals are killed annually in U.S. laboratories, in everything from burn and starvation experiments to weaponry testing and space research. Another 14 million plus are killed in product tests.
    In some states, pounds surrender dogs and cats to laboratories. "Bunchers" pick up strays, purchase litters, and/or trap and steal animals to sell for experiments.
    Outdated laws require that all drugs be tested on animals. Even so, more than half the prescription drugs approved by the FDA between 1976 and 1985 had to be relabeled or withdrawn from the market because of serious side effects. Cosmetics and household products are not required to be tested on animals.
    Sophisticated research methods, such as computer models, cell cultures, and human clinical and epidemiological studies are more accurate, less expensive, and less time-consuming than animal experiments.
    More than 400 cosmetics and household product companies have announced permanent bans on animal testing. Many companies have never performed tests on animals.

HUNTING FACTS
    Hunters kill 250 million animals every year in the U.S.
    For every animal a hunter kills and recovers, at least two are wounded; many die later from blood loss, infection, or starvation.
    The amount hunters pay for hunting licenses, duck stamps, etc.., does not cover the cost of hunting programs and game warden salaries.
    Forty-five percent of hunters do their killing of animals on public lands supported by taxpayers.
    In the last two centuries, hunters have helped wipe out dozens of species. Others, have been brought to the brink of extinction by hunters.
    Hunters often kill the natural predators of animals they later claim have become too populous.
    In 1987, two hundred and ten people were killed and more than 1,700 were injured in hunting accidents.

FUR FACTS
    Approximately 4.9 million furbearing animals are killed each year by trappers in the U.S. Another 3.5 million animals are raised on fur "farms."
    Foxes are kept in cages only 2.5 feet square (minks in cages 1 foot by 3 feet), with up to four animals per cage.
    Animals can languish in traps for days. Up to a quarter of all trapped animals escape by chewing off their own feet, only to die later from blood loss, fever, infection, or predation.
    Every year approximately five million dogs, cats, birds, and other animals are crippled or killed by traps.
    Trappers usually strangle, beat, or stomp trapped animals to death. Animals on fur farms may be gassed, anally electrocuted, poisoned with strychnine, or have their necks snapped.
    It takes more than three times as much energy to make a coat from trapped animals' pelts and more than 60 times as much from ranch-raised animals' pelts as it does to make a fake fur coat.

CIRCUS FACTS
    Animals in circuses are forced to travel thousands of miles for 48-50 weeks every year.
    Elephants are chained in filthy railroad cars that are often left in the sun in 90- to 100-degree weather. Some elephants spend their entire lives in chains. The famous Dumbo lived 20 years in "martingales," fetters that run from the tusks to the feet.
    Tigers live and are transported in cages only 4 feet by 5 feet by 6 feet-barely enough room to turn around.
    Animals perform under threat of punishment. Bears commonly have their paws burned to force them to stand on their hind legs. And according to Henry Ringling North, big cats are "chained to their pedestals, and ropes are put around their necks to choke them down .... They work from fear."