A woman in Pennsylvania is accused of piercing the ears, necks and tails of kittens and then marketing them as “gothic kittens” in an effort to sell them on the internet. Appropriately, the cats have been seized and the woman will (we hope) be charged with animal abuse.

While this incident is nothing less than horrible and inexcusable, it serves in stark contrast to the way law enforcement, the media and the general public react to the systemic mutilation of pigs (whose ears are often cut in chunks as a form of identification, and whose tails are sometimes removed, all without anesthesia), cattle (who endure painful third degree burns known as “branding”) and chickens (whose beaks are routinely seared off with a hot blade at the tender age of 1-3 days old).

There’s no excuse for animal abuse, no matter which species that animal belongs to. For more information on this shocking news, see the MSNBC article. To learn more about factory farming and how you can stop the daily mutilation of farm animals, check out factoryfarming.com or meat.org.