Manure Spill Prompts ‘Meat Stinks’ Billboard

Iowa to Get a Whiff of PETA’s ‘Go Vegan’ Message

For Immediate Release:
April 8, 2016

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Following a manure spill from a pig farm near Murray on Monday, PETA is negotiating with outdoor advertisers in Iowa to display a billboard that shows a slaughtered pig’s severed head next to the words “Meat Stinks—Go Vegan.” Investigating officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources say that the manure traveled over land and via a stream for 2.5 miles before flowing into and contaminating the Thompson River.

“While this monstrous mess of manure muck may have quite a stench, it’s the meat industry that really stinks,” says PETA Senior Director Colleen O’Brien. “PETA’s billboard is a reminder that the most powerful step that each one of us can take to avert environmental disasters, improve our health, and save animals from suffering is to go vegan.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that animals in the industrialized meat industry produce 500 million tons of manure each year, and animal agriculture contributes as much as half of greenhouse-gas emissions globally. Runoff from factory farms is one of the leading causes of river and lake pollution in the U.S. and can contaminate groundwater with bacteria and viruses. Compared to meat-eaters, vegans have a 41.7 percent smaller greenhouse-gas footprint, save more than 100 animals from daily suffering and a terrifying death each year, and are less prone to suffering from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.