Fitzgerald’s Chicken Topiary Could Get Hedge Funding from PETA—In Exchange for Pro-Vegan Message
For Immediate Release:
March 16, 2026
Contact:
Hannah Nelson 202-483-7382
Ahead of Fitzgerald’s Wild Chicken Festival—honoring the city’s beloved wild Burmese chickens—PETA sent a letter today to Mayor Jason Holt with an offer worth squawking about: PETA will subsidize the completion of the city’s famously unfinished 62-foot-tall chicken-shaped topiary, provided the city agrees to adorn it with a message reading, “Why love one but eat the other? Go vegan!”
PETA points out that, unlike the cherished wild chickens of Fitzgerald, the billions of chickens killed every year for food are confined by the tens of thousands to severely crowded, filthy sheds and bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight. At slaughterhouses, mechanized blades slit their throats—often while they’re still conscious—and many are scalded to death in de-feathering tanks.
“All chickens feel love, joy, pain, and fear, just as we do, and they all deserve the respect and appreciation shown to Fitzgerald’s beloved birds,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “PETA hopes the city of Fitzgerald will embrace this compassionate message and help lead the flock toward a kinder future for birds of every feather.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness and free Vegan Starter Kits for anyone thinking of making the switch. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
PETA’s letter to Mayor Holt follows.
March 16, 2026
The Honorable Jason Holt
Mayor of Fitzgerald
Dear Mayor Holt:
Greetings! I’m writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—PETA entities have more than 10.4 million members and supporters globally, including over 142,000 in Georgia—ahead of the Wild Chicken Festival honoring the city’s famous wild Burmese chickens, with an eggciting offer: We’d help pay to finish Fitzgerald’s chicken topiary project if you’d agree to place a sign on it when it’s complete reading, “Why love one but eat the other? Go vegan!”
We’re not trying to ruffle any feathers, but unlike the wild chickens of Fitzgerald who are celebrated and protected, the 9.5 billion chickens exploited annually on factory farms in the U.S. for food aren’t so lucky. Chickens are intelligent animals who feel pain and empathy and form strong bonds with one another, yet those raised in the meat industry are kept in filthy, severely crowded sheds and bred to grow so large that their legs and organs can’t keep up, making heart attacks, organ failure, and crippling leg deformities common. Then, after a terrifying trip to the slaughterhouse, they’re shackled and hung upside down, their throats are cut, and they’re immersed in scalding-hot feather removal tanks—often while they’re still conscious.
We simply chickan’t keep eating this way. Animal agriculture, including chicken farming, is devastating our planet. A vegan diet has a far lighter environmental footprint and is linked to considerably lower rates of obesity, heart disease, and certain types of cancer. That’s something worth squawking about!
By adding this visual, you’d have an opportunity to demonstrate a sign of the changing times and encourage residents to appreciate all chickens as individuals who deserve our respect. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Very truly yours,
Ingrid Newkirk
Founder
