‘Close the Slaughterhouses’ Bus Ads to Run Near Local Chicken Plant

After House of Raeford Farms Fires Protesting Workers, PETA Ads Remind People That ‘No One Needs to Kill to Eat’

For Immediate Release:
June 23, 2020

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

After workers at a local chicken slaughterhouse were reportedly fired for protesting dangerous working conditions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, PETA is running ads on five area buses demanding that slaughterhouses be shut down in order to protect animals and workers and their families.

The ads follow President Trump’s executive, but not binding, order for slaughterhouses nationwide to remain open despite widespread coronavirus infections. More than 10,000 workers at 170 slaughterhouses across the country have contracted COVID-19—and at least 45 have died.

“From the deadly pandemics bred in slaughterhouses and meat markets to heart disease, obesity, and cancer, which are linked to eating animals, the meat industry is toxic for our health and a place of death for animals—not to mention terrible to its workers,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA stands ready with free vegan starter kits, mentor services, and recipes to help everyone protect themselves, their communities, and animals by going vegan.”

The novel coronavirus originated in a Chinese “wet market,” where live and dead animals are sold for human consumption; swine flu began on a U.S. factory farm; and other influenza viruses have been traced to chickens. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that approximately 75% of recently emerged infectious diseases affecting humans originated in other animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—also placed ads in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Hill, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Examiner, and elsewhere urging Americans to move away from meat.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.