Billboard to Pay Tribute to Chickens Killed in Barn Blaze

For Immediate Release:
December 10, 2019

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

In honor of the 19,000 chickens who perished in a fire at the Watts Auman Farm in Moore County on Thanksgiving, PETA plans to place a billboard in the area that proclaims, “If Everyone Were Vegan, It Wouldn’t Have Happened.”

“The pain and fear that these trapped chickens must have felt as smoke and flames engulfed them is impossible to imagine,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges everyone to prevent more animals from suffering and dying by opting for delicious vegan meals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that chickens killed for their flesh are crammed by the tens of thousands into filthy sheds and bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight. At slaughterhouses, their throats are cut, often while they’re still conscious, and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks. Each person who goes vegan saves the lives of nearly 200 animals every year.

In a separate incident in Moore County on November 11, hundreds of chickens were killed when a transport truck carrying them overturned on Midland Road. PETA has already noted 95 crashes involving trucks carrying animals used for food this year alone.

PETA opposes speciesism, which is the human-supremacist worldview that other species are nothing more than commodities. For more information, please visit PETA.org.