Billboard to Pay Tribute to Chickens Killed in Truck Crash

PETA Memorial Will Encourage People to Help Keep Animals Out of Transport Trucks by Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
April 22, 2019

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

In honor of the chickens who died near Brickerville on April 15 when the truck carrying them overturned and hit a utility pole in the 1900 block of Furnace Hills Pike/Route 501, PETA plans to place a billboard near the crash site showing a chicken’s face next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan.“

“This crash left countless birds dead or mangled, and those who managed to survive will presumably end up under the slaughterhouse knife,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s billboard will remind people that the best way to prevent these tragedies is to help keep smart, sensitive chickens off the road in the first place by going vegan.”

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. In the egg industry, hens are confined to a space no bigger than an iPad and part of their beak is cut off with a hot blade—without any pain relief—in order to prevent them from pecking each other out of stress and frustration. They’re sent to be slaughtered once their bodies wear out and they’re no longer considered useful for egg production. At the slaughterhouse, their throats are cut, often while they’re still conscious, and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is the human-supremacist view that other species are nothing more than commodities. The group has made note of over 90 crashes involving trucks transporting animals in 2018 and has documented three dozen in just the first months of 2019. And it’s not only animals on the road who are in danger: On April 16—just one day after the crash—1,000 turkeys were reportedly killed in a barn fire in Lancaster County.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.