PETA Wants Animal-Borne Diseases Cut Off at the Source via Closure of World's Live-Animal Markets
For Immediate Release:
March 27, 2020
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Washington – Crammed inside cages with other animals and surrounded by fake blood, feces, offal, and organs, PETA supporters—all observing social-distancing guidelines—will be highly visible outside the World Health Organization’s (WHO) headquarters, urging the agency to call for the permanent closure of live-animal markets worldwide.
When: Monday, March 30, 12 noon
Where: WHO, 525 23rd St. N.W., Washington, D.C.
“As long as sick and stressed animals are crowded together in filthy meat markets, it will remain a matter of when—not if—the next pandemic will occur,” says PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA wants the WHO to act swiftly to help protect humans and other animals by calling for these dangerous operations to be shut down now.”
Deadly outbreaks of mad cow disease, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, HIV, hoof-and-mouth disease, and other zoonotic diseases have stemmed from capturing wild animals or farming domesticated ones for food. At live-animal markets (also called “wet markets”), cages are stacked on top of each other, with the animals on the bottom soaked in excrement, pus, and blood—allowing viruses to spread to humans.
Wet markets continue to operate throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and the U.S. There are more than 80 live-animal markets and slaughterhouses in New York City alone.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
