Can the Ham! Pro-Vegan PETA Spot Hits Airwaves Ahead of Thanksgiving

For Immediate Release:
September 27, 2022

Contact:
Lauren Kent 202-483-7382

In the lead-up to Thanksgiving—and ahead of the October 12 sentencing of two activists who live-streamed video footage of illness-afflicted pigs with volleyball-size hernias on Excelsior Hog Farm in Abbotsford, British Columbia—PETA is running a pro-pig appeal from its series “A Minute for the Animals” on a local radio station, giving British Columbians some food for thought about keeping ham off the holiday table. Narrated by PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, the spot shares intriguing facts about these animals, including that they’ve saved humans from drowning, mother pigs sing to their young, and, just like us, pigs enjoy massages and video games.

“When people learn that pigs love their families, feel pain and fear, and value their own lives, they’re eager to put a vegan roast on the table,” says PETA Director of Media Relations Heather Carlson. “PETA is urging everyone to tap into empathy by tucking into savory soy hams that leave pigs in peace.”

Meat-free meals are already on many Canadians’ minds: The number of vegans has doubled nationwide in just two years, and Google searches for “vegan food near me” reportedly increased by more than 5,000% in 2021, enough to register as a “breakthrough search.”

Everyone who goes vegan spares the lives of nearly 200 animals a year and protects pigs from immense suffering: Sows at Excelsior Hog Farm were forced to give birth in crates hardly bigger than their bodies, and they could nurse but not otherwise tend to their babies for the first weeks of their lives, causing many piglets to die unattended. Throughout the meat industry, pigs’ tails are chopped off, their teeth are cut with pliers, and the males are castrated. At slaughterhouses, pigs are hung upside down and bled to death.

The ad is running on 94.5 Virgin Radio/CFBT-FM between 3 and 8 p.m. from Monday, September 26, through Friday, September 30.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offers an ultimate vegan Canadian Thanksgiving guide on its website. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.