CVS Bans Great Ape Greeting Cards After Push From PETA

For Immediate Release:
November 29, 2021

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

After learning from PETA that greeting cards featuring great apes wearing costumes, displayed in studios, or interacting with humans hinder conservation efforts, CVS has banned all such cards from its nearly 10,000 stores. The cards have largely disappeared from the stores’ inventories, and any that may remain are being removed.

“CVS’ greeting card aisle is getting a whole lot kinder, thanks to its decision to ban cards that exploit great apes,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Chimpanzees aren’t models or props, and photos of them wearing Santa hats or sitting at the holiday table put these endangered animals at risk.”

Unnatural images of chimpanzees mislead consumers into believing that the species—which may face extinction within our lifetime—is thriving. These portrayals may also increase the black market demand for endangered great apes as “pets,” which is one of the main forces driving them toward extinction.

For all these reasons, Rite Aid removed all great ape greeting cards from its stores earlier this year—and PETA is calling on Hallmark and American Greetings to retire the images from its cards.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.