Disturbing Spike in Entangled Seals Prompts Plea from PETA: Ditch the Fish!
For Immediate Release:
May 5, 2025
Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382
Following reports that an alarming number of seals have been recently caught tangled in fishing gear along the northern Atlantic Coast, PETA plans to make waves in Mystic with a billboard urging everyone to stop fishing and buying fish to save the lives of seals and other marine life—including fish! PETA notes that “non-target” animals caught in discarded or lost fishing gear are known euphemistically as “bycatch” in the fishing industry, and often they are grievously injured or killed by discarded fishing lines, hooks, and other abandoned gear every year.
According to the Mystic Aquarium Animal Rescue Team, 20 entangled gray seals have already been reported to the Connecticut-based rescue group in the first four months of 2025—more than it typically documents in a full year.
“Humanity’s voracious appetite for fish is decimating our oceans and the seals, whales, dolphins, and millions of other marine animals whose only home it is, wrapped in the fishing industry’s nets and treated as collateral damage,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges conscientious consumers who object to causing animals to suffer to leave sea life off their plates.”
PETA notes that the fishing industry’s unintentional kills are one of the biggest threats to marine biodiversity worldwide and have resulted in widespread species extinction, habitat destruction, and irreversible damage to ocean ecosystems. The fishing industry is also terribly cruel to its intended victims: More fish are killed for food each year than all other animals combined. Fish feel pain as acutely as mammals do, have long-term memories, and sing underwater—yet they’re impaled, crushed, suffocated, dropped into pots of boiling water, or cut open and gutted, all while conscious.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness and free vegan starter kits for anyone thinking of making the switch. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
