Fish Filet or Kitten Filet? PETA Video Blitz Says There’s No Difference Ahead of Lent
For Immediate Release:
March 4, 2025
Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382
Just in time for Lent, PETA is making a splash near several sea life-selling restaurants and churches downtown with a provocative blitz of video messages on sidewalk kiosks encouraging everyone to sea that there’s no ethical difference between eating a fish, a cat, or any other thinking, feeling being. The appeal shows a smiling fishmonger holding a dead fish—but then the video transforms to show her holding a dead cat.
“Fish are as smart and playful as the cats who share our homes and, like them, don’t deserve to be suffocated, gutted, and eaten with French fries,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA encourages anyone horrified at the thought of tucking into a kitten filet to extend that empathy to all animals, and please go vegan for Lent and beyond.”
Fish feel pain as acutely as mammals do, have long-term memories, and sing underwater. Yet more fish are killed for food each year than all other animals combined. Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year, dramatically shrinks their food-related carbon footprint and avoids ingesting the many toxic chemicals found in the flesh of fish, including mercury, lead, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
PETA’s free vegan starter kit can help those looking to make the switch. Diners seeking vegan seafood in Baltimore can head to eateries such as The Land of Kush, Refocused Vegan, and Dodah’s Kitchen, and grocery store shoppers can look for Mind Blown dusted scallops and crab cakes, Gardein Golden Fishless Filets and Mini Cr’b Cakes, and Loma Linda’s Tuno, among other dishes.
PETA’s message can be found on digital kiosks near 55 Market Place; 600 E. Pratt Street; 400 Cathedral Street; 300 W. Pratt Street; 12 N. Eutaw Street; near the intersection of S. Broadway and Fleet Street, 1100 Light Street; and 200 N. Eutaw St near Lexington Street.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
