Shark's Seal Meal Startles Beachgoers, but PETA Says Humans' Taste for Seafood Has Sharks' Killing Record Beat
For Immediate Release:
August 19, 2015
Contact:
Catie Cryar 202-483-7382
Cape Cod, Mass. – A week after a shark startled beachgoers by tossing a half-eaten seal up on Nauset Light Beach, PETA will fly a banner over two of the cape’s beaches on Thursday with a pointed message suggesting a reality check and a change of diet: “Dangerous Predator in the Water: YOU! Go Vegan.”
When: Thursday, August 20, 12–1 p.m.
Where: Flying over Nauset Light and Coast Guard beaches
“The biggest drain on the oceans’ fish and other marine animal population isn’t sharks—it’s human beings,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “One shark’s seal meal may have caused alarm, but what’s really scary is that millions of sensitive individuals are being impaled or netted and dragged from their homes to stock all-you-can-eat seafood buffets.”
Humans kill and consume more fish every year than all other animals combined. Most fish in restaurants and supermarkets are caught using huge commercial fishing nets, which are sometimes miles long and stretch across oceans and swallow up everyone and everything in their path. When hauled up from the deep (along with dolphins, turtles, seals, and other “trash catch”), fish—who studies show are intelligent and sensitive to pain—are often crushed to death, their eyeballs bulging out of their heads from the pressure of sudden surfacing. Others are still alive when they’re gutted.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—offers free vegan starter kits and encourages everyone to try healthy, humane vegan meals like Gardein’s delicious Golden Fishless Filets.
Photographs will be available on Thursday afternoon. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
