For Immediate Release:
April 4, 2023
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
Tampa, Fla. – Just in time for Easter, a sky-high plea from PETA is dishing up some food for thought in the U.S.’s second-most dog-friendly city: “Wouldn’t eat a dog? Why eat a lamb?” The dogged appeal is designed to get people thinking about how lambs and dogs are the same in all the ways that count—from feeling joy and pain to bonding with their loved ones—and asks everyone to embody the Easter tenet of mercy by enjoying a vegan holiday meal.
“We treasure dogs because they shower us with love and trust us to take care of them, something lambs would do, too, if given the chance,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA’s billboard encourages people to leave animals off their plates on Easter and every day.”
With the abundance of animal-free roasts available, celebrating Easter with kindness has never been easier. PETA LAMBS (“Least Among My Brothers and Sisters” from Matthew 25:40) has a vegan guide for the holiday, and PETA offers a free vegan starter kit.
So far this year, the U.S. meat industry has already killed millions of lambs for food. Raised on overcrowded, filthy feedlots, they endure painful mutilations within weeks of birth. Workers hole-punch their ears, chop off their tails, and castrate the males—all without pain relief. At slaughterhouses, the young, vulnerable animals are slashed across the throat, often while they’re still conscious. Some try to escape this cruel fate, such as the seven sheep in New Jersey who broke free from a slaughterhouse, won over hearts across the country, and wound up safe in a sanctuary.
PETA’s billboard is located at 13753 N. Dale Mabry Hwy., near Executive Center Drive, within one mile of several shops and eateries that sell lamb. These include Publix, Renzo’s Steakhouse & Wine Bar, and Turkuaz Mediterranean.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
