Lent Observers: ‘I’m ME, Not MEAT,’ Proclaims Fish on New Ads

PETA Ads in Top Catholic U.S. City Urge Believers to Show Compassion for All God’s Creatures by Going Vegan for Lent

For Immediate Release:
February 5, 2018

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

Just in time for the Lenten season—and because Milwaukee is tied with Phoenix and San Francisco for having the fifth-highest Catholic population in the country—PETA is placing three ads featuring a fish proclaiming, “I’m ME, Not MEAT. Go Vegan for Lent,” in high-traffic areas around the city. The ads aim to encourage Catholics and other Lent observers to abstain from eating animals, including fish, throughout the 40-day introspective period and thereafter.

The ads will be located on bus shelters near the intersections of N. Old World Third Street and Wisconsin Avenue (facing west) and E. North and N. Oakland avenues (facing north). It will also appear on a billboard at 7589 W. Appleton Ave. (facing east).  

“Fish suffer enormously when they’re impaled, pulled from their aquatic homes, crushed, or cut open and gutted while fully conscious,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA’s billboards will encourage observers of Lent to show compassion for themselves and all God’s creatures by giving up the cruel act of eating animals and switching to healthy and humane vegan meals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that each person who goes vegan saves more than 100 animals a year from profound suffering and a terrifying death. In today’s meat and dairy industries, chickens’ throats are cut while they’re still conscious, piglets are castrated without painkillers, and mother cows are separated from their beloved babies shortly after birth.

PETA offers nourishing and accessible vegan meal plans (available here and here) as well as a free vegan starter kit full of recipes, tips, and more for people who pledge to give up eating animal-derived foods for Lent.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.