One-Two PETA Punch to Take On Marine Bloodlust Drills

For Immediate Release:
June 2, 2021

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

Tomorrow, PETA will take its campaign against the repulsive, reckless Cobra Gold military exercise—during which Marines skin and eat live geckos, chomp on live scorpions and tarantulas, and decapitate cobras and drink their blood in Thailand—to the next level with two protests: one outside the Thai Embassy and the other at the home of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III.

When:    Thursday, June 3, 12 noon

Where:    Royal Thai Embassy, 1024 Wisconsin Ave. N.W., Washington

“A Girl Scout could figure out how to survive in a jungle without killing animals for practice, and our military’s best and brightest should be able to as well,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA urges officials to end the bloodlust killing of animals during Cobra Gold, which sullies Marines’ honor, risks a zoonotic disease pandemic, and endangers species vulnerable to extinction.”

Cobra Gold is purportedly about survival training, but officials have admitted that the actual intention is to build camaraderie among troops—which could easily be done in ways that don’t involve consuming live animals and putting public health at risk. The Department of Defense’s own policy requires the use of non-animal training methods whenever possible, and several U.S. military facilities have adopted animal-free food-procurement training after hearing from PETA.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.