PETA Asks Trendsetting New Yorkers to ‘Try Vegan’
Billboards in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago Plead for Kindness to Animals Used for Food
For Immediate Release:
January 21, 2014
Contact:
Allison Lakomski 202-483-7382
To encourage people across the U.S. to choose kinder meals in 2014, this month PETA placed thought-provoking new billboards in the country’s three largest cities, including a larger-than-life ad just installed in Times Square. The billboard—which is located at the corner of 50th Street and Broadway—shows a chicken’s face and the words “You Can Live Without Chicken Wings. I Can’t. Try Vegan.” Photos are available here.
The new campaign challenges people to think critically about their meat consumption from the perspective of the animals who are killed for food. The pro-vegan billboards in Chicago focus on cows and pigs, and the billboard in Culver City, Calif., just west of Los Angeles, shines a spotlight on fish. Together, the four billboards will be seen by thousands of people every day. And people are taking notice. The billboard in Chicago’s meatpacking district has become a hot topic after a popular delicatessen posted a response on its Facebook page.
“PETA’s billboards will give people across the country food for thought,” says PETA Campaign Manager Katie Arth. “We want everyone to consider that what they choose to eat can mean a sad life and a horrifying death for wonderful animals—and instead try vegan.”
On factory farms, chickens killed for their flesh are crammed by the tens of thousands into filthy sheds and bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight. In the egg industry, millions of male chicks are ground up alive or suffocated every year because the industry deems them unprofitable. Female chicks have portions of their sensitive beaks cut off and spend their lives in a tiny cage with up to 10 other hens. At the slaughterhouse, chickens’ throats are often cut while they’re still conscious, and many birds are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.
For more information, please visit PETA’s blog.
