PETA Seeks Roadside Memorial for Chickens Killed in Gainesville Truck Accident

Monument Would Urge Drivers in World’s ‘Poultry Capital’ to Go Vegan

For Immediate Release:
February 6, 2014

Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382

As reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today, in a city famous for eating chickens, PETA is proposing a roadside marker that urges residents to stop doing exactly that. The group is seeking a memorial to the chickens killed on January 27 when a truck carrying the animals to a Pilgrim’s slaughter plant overturned at a Gainesville intersection. Sarah Segal, a Georgia resident and PETA member, has applied to the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) on PETA’s behalf and asked for permission to erect a 10-foot-tall memorial tombstone for the chickens killed in the crash. Segal and PETA hope the memorial will offer food for thought to motorists in Gainesville, a city often dubbed the “Poultry Capital of the World.”

“This tribute will let residents of the ‘Poultry Capital of the World’ know that the best way to prevent tragedies such as this one is to go vegan,” Segal wrote in her letter to GDOT. “[C]hickens shouldn’t have to make the terrifying trip to the slaughterhouse at all.”

Gainesville has long been touted as the birthplace of the “assembly line” form of chicken slaughter, in which chickens are dangled from conveyor belts, electrocuted, and plunged into boiling water.

“Chickens suffer from the time they’re babies, when they have their sensitive beaks cut off with a searing-hot blade,” says PETA Associate Director of Campaigns Lindsay Rajt. “Our proposed statue would bring this suffering to the public’s attention and would encourage people to stop eating chickens. At the very least, it would remind motorists to be more alert and help prevent future terrifying crashes.”

For more information, please visit PETA.org.