PETA Tackles Fishing With New Ferry Ads

Anti-Speciesism Campaign Comes to Town for National Seafood Month

For Immediate Release:
October 13, 2020

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

PETA has just placed ads on five local ferries in order to float an idea: Fish are every bit as sensitive as dogs, cats, and humans are, so cutting them open on fishing boats is speciesism—the misguided belief that all other animal species are inferior to humans and that it’s therefore somehow acceptable to harm them.

PETA placed the ads because of Washington’s robust commercial fishing industry—and because October is National Seafood Month. The group also plans to run #EndSpeciesism ads in New York.

“When it comes to feeling pain and fear and valuing their own lives, fish are just like you and me,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA’s ads encourage everyone to fight speciesism by valuing all animals for who they are as individuals—and keeping them off our plates.”

Numerous studies confirm that fish have unique personalities, can recognize human faces as well as those of other fish, and can retain memories and think ahead. But because of human prejudice, they have no legal protection from abuse, and they suffer immensely when hooked through their sensitive mouths or dragged out of the ocean in huge nets in which they can suffocate or be crushed to death—and some are still alive when their throats and stomachs are cut open.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—offers a free vegan starter kit (plus recipes for delicious fish-free dishes) on its website.

The ads are running along the Seattle-Bainbridge, Seattle-Bremerton, Edmonds-Kingston, Mukilteo-Clinton, and Anacortes Term–Samish ferry routes.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.