Save the Whales in a Novel Way! PETA’s New Plea Breaches at Mission Beach
For Immediate Release:
January 18, 2022
Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382
PETA is making a splash on the Mission Beach boardwalk with a billboard to coincide with the winter gray whale migration. Displayed near several restaurants that serve sea life dishes, PETA’s appeal reminds diners and whale watchers that fishing gear kills 300,000 whales and dolphins annually and suggests a solution: “Don’t Eat Fish.”
In the fishing industry, even whales are callously referred to as “bycatch,” a euphemism for non-target animals who get caught or become tangled in fishing gear and then are discarded or simply die. PETA notes that death by fishing gear is the single-biggest threat to the survival of many of the world’s 86 cetacean species and that eating fish contributes to the decimation of ocean ecosystems. Recent research estimates that the population of Pacific gray whales off North America’s West Coast has declined by almost 25% since 2016.
“Eating vegan not only prevents fish from suffocating and suffering for a fleeting taste but also protects the majestic whales who cross San Diego’s waters,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges everyone to honor aquatic animals, large and small, by leaving them off their plates.”
More fish are killed for food each year than all other animals combined. Fish feel pain as acutely as mammals, have long-term memories, and sing underwater—yet they are impaled, crushed, suffocated, or cut open and gutted, all while conscious.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—points out that many faux-fish options are available, including Gardein’s f’sh filets, Good Catch’s Plant-Based Tuna, New Wave Foods’ plant-based shrimp, and Sophie’s Kitchen’s Vegan Crab Cakes.
The billboard is located at 838 W. Mission Bay Dr., San Diego.
For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
