Sky-High Alerts Point to Surprising Victims of Fishing Industry: Seals

For Immediate Release:
February 16, 2022

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Two seals entangled in fishing nets have dived into Beantown—and a third has landed up the coast in Beverly—to remind everyone that many seals, including the harbor and gray seals who live in Massachusetts, get caught in abandoned fishing gear each year. The new PETA billboards suggest that going vegan can save seals and other nontarget species killed by the fishing industry—in addition, of course, to the millions of fish who are pulled out of their ocean homes to suffocate or be gutted alive on the decks of fishing boats.

“Seals want to be free to live their lives as much as any other Bay Staters,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges everyone to honor aquatic animals, large and small, as even fish have feelings, by simply choosing delicious vegan seafood instead.”

Approximately 640,000 tons of fishing gear—some of which can take 600 years to break down—is left in the ocean every year, and these “ghost nets” can be death traps for animals who become entangled in them, including seals, turtles, dolphins, and whales. As levels of discarded fishing gear increase, hundreds of thousands more marine animals will be killed.

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.

PETA’s billboards are located at the intersection of Adams and Arcadia streets in Dorchester, on VFW Parkway near Caledonian Avenue in West Roxbury, and at the intersection of Cabot and Beckford streets in Beverly.

For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.