Surprise! PETA’s Cow Billboard Rises Next to Applebee’s in Bismarck

‘I’m ME, Not MEAT!’ Ad Calls for Compassion in the New Year

For Immediate Release:
December 28, 2020

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Bismarck, N.D. –

To inspire everyone to turn over a vegan leaf in 2021, PETA has placed a billboard right over Applebee’s and just a stone’s throw from several other meat-heavy restaurants, encouraging everyone to see cows as individuals—and keep them and all other animals off their plates.

“PETA encourages anyone looking to safeguard their own health or practice a little more kindness in the new year to resolve to go vegan,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “As we battle a pandemic that began in a meat market, we’re all hoping for a brighter 2021—and choosing a delicious veggie burger instead of a carved-up cow can help get us there.”

Cows in the meat industry are often confined to cramped, filthy feedlots without protection from the elements. Calves are torn away from their mothers within hours of birth and are castrated and branded without pain relief. At the slaughterhouse, workers shoot cows in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hang them up by one leg, and cut their throat—often while they’re still conscious and able to feel pain.

In addition to saving nearly 200 animals every year, each person who goes vegan reduces their risk of suffering from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer and helps prevent future pandemics. SARS, swine flu, bird flu, the 1918 pandemic, and COVID-19 all stemmed from confining and killing animals for food.

The billboard is located at 434 S. Third St., near E. Bowen Avenue, right next to Applebee’s and near Starbucks, Subway, Burger King, Taco John’s, Jimmy John’s, and several other meat-peddling eateries.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offers a free vegan starter kit (available here) full of recipes, tips, and more. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.