Tewksbury Police Department Nabs PETA Award for Skunk Rescue

PETA Praises Police Officer Who Freed Stuck Animal, Urges Everyone to Replace Lids, Crush Cups and Cans

For Immediate Release:
September 30, 2020

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

A Compassionate Police Department Award is on its way from PETA to the Tewksbury Police Department after Officer Eric Hanley came to the aid of a distressed skunk whose head was stuck inside a container in the parking lot of the Tewksbury Country Club on Saturday morning.

“[The container] was lodged on pretty tight, so it took a second attempt for me to be able to remove it,” Hanley told PETA. “He ran one way to safety, and I ran the other!” Video footage of the rescue is available here.

“This struggling skunk could easily have starved to death if not for Officer Hanley’s compassion and quick action,” says PETA Vice President Colleen O’Brien. “Incidents like this are exactly why PETA reminds everyone to crush cans and cups before dropping them into the recycling bin.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—offers tips for living in harmony with wildlife and properly disposing of trash, such as by crushing cans and cups and keeping all garbage in tightly sealed chew-proof containers. The group also advises people to open empty cardboard and plastic containers so that small animals can’t get their faces or heads caught inside them and to rinse out aluminum cans and put the tops inside so that they can’t cut an animal’s tongue.

The Tewksbury Police Department will receive a framed certificate, a box of delicious vegan cookies, and copies of PETA’s signs reminding everyone to replace lids and crush all cans and containers.

PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.