Tick-or-Treat! PETA Launches New Alpha-Gal-Inspired Halloween Costume
For Immediate Release:
August 22, 2025
Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382
As people around the country, including hundreds of Martha’s Vineyard residents, find that they’ve had to change their meaty meals after just one bite from a Lone Star tick—which spreads alpha-gal syndrome, a condition that causes humans to develop an allergic reaction to meat and dairy—PETA is honoring the carnivore-converting mite with a new Halloween costume, available for preorder in the PETA Shop.
The getup features the tick’s telltale white star on the back and comes with bug-eye goggles and a sign proclaiming, “Tick, Tick, Tick, Time to go Vegan?”—reminding all the alpha-guys and alpha-gals that there’s no need to be ticked off by a meat allergy if you keep animals off your plate in the first place.
“The Lone Star tick’s bite is helping involuntary blood donors discover that vegan meals that are tasty, animal-friendly, and don’t come with a nasty rash,” says PETA Senior Vice President Colleen O’Brien. “PETA’s Lone Star tick costume will be creeping out carnivores this Halloween and encouraging everyone to latch on to loving those flesh-free bites.”
PETA points out that pigs are soothed by music, and cows mourn when a loved one dies or when they’re separated from each other. Yet in the meat and dairy industries, they’re crammed into filthy sheds or kept on crowded feedlots, and in slaughterhouses, they’re hung up by one leg before their throats are slit—often while they’re still conscious. Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year, dramatically shrinks their food-related carbon footprint, and slashes their risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and obesity. PETA’s free vegan starter kit—and Lone Star Tick Cookbook—can help anyone looking to make the switch.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kitsfor people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
