For Immediate Release:
July 21, 2021
Contact:
Tapi Mbundure 202-483-7382
Phoenix – Because Phoenix is now ranked the hottest city in the U.S. and has the fourth-highest number of deaths of children in hot cars (from 1990 to 2020), PETA has just plastered 60 shopping carts at a local Safeway store with ads warning shoppers that leaving dogs and children in hot vehicles can quickly turn lethal.
“The temperature inside a parked car can reach a deadly level in only minutes, turning an unexpected delay in a ‘quick errand’ into a tragedy for a dog or child,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is reminding everyone that the safest place for our most vulnerable family members is indoors, where it’s cool.”
Already in 2021, 11 dogs and nine children have died inside hot cars nationwide. In the last year, at least 28 animals died from heat-related causes and another 91 animals were rescued just in time—and since these numbers include only incidents reported in the media, the actual figures are surely far higher.
Anyone who sees a dog in a parked car should take immediate action: Write down the vehicle’s color, make, model, and license plate number and rush to have the store page the owner. If they can’t be found, call 911—and if authorities are unresponsive, do what it takes to save the individual’s life. PETA offers an emergency window-breaking hammer for intervening in life-or-death situations.
PETA’s ads are located at the Safeway at 4005 E. Chandler Blvd.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
