Update: Memorial Rises to Honor 32,000 Bird Flu Victims

Flock Killed Because of Deadly Outbreak; PETA Says, Let’s Prevent Pandemics and Save Animals’ Lives by Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
May 14, 2020

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

In honor of the 32,000 turkeys who were killed at a local farm after an outbreak of deadly bird flu sickened them and endangered workers, PETA has placed a billboard nearby that proclaims, “See the Individual. Go Vegan.“

“As long as animals are crammed on top of each other at filthy meat markets and factory farms, outbreaks of deadly diseases are inevitable,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “If everyone were vegan, these birds needn’t have died and humans wouldn’t be battling a catastrophic virus. PETA stands ready to help people move toward a healthy and safe vegan world with free starter kits, free mentor services, and free tips.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a meat market and that previous influenza viruses originated in pigs and chickens.

In addition to helping prevent potential pandemics, everyone who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals a year daily suffering and a terrifying death. In slaughterhouses, turkeys are hung by their feet from metal shackles and dragged through an electrified bath, and they’re often still conscious when their throats are slit and they’re dumped into scalding-hot water to remove their feathers.

The billboard is located on E. McGregor Street (at the intersection with S. Van Lingle Mungo Boulevard) in Pageland, facing east.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.