Mercy Health Partners Cancels Butterfly Release

July 2008

Mercy General Health Partners and Hackley Hospital in Muskegon, Michigan, intended to celebrate their merger as Mercy Health Partners with a live butterfly release. PETA alerted hospital administrators that butterflies are extremely delicate and that using them in this manner can be deadly. PETA has received reports of butterflies arriving dead, becoming disoriented and falling to the ground only to be trampled on, and even being eaten by birds as soon as they take flight during such events. Following brief negotiations, Mercy Health Partners canceled the release and replaced it with the lighting of a unity candle.