Hey, Diners, ‘I’m Me, Not Meat!’ Proclaims Pro-Vegan Ad Blitz

Placed Outside Fast-Food Eateries, PETA’s Provocative Bus Shelter Ads Plead With Diners to See Animals as Individuals and Go Vegan

For Immediate Release:
July 31, 2017

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

PETA is serving up some food for thought to hungry diners, courtesy of bus shelter ads promoting the idea that animals are much more than the sum of their parts. The ads have gone up outside fast-food restaurants in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

The ads—which are posted outside KFC, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s locations—come in two designs. One shows a chicken’s face next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan,” and the other shows a crying cow proclaiming, “I Am You, Only Different. Go Vegan.”

“Just like humans, chickens and cows are made of flesh and blood, feel pain and fear, have unique personalities, and value their own lives,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s new ad campaign encourages everyone to empathize with animals by choosing vegan meals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that chickens killed for their flesh are crammed by the tens of thousands into filthy sheds and bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight. At slaughterhouses, their throats are cut—often while they’re still conscious—and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks. Calves in the meat industry are castrated and branded without painkillers, and they spend their short lives on cramped, filthy feedlots. At slaughterhouses, workers shoot them in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hang them upside down by one leg, cut their throats, and skin them—often while they’re still conscious.

The ads can be seen in the following locations:

• Across from KFC at 311 Hempstead Turnpike in Elmont
• Across from Wendy’s at 385 Rte. 25A in Miller Place
• Across from McDonald’s at 340 Rte. 25A in Miller Place

The group plans to target New York City commuters with similar ads outside fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and in Westchester County, New York. PETA initially tried to post the crying calf ad in Westchester, but the Westchester County Department of Transportation rejected the image, later accepting the version showing a herd of cows.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.