Billboard Tributes Pigs Killed in Truck Crash

PETA Ad Encourages Drivers to Think About the Ill-Fated Animals on Transport Trucks

For Immediate Release:
August 29, 2017

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

PETA has erected a billboard on Interstate 64 at the exit onto Mellwood Avenue not far from the site of a grisly August 9 truck crash on a section of the highway known as “Spaghetti Junction”—to pay tribute to the pigs who were killed or grievously injured in the wreck, which occurred less than a mile from the slaughterhouse where the survivors were later killed. The billboard—which features an image of a pig next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan”—points out that we can all prevent further animal suffering and death by choosing only cruelty-free food.

“Many of the sensitive pigs packed into this overturned truck died violently in the wreckage, and the ones who survived endured further trauma when they were later slaughtered for food,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s billboard will let travelers know that the best way to prevent such tragedies is to keep animals off the road in the first place by going vegan.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that pigs are packed together and transported in all weather extremes to slaughterhouses, where they’re hung upside down and bled to death, often while still conscious. In today’s meat industry, mother pigs are squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely larger than their bodies and are kept almost constantly pregnant or nursing. Pigs’ tails are chopped off, their teeth are cut with pliers, and males are castrated—all without any painkillers.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.