Roadside Memorial Sought for Lobsters Killed in Truck Crash

PETA’s Memorial Tombstone Would Urge Drivers to Go Vegan

For Immediate Release:
August 29, 2018

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

To honor the lobsters who suffered and died when a truck carrying them overturned on Route 1 in Brunswick last Wednesday, PETA sent a letter today asking the Maine Department of Transportation for permission to place a 5-foot tombstone memorial near the crash site urging passersby to “Try Vegan.”

“Countless sensitive crustaceans experienced an agonizing death when this truck rolled over and their bodies came crashing down onto the highway,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA hopes to pay tribute to these individuals who didn’t want to die with a memorial urging people to help prevent future suffering by keeping lobsters and all other animals off their plates.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that lobsters are intelligent individuals who use complex signals to establish social relationships and can take long-distance seasonal journeys, often traveling up to 100 miles in a year. Chefs typically place live lobsters into pots of boiling water while they’re still conscious—a cruel practice that has recently been banned in Switzerland—and a PETA investigation of Linda Bean’s Maine Lobster revealed that live lobsters were impaled, torn apart, and decapitated, even as their legs continued to move.

PETA’s letter to the Department of Transportation is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.