Update: Memorial Rises to Honor Chickens Killed in Barn Blaze

PETA Billboard Near Site of Fire Encourages People to Prevent More Animals’ Deaths by Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
March 9, 2020

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

In honor of the nearly 16,000 chickens who died when a barn on Pepper Road caught fire on December 20, PETA has placed a billboard nearby pointing out that if everyone were vegan, the birds wouldn’t have suffered and died.

“If PETA’s message of compassion inspires just one person to go vegan, then these gentle birds won’t have died in vain,” says PETA Director of Campaigns Danielle Katz. “We can all eat delicious vegan food and prevent animals from dying in terrifying slaughterhouses or burning barns.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is the human-supremacist worldview that other species are nothing more than commodities. 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 the slaughterhouse, their throats are cut, often while they’re still conscious, and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks. Every person who goes vegan saves the lives of nearly 200 animals each year.

PETA notes that chickens have also recently died en masse in barn fires in West End, North Carolina, West Alexandria, Ohio, and Bloomfield, Nebraska.

The billboard is located at 4280 Federalsburg Hwy. (near the intersection with 3 Bridges Road) in Federalsburg, just four minutes from the barn fire.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.