Update: Billboard Rises to Honor Cows Killed in Truck Crash

PETA Memorial Near Site of Wreck Encourages People to Keep Animals off the Road by Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
March 12, 2020

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

In memory of the cows who were killed when a truck carrying them crashed on I-75 near Wildwood on February 13, PETA has placed a billboard on the highway near the crash site that proclaims, “See the Individual. Go Vegan.“

“If PETA’s message of compassion inspires just one driver to go vegan, then these gentle cows won’t have died in vain,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “We can all eat delicious vegan food and prevent animals from suffering on the side of the road or under the slaughterhouse knife.”

Cows in the meat industry are often confined to cramped, filthy feedlots without protection from the elements. Calves are castrated and branded without pain relief. At the slaughterhouse, workers shoot cows in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hang them up by one leg, and cut their throat—often while they’re still conscious and able to feel pain. In addition, each person who goes vegan saves the lives of nearly 200 animals every year.

Animal agriculture is responsible for nearly a fifth of human-induced greenhouse-gas emissions. More than 80% of the Amazon rainforest that’s been cleared since 1970 is used for grazing or for growing food for cattle who are ultimately slaughtered for meat. According to the United Nations, a global switch to vegan eating is vital if we are to combat catastrophic climate change.

PETA notes that there were more than 100 crashes in 2019 involving trucks carrying animals used for food—and there have already been 23 since the start of 2020.

The billboard is located on I-75, near Exit 329, in Sumter County.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.