32,000 Bird Flu Victims to Get Billboard Tribute

Flock Killed Because of Deadly Outbreak; PETA Says, Let’s Prevent Pandemics and Save Animals’ Lives by Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
April 16, 2020

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

Because 32,000 turkeys were killed at a local farm after an outbreak of deadly bird flu sickened them and endangered workers, PETA is set to place a billboard nearby that proclaims, “See the Individual. Go Vegan.“

“Any place that crams stressed animals together in their own waste—which all factory farms do—creates breeding grounds for disease,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s message is that we can avoid deadly diseases and save gentle birds’ lives by choosing to eat vegan foods, including those that taste just like turkey but don’t cause anyone harm.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a meat market and that previous influenza viruses originated in pigs and chickens.

In addition to helping prevent potential pandemics, everyone who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals a year daily suffering and a terrifying death. In slaughterhouses, turkeys are hung by their feet from metal shackles and dragged through an electrified bath, and they’re often still conscious when their throats are slit and they’re dumped into scalding-hot water to remove their feathers.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.