Billboard to Pay Tribute to Pigs Killed in Truck Crash

PETA Memorial Would Encourage Everyone to Go Vegan and Spare Animals Suffering

For Immediate Release:
July 25, 2018

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

In honor of the slaughterhouse-bound pigs who died when the truck carrying them overturned on July 18, PETA plans to place a memorial billboard near the site of their deaths, on the ramp from westbound Highway 14 onto southbound Highway 169 in Mankato. It would show a pig’s face next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan.“

“After years of being used as breeding machines, some mother pigs died when this truck overturned, while survivors made a bid for freedom,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s billboard would urge motorists to remember the pigs—who only briefly enjoyed the sun and the mud on the roadside before they were hauled off to slaughter—and go vegan.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that in today’s meat industry, mother pigs are squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely larger than their bodies and 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. At the slaughterhouse, they’re hung upside down and bled to death, often while still conscious.

A similar incident occurred near Minneapolis this month: On July 14, a truck carrying 17,100 baby turkeys turned over after the driver ran a stop sign. In 2018 alone, PETA has made note of more than 50 crashes involving animal transport trucks in the U.S.—and those are just the reported accidents.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.