Chicken’s Plea to Kind Kids: ‘I’m ME, Not MEAT’

New PETA Billboard Encourages Students to Talk to Their Parents About Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
September 10, 2018

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

Just in time for the start of school, PETA has placed a billboard near Heritage Elementary School that shows a chicken’s face next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. Kids: Ask Your Parents About Going Vegan.”

The billboard is located on E. Waterloo Road between N. Broadway and Cedar Lake Drive and will be in place through September.

“Children naturally have empathy for animals, so they’d be horrified to learn that gentle birds are mutilated and killed for scrambled eggs and chicken nuggets,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s billboard aims to start the school year off with a family dialog about preventing immense animal suffering by going vegan.”

PETA notes that 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. Whether “free-range” or “cage-free,” chickens used for eggs are kept in crowded, stressful conditions. On egg farms, workers cut off a portion of hens’ beaks with a burning-hot blade, and male chicks, who are considered worthless to the egg industry, are suffocated or thrown into high-speed grinders while they’re still alive.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—is also running the billboard in Alabama and North Dakota.

PETA offers a free vegan starter kit full of recipes, tips, and more. For more information, please visit PETA.org.