Cows Are Land Whales—Ditch Dairy, Says PETA’s Boardwalk Bombardment

For Immediate Release:
August 22, 2023

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

In time for World Plant Milk Day (August 22), PETA is taking over the Boardwalk with a messaging blitz that asks why so many people accept cruelty to cows on dairy farms but would never agree to harm the whales off the Jersey Shore, even though the two species are the same in all the ways that matter. Both nurse their young, have close bonds with their calves, interact in socially complex ways, and mourn when they’re separated from those they love.

Cows are basically land whales, but instead of being allowed to explore, play, or raise families, they suffer daily on farms. In the dairy industry, calves are torn away from their mothers within a day of birth so that the milk meant to nourish them can be stolen and sold to humans. It’s standard industry practice to forcibly and artificially inseminate cows—workers insert an arm into the animals’ rectum and a metal rod to deliver semen into their vagina—and to send them to slaughter once their bodies wear out.

“A cow produces milk for her young, just as a whale does for her own calf or a human does for her baby,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is calling on everyone to show compassion to mothers of all species by choosing vegan milks made from soy, oats, almonds, or other plants.”

In addition to breaking up families and causing grieving mothers to cry out for days, the dairy industry is a major contributor to the climate catastrophe. In the U.S., emissions from cows are the primary source of the greenhouse gas methane, which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere.

This ad will also run in Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Santa Barbara, California.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and offers a free vegan starter kit on its website. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.