Iditarod Merchandise Gets ‘Bloody’ Redesign
For Immediate Release:
January 4, 2022
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
PETA has redesigned the Iditarod’s new 50th anniversary merchandise to reflect more accurately the race’s 50 years of running dogs to their deaths—and the “bloody” new T-shirts, patches, keychains, and other items (available here) will soon be spotted at PETA’s protests against the Iditarod in Alaska and across the country.
“Fifty years of forcing dogs to run until their bodies break down and they drop dead is 50 years too many,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s ‘bloody’ Iditarod apparel honestly represents a race that has killed over 150 dogs and counting.”
Up to half of the dogs who start the Iditarod don’t finish it, and during the 2021 race, nearly 200 dogs were pulled off the trail because of exhaustion, illness, injury, or other causes, leaving the remaining ones to work even harder. The leading cause of death for dogs on the Iditarod trail is aspiration pneumonia—caused by inhaling their own vomit—and the race’s official death toll doesn’t include countless others who were killed simply because they weren’t fast enough or who died during the off-season while chained up, a practice exposed in a PETA undercover investigation.
ExxonMobil, Alaska Airlines, Chrysler, Coca-Cola, Costco, Jack Daniel’s, and many other companies have stopped sponsoring the race following PETA campaigns. The group is calling for the Iditarod’s remaining sponsors to follow suit—and for the race to end.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
