‘I’m Me, Not Meat’ Billboard Aims to Honor Cows Killed in Truck Crash

PETA Memorial Will Encourage People to Keep Animals out of Transport Vehicles by Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
November 14, 2019

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

In honor of the cows who were killed when a truck carrying them rolled off the Kansas Turnpike near mile marker 122 on November 9, PETA plans to place a billboard near the crash site—about 5 miles southwest of Emporia—that proclaims, “See the Individual. Go Vegan.“

“Gentle cows experienced a terrifying death on the highway, and those who survived were rounded up and presumably taken to slaughter,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s ad encourages anyone disturbed by the thought of animals suffering on the side of the road or facing the slaughterhouse knife to go vegan.”

Cows in the meat industry are often confined to cramped, filthy feedlots without protection from the elements. Calves are torn away from their mothers within hours of birth and are castrated and branded without pain relief. At the slaughterhouse, workers shoot cows in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hang them up by one leg, and cut their throat—often while they’re still conscious and able to feel pain.

In addition to saving the lives of nearly 200 animals every year, each person who goes vegan helps the planet considerably. Animal agriculture is responsible for nearly a fifth of human-induced greenhouse-gas emissions and is devastating the planet on a global scale. More than 80% of the Amazon rainforest that’s been cleared since 1970 is used for grazing or for growing food for cattle who are ultimately slaughtered for meat.

In 2018 alone, there were more than 90 crashes in the U.S. involving trucks used to transport cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and aquatic animals. This year, PETA has noted 87 accidents involving vehicles transporting animals used for food. Just last week, PETA placed another memorial billboard for cows who died in a truck crash on Interstate 29 outside Kansas City, Missouri.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat,” and the group opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.