‘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:
October 14, 2019

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

In honor of the cows who were injured and killed when a truck carrying them crashed on northbound I-29 at the southbound I-635 interchange on October 10, PETA plans to place a billboard near the crash site—about 6 miles north of Kansas City—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 accidents in the U.S. involving trucks used to transport cows, chickens, pigs, and turkeys. So far in 2019, PETA has already noted 79 accidents involving vehicles transporting animals used for food.

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.