‘I’m ME, Not MEAT’ Billboard Aims to Honor Pigs Killed in Farm Fire

PETA Memorial Near Straathof Swine Farm Would Encourage Everyone to Spare Animals Agonizing Deaths by Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
June 27, 2018

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

In honor of the approximately 5,000 pigs who died when a massive fire broke out at the notorious Straathof Swine Farm on June 19, PETA plans to place a billboard near the facility showing a pig’s face next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan.“

“It’s almost impossible to imagine the terror and pain endured by the thousands of intelligent pigs who were unable to flee as smoke and flames engulfed them,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA hopes to pay tribute to them with a billboard urging people to prevent future suffering simply by keeping pigs and all other animals off their plates.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that in today’s meat industry, mother pigs are squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely larger than their bodies and kept almost constantly pregnant or nursing. Pigs’ tails are chopped off, their teeth are cut with pliers, and males are castrated—all without any painkillers. At the slaughterhouse, they’re hung upside down and bled to death, often while still conscious.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.