Local Haunted House Should Increase Its Horror by Highlighting Slaughterhouse Past, Says PETA
For Immediate Release:
October 10, 2022
Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382
Today, PETA sent a letter to The Slaughterhouse’s general manager, Sierra Sutton, asking her to place a plaque at the entrance to the haunted house pointing out that the building used to be a real slaughterhouse, where thousands of pigs a day were killed for 40 years. PETA is offering to cover the cost of the plaque, which would encourage visitors to honor those animals by choosing to eat vegan foods, and notes that the plaque would heighten visitors’ terror, as most people are afraid to confront the horrors that occur in slaughterhouses.
“Anyone seeking a chilling scene this Halloween need only look at real-life slaughterhouses, where petrified, screaming animals are hacked to death on filthy floors covered with blood and offal,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is urging this haunted house to give visitors food for thought about how truly nightmarish it is to snuff out lives for a fleeting taste of flesh—and to provide visitors with a comforting way to avoid being complicit in real-life horrors.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
PETA’s letter to Sutton follows.
October 10, 2022
Sierra Sutton
General Manager
The Slaughterhouse
Dear Ms. Sutton:
I’m writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which has many members and supporters in Arizona, with a suggestion we hope you’ll be pleased to sink your teeth into. Since your haunted house used to be a slaughterhouse, would you please place a plaque outside it, acknowledging that terrifying things were actually done to animals there? The plaque, which you can see here, would inform visitors that this is a site where thousands of sentient beings who wanted to live—just as we do—were hacked to death for 40 years and would suggest that visitors go vegan in their memory. We’d be happy to cover the cost of the plaque, and it would call more attention to your attraction.
Slaughterhouses are true haunted houses and more frightful than any ghost, zombie, or vampire. Hundreds of pigs are murdered in each one every hour—often improperly stunned before being plunged into the scalding-hot water of hair-removal tanks. Pigs squeal in panic as they’re hung upside down by a leg, before their throats are slit and their bodies are dismembered. Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals this miserable fate every year.
Slaughterhouse workers also face horrors every day—slitting animals’ throats above blood- and offal-soaked floors, shoulder to shoulder, with line speeds so fast that animals end up thrashing around and injuring them. These vile facilities, which have been hot spots for the spread of diseases such as COVID-19, threaten the health of everyone on the planet. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 75% of recently emerged infectious diseases in humans came from other animals. SARS, which originated in bats, claimed 774 human lives. H1N1 swine flu killed as many as 575,400 humans, and COVID-19 killed more than 200 slaughterhouse workers during just the first year of the pandemic, which so far has claimed more than 6.5 million human lives worldwide.
Given how terrifying slaughterhouses are, it would have been quite appropriate if you had left the building as it was—with the blood, shackles, stench, and all. It’s more important than ever for humans to face the nightmare of their meat’s origin. We hope you’ll integrate the reality of slaughterhouses into your Halloween experience and accept our offer to add this plaque so that your visitors may swear off meat after realizing how truly horrifying it is to kill animals for a fleeting taste. Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing from you about our offer.
Very truly yours,
Ingrid Newkirk
President
