Overturned Truck Carrying Dairy Products Prompts PETA’s ‘Spilled Milk’ Billboard

New Ad Shows Calf Deprived of Mother After Dairy Industry’s Forced Separation

For Immediate Release:
May 20, 2015

Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382

In the wake of reports that an overturned truck dumped 80,000 pounds of dairy products onto a highway southeast of Eugene, PETA plans to put a twist on an old adage with a new billboard. The group is negotiating with outdoor advertisers to display a billboard near the site of the crash that shows a calf covered in filth beside the words “Spilled milk is worth crying over.” The billboard goes on to explain, “Calves are torn away from their mothers so that humans can steal their mothers’ milk. You can help them by going vegan.”

“PETA’s billboard will give drivers food for thought by pointing out that for every truckload of dairy products, gentle, loving mother cows cried out for their babies who were stolen from them when they were just a day old,” says PETA’s Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “By leaving items made from milk on the shelf, everyone can make a difference for animals suffering in the dairy industry.”

Cows used by the dairy industry are kept almost constantly pregnant by artificial insemination and are bred to produce such unnaturally large quantities of milk that they experience increased rates of infection, such as mastitis. The wear of constant pregnancy prematurely exhausts the cows’ bodies, and the animals are shipped to slaughter at just a fraction of their natural life expectancy. PETA notes that more than 1,100 cows suffered for this truck’s spilled load alone.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.