PETA’s First-Ever Booth at State Fair Aims to Make Kids Wary of Dairy

‘Unhappy Cows’ to Greet Fairgoers at Multimedia Display Games and Graphic Video May Make Milk and Cheese Hard to Swallow

For Immediate Release:
August 22, 2013

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Grand Island, Neb. — For the first time ever, PETA is hitting the Nebraska State Fair. The lively booth will feature costumed mascots waving signs that read, “Cheese Comes From Unhappy Cows,” and a spinning 8-foot-tall prize “Wheel of Torture” on which visitors can win an invitation to go inside the booth and watch a shocking video exposé of cruelty to animals in the dairy industry.

When: Beginning Friday, August 23, 9 a.m.

Where: 700 E. Stolley Park Rd., Grand Island

“Our booth will look like fun and games, but the message is serious: Dairy products cause misery to animals and contribute to the obesity epidemic,” says Katie Arth, PETA’s campaign manager. “Cows are mutilated and artificially impregnated, and they mourn the loss of calf after calf so that their milk can be siphoned off for a product filled with fat and cholesterol.”

The booth’s video, narrated by actor Casey Affleck, features graphic footage of “dehorning”—a common practice on dairy farms—in which baby cows’ horn buds are chemically burned off or their horns are mechanically gouged out as the animals thrash and cry out in pain.

Cows aren’t alone in being hurt by the dairy industry: Dairy factory farms cause water pollution, land degradation, and the greenhouse-gas emissions responsible for climate change, and the consumption of dairy products has been linked to heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and cancer. That’s why so many public figures—from Carrie Underwood to former President Bill Clinton—eat vegan food.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.