PETA Ups Reward to $10,000 for Help Nabbing Culprit Who Planted Hook-Embedded Sausages

For Immediate Release:
July 13, 2023

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

PETA is offering up to $5,000 in addition to the $5,000 offered by the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria (AWLA) for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for planting pieces of sausage embedded with fishhooks around the intersection of Duke and Ingram streets.

Local resident Sarah Eberhardt was walking her dog Potato in the area around 9:30 a.m. last Friday when Potato picked up one of the sausage pieces and began gagging on it. Eberhardt called Animal Services, which canvassed the area and found nine sausage pieces with hooks inside them. After a visit to an emergency animal hospital, Potato is home and expected to make a full recovery.

“Companion animals and wildlife are in imminent danger as long as the cruel person(s) responsible for this malicious act is walking around free,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA urges people to stay alert when walking their dogs and asks anyone with information to come forward immediately before someone gets hurt.”

An investigation is ongoing, but there are currently no leads in the case, so PETA and the AWLA are asking for the public’s help. Anyone with information, including residents in the vicinity with security camera footage, such as Ring recordings, should contact the AWLA at 703-746-6000 or [email protected].

The AWLA has been surveying the area daily to ensure that no additional sausages have been planted. However, PETA notes that dog guardians should always be vigilant when walking their companions and report any suspicious activity.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.