Photos: Special Delivery! Tariff Nets Faux Lobster for Chinese Embassy

PETA’s Thank-You Gift Includes Vegan Entrées, Gigantic Card With Lobster Proclaiming, ‘I’m ME, Not MEAT’

For Immediate Release:
July 12, 2018

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

China’s new 25 percent tariff on U.S. lobster exports may have the industry in Maine scrambling, but it’s got PETA grinning—and in thanks, PETA members delivered a gift basket of faux lobster to the office of Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai on Thursday. An accompanying card shows a lobster’s face next to the words “Thank You, China! I’m ME, Not MEAT.”

“Just like humans, lobsters feel pain and fear, have unique personalities, and value their own lives,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is thanking China for reducing the number of sensitive animals who will be yanked from their ocean homes, shipped overseas, and thrown into a pot of boiling water.”

Lobsters are intelligent individuals who use complex signals to establish social relationships and take long-distance seasonal journeys, often traveling up to 100 miles in a year. A PETA investigation of a crustacean slaughterhouse in Maine revealed that live lobsters were impaled, torn apart, and decapitated—even as their legs continued to move. Chefs typically place live lobsters into pots of boiling water while they’re still conscious—a cruel practice that was recently banned in Switzerland.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—offers a free vegan starter kit (available here) full of recipes, tips, and more. For more information, please visit PETA.org.