Soaring Avian Flu Cases Prompt PETA’s National Campaign to Save Birds AND Humans
For Immediate Release:
August 19, 2024
Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382
As a bird flu outbreak surges across the U.S.—infecting tens of millions of chickens, turkeys, and wild birds; tens of thousands of cows; and over a dozen humans so far—PETA is hitting cities nationwide with a multipronged campaign urging everyone to save the lives of humans and other animals by going vegan.
PETA’s notorious “Hell on Wheels”—a life-size, hyperrealistic chicken transport truck covered with images of real chickens crammed into crates on their way to slaughter that bombards restaurant patrons with actual recorded sounds of the birds’ cries—is touring states hit hard by the virus and recently made headlines in Fargo, North Dakota; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Meanwhile, the group has launched an ominous billboard—featuring a giant chicken who warns everyone that if the saturated fat and cholesterol in meat doesn’t kill them, bird flu might—in Michigan and Wyoming and plans to place the sky-high message in Colorado, Texas, and other states with bird flu cases. Additional photos from the campaign are available here and on PETA’s blog.
“Another pandemic is inevitable as long as humans continue to eat the flesh, eggs, and milk of animals crammed by the millions into filthy sheds and feedlots and forced to sit amid their own waste,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA implores everyone to please go vegan now—before it’s too late.”
Since the beginning of the year, bird flu has infected nearly 200 herds of cows in the dairy industry—including more than half the herds in Colorado—and has resulted in the killing of nearly 18 million chickens nationwide, often using horrific methods, such as slowly suffocating the animals by turning off all airflow to the sheds in which they’re kept or smothering them with a substance similar to firefighting foam. More than half the people with confirmed infections of the H5N1 strain of bird flu have died worldwide, and the World Health Organization has called the risk of the virus spreading to humans “an enormous concern.”
PETA points out that the majority of diseases that have caused pandemics or epidemics in recent years originated in animals before being transmitted to humans, including COVID-19, AIDS, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and Zika. The group offers a free vegan starter kit on its website for everyone ready to make the switch.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
