State Farm Confirms End to Iditarod Sponsorship After PETA Appeal

Insurance Company Gets Vegan Chocolates as Thanks for Cutting Ties With Deadly Race

For Immediate Release:
June 23, 2017

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

After more than 95,000 PETA supporters contacted State Farm to urge the insurance company to stop sponsoring the Iditarod, it has ended its one-year sponsorship of the event. In thanks, PETA has sent the company a box of vegan chocolates.

State Farm’s decision comes after five dogs died during just one week of the 2017 Iditarod—and only weeks after Wells Fargo announced an end to its own 29-year sponsorship. More than 150 dogs have died in the race’s history.

“With more dogs dropping dead on the ice every year, the Iditarod’s dark underbelly has been exposed,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA applauds State Farm for making the compassionate decision to stop supporting a race that treats sensitive dogs like disposable machines.”

In its correspondence with State Farm, PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—noted that dogs bred for racing are left chained up in the snow and may be killed when they don’t make the cut. Those used in the Iditarod are forced to race nearly 1,000 miles in under two weeks through biting winds, blinding snowstorms, subzero temperatures, and treacherous ice. Their feet often become bruised and bloodied, and many dogs pull muscles, incur stress fractures, or are afflicted by diarrhea, dehydration, intestinal viruses, and even deadly catastrophic muscle breakdown.

Guggenheim Partners also recently confirmed that it no longer sponsors the Iditarod, and many more companies cut ties with the race years ago, including Costco, Maxwell House, Nestlé, Panasonic, Pizza Hut, Rite Aid, and Safeway. PETA is now calling on Millennium Hotels and Coca-Cola to end their sponsorship of the race.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.