Update: ‘I’m Me, Not MEAT’ Billboard Now Up Near Site of Truck Crash

PETA Memorial Honors Cows Injured and Killed in Wreck, Encourages People to Save Animals’ Lives by Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
November 4, 2019

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

“See the Individual. Go Vegan.” That’s the message on a new PETA billboard that just went up half a mile from the site on I-29 where cows were killed in a truck crash on October 10.

“Every cow who died in this terrifying wreck was an individual who felt pain and fear—and so is every cow whose throat is slit in a slaughterhouse,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s billboard urges everyone to show compassion to these gentle animals by opting for delicious vegan meals that no one had to die for.”

Before they’re loaded onto trucks bound for slaughterhouses, cows are often confined to cramped, filthy feedlots without protection from the elements. Calves are torn away from their mothers and are castrated and branded without painkillers. At the slaughterhouse, workers shoot cows in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hang them up by one leg, and cut their throats—often while they’re still conscious and able to feel pain.

In addition to saving the lives of nearly 200 animals every year, each person who goes vegan helps to save the planet. Animal agriculture is responsible for nearly a fifth of human-induced greenhouse-gas emissions, and more than 80% of the Amazon rainforest that’s been cleared since 1970 is used for grazing or for growing food for cattle who are ultimately slaughtered for meat.

In 2018 alone, there were more than 90 accidents in the U.S. involving trucks used to transport cows, chickens, pigs, and turkeys. So far in 2019, PETA has already noted 84 accidents involving vehicles transporting animals used for food.

PETA’s billboard is located on northbound I-29, across from exit 3A.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat,” and the group opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.