Update: ‘Keep All Families Together’ Billboard Now Up in Tucson

PETA Ad Minutes Away From Youth Shelter Calls for Kindness to Mothers and Their Children—No Matter Their Nationality, Race, Religion, or Species

For Immediate Release:
July 24, 2018

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

In the wake of the Trump administration’s family separation scandal, PETA has placed a billboard on the interstate leading to the migrant youth center Estrella del Norte in Tucson showing a mother cow and her calf next to the words “Don’t Separate Any Loving Mothers From Their Children: Go Vegan.” The ad is located at 6900 Interstate 10 Frontage Rd., 10 minutes north of the center, and will remain in place through August 5.

“PETA’s billboard offers a message of universal compassion in a shameful time,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “No loving family should ever be broken up by outsiders with their own agendas, and that includes the mother cows whose calves are stolen from them on dairy farms.”

In the dairy industry, mother cows are repeatedly and forcibly impregnated, and their calves are taken away from them shortly after birth so that their milk can be consumed by humans instead—and cows have been heard calling for their stolen babies for days after separation. Male calves are typically crated for veal, while females are used as milk machines until their bodies give out and they’re slaughtered for cheap meat.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—is currently reviewing billboard options in San Ysidro, California, and has hand delivered a donation of soy beverages to the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas.

As a social justice organization, PETA believes that oppression is wrong, regardless of the race, gender identity, age, nationality, sexuality, ability, or species of the victim. For more information, please visit PETA.org.