Wing Festival Can ‘Cluck’ Off! Chickens’ Plea Hits Buffalo TV
Buffalo Wings Capital Named First Target of PETA Campaign
For Immediate Release:
August 31, 2022
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
When people hear the word “chicken,” do most of them imagine food—maybe even Buffalo wings—or a smart and sensitive individual who values her own life? The right answer, from a bird’s-eye view, is what some sassy hens will bring into focus in a new PETA ad campaign, debuting locally ahead of the National Buffalo Wing Festival.
Hitting airwaves in the city where Buffalo wings got their name, the 30-second spot homes in on focus-group participants who almost drool when they hear the word “chicken,” but when the lights come up, the embarrassed group sees that they’re being studied by a flock of chickens standing behind a one-way mirror. The video concludes, “Chickens need their wings. You don’t.”
“Americans eat more than 1 million chickens an hour, and although we don’t often reflect on it, it’s a fact that every chicken feels pain and fear and wants to live as much as you or I do,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA’s new campaign urges everyone to see chickens for who they are and give tasty vegan wings a try instead.”
Chickens are inquisitive animals who can complete complex mental tasks, learn from watching each other, demonstrate self-control, and worry about the future. In the meat industry, they’re bred to grow so large that their legs often become crippled under their own weight, and at slaughterhouses, their throats are slit, often while they’re still conscious. PETA has lots of video footage that would make chicken consumers lose their lunch.
The public service announcement will run during the primetime evening news on NBC tomorrow and Friday.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offers a free vegan starter kit and a list of meat-free wings available at grocery stores. Visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
