For Immediate Release:
November 26, 2024
Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382
Vancouver, B.C. –
Following the news that a previously healthy British Columbia teenager remains hospitalized in critical condition with bird flu—despite having no known contact with bird farms—and that the number of farms in the province affected by the virus spiked to 53 over the past week, PETA plans to place a billboard near Vancouver restaurants and grocery stores featuring a stark reminder that the meat and egg industries are cruel to birds and serve as breeding grounds for deadly pathogens that are hazardous to human health. Hundreds of thousands of chickens have been killed as a result of the spread, and the teen’s infection indicates that the virus may have mutated and become more transmissible among humans.
“Eating eggs, meat, and dairy from deplorable operations where millions of animals are confined amid their own waste not only is disgusting but also will unquestionably lead to another pandemic,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “The only solution is to go vegan, and PETA stands ready with free vegan starter kits to help everyone make the switch—before it’s too late.”
Nearly 7 million chickens have been killed in British Columbia due to bird flu since 2022. To kill the birds, workers may poison them with carbon dioxide, suffocate them with nitrogen foam, or shut off all airflow to the sheds, which raises the temperature to a level at which they suffocate slowly—all prolonged and horrifying processes. PETA points out that the majority of diseases that have caused epidemics or pandemics in recent years originated in animals before being transmitted to humans, including AIDS, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19.
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 PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
