PETA Asks to Erect Roadside Memorial to 120 Sheep Killed in Crash

For Immediate Release:

16 July 2015

Contact:

Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 2078376327, ext 235; [email protected]

PETA ASKS TO ERECT ROADSIDE MEMORIAL TO 120 SHEEP KILLED IN CRASH

Sign Would Urge Essex Drivers to Slow Down and Consider Sparing Suffering in Transport by Going Vegan

London – In the wake of a crash at the Halfway House roundabout, at the junction of the A127 and the A128 Brentwood Road, which claimed the lives of 120 sheep on 14 July, PETA rushed a letter to Cllr Mark Reed, the mayor of Brentwood. In the letter, PETA urges him to head off future disasters with a new roadside memorial, funded by PETA, commemorating the crushed and asphyxiated sheep. PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or to wear” – hopes the memorial will offer food for thought to Essex motorists and encourages everyone to slow down and consider the impact that their diets and buying habits have on animals, who are involuntary travellers in commerce.

As PETA points out in its letter, “[O]ur memorial will let people know that the best way to prevent crashes such as this one is to go vegan, because sheep shouldn’t have to make terrifying trips to shearing sheds and abattoirs at all”. PETA concludes, “It will also remind lorry drivers of their responsibility to the thousands of animals they haul every year as well as to the motorists whose lives are endangered when a lorry crashes”.

When lambs are just a few weeks old, their ears are hole-punched, their tails are cut off and males are castrated. Hundreds of thousands of lambs die from exposure or starvation before they’re 8 weeks old – in the UK, as many as 15 per cent of lambs do not survive infancy. For those that do, life is harsh and difficult – from the shearing shed, where they’re often bullied, beaten and cut by shearers, to the hot summer months, when many collapse from heat exhaustion because of their unnaturally heavy wool. Sheep are eventually crowded onto lorries and transported to the abattoir. Those who survive this nightmarish journey have their throats slit, often while they’re still conscious.

PETA’s letter is available upon request. For more information about sheep and the wool industry, please visit PETA.org.uk or PETAUK.org/wool.

#