PETA Offers Job to Sacked Arsenal Mascot

PETA Offers Job to Sacked Arsenal Mascot

Group Proposes Using Dinosaur for Climate Change Activism Until Stadiums Reopen

London – Following reports that Arsenal FC has released Gunnersaurus, its mascot of 27 years, to cut costs amid the coronavirus pandemic, PETA has sent a letter (available here) to the club’s manager, Mikel Arteta, offering to hire the “dinosaur” until football stadiums reopen. The group intends to use Gunnersaurus to help with its campaign to promote vegan food.

“[I]n the middle of a pandemic caused by eating animals, there’s no better time for people to ditch prehistoric meat-based diets in favour of an arsenal of healthy plants,” writes PETA Director Elisa Allen. “Vegan eating is one of the easiest ways that anyone can be more, well, green. And Gunnersaurus is the perfect mascot for a planet-friendly lifestyle.”

In the letter, PETA points out that eating vegan foods – rather than meaty meals – is one of the easiest and most effective actions individuals can take to reduce their carbon footprint. The United Nations states that animal agriculture is responsible for nearly a fifth of human-induced greenhouse-gas emissions – and warns that a global shift to vegan eating is necessary to combat the worst effects of climate change.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview – notes that, in addition to sparing the lives of nearly 200 animals each per year, people who go vegan help prevent future pandemics. COVID-19, SARS, swine flu, and bird flu have all been linked to confining and killing animals for food.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

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