Fish to Salmon Farmers: ‘I’m ME, Not MEAT!’

For Immediate Release:

28 May 2019

Contact:

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

Edinburgh – Just in time for the Aquaculture Awards 2019, an event for the Scottish salmon farming industry’s major players, PETA has placed an advert near Dynamic Earth – the venue for this year’s event – that shows a salmon’s face next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan “.

Images are also available here and here.

“Just like humans, fish feel pain and fear, have unique personalities, and value their own lives,” says PETA Director Dawn Carr. “We can spare these sensitive animals the filth and misery of fish farms and a violent death simply by choosing vegan meals.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – notes that in addition to killing fish, Scottish salmon farmers shoot seals to protect their profits. The Scottish Parliament’s environment committee recently concluded that Scotland’s marine ecosystem faces “irrecoverable damage” caused by salmon farming – which pollutes waterways with concentrated waste and spreads sea lice from farmed to wild salmon – if environmental concerns associated with the industry aren’t addressed. Farmers also use chemicals to deal with lice infestations and risk killing the salmon by “shocking” the lice in baths of warm water.

Wild-caught fish suffer, too: those who are dragged out of the oceans in huge nets (along with unintended victims such as dolphins, turtles, seals, and other sea animals) slowly suffocate or are crushed to death. The fish who survive that ordeal are often still alive when their throats and stomachs are cut open.

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

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