Protesting ‘Fish’ To Make A Splash In Oslo

For Immediate Release:
3 February 2003

Contact:
Dawn Carr 020 7357 9229

Oslo – Holding a sign reading, ‘For Cod’s Sake, Go Vegetarian!’ ‘Gill the Fish’ – PETA’s 7-foot-tall anti-fishing mascot – will be joined by members of PETA and NOAH in downtown Oslo to hand out pro-vegetarian leaflets. PETA’s giant fish wishes to remind residents that fish – whose sinking numbers have caused a sea of controversy – are individuals who experience fear, feel pain and suffer an agonising death when they are hauled from their ocean homes.

Date: Wednesday, 5 February
Time: Noon – 1 p.m.
Place: Egertorget, Oslo

While the EU and the Norwegian fisheries ministry haggle over quotas and lost jobs, PETA and NOAH want people to reflect on the real price of fishing – not depleted ‘stock’ or ‘resources’, but individual animals’ lives.

While fish do not always express pain and suffering in ways that humans can easily recognise, marine biologists acknowledge that fish experience fear and pain. Whether they are caught by net or hook, fish suffer greatly when they are dragged from the sea. Pressure changes rupture their swim bladders and pop out their eyes; they are thrown, kicked, squashed and left to slowly suffocate. Their throats and bellies are cut while they are still conscious.

Farming fish is no better. Animals on fish farms are confined in crowded, unnatural conditions that cause stress, infection and parasites.

‘The commercial fishing industry sucks the life out of the seas’, says PETA Director Dawn Carr, whose trip on a Norwegian gill-netter was documented in the TV2 programme. ‘If you want to save fish, we have the answer: Go vegetarian.’

For more information, please visit FishingHurts.com and NOAHonline.org.