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PETA’S GIANT ‘FISH’ TO GREET MOVIEGOERS AT FINDING NEMO SCREENING
Pro-Vegetarian Leaflets Aim to Hook Film’s Fans on Compassion

For Immediate Release:
23 October 2003
Contact:
Dilpreet Beasley 98201 22602; DilpreetB@petaindia.org

Kolkata – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) were delighted to see their well-known tagline ‘Fish are friends, not food’ featured prominently in the new fish-friendly movie Finding Nemo. Holding signs that read, ‘Fish Are Friends, Not Food’, and accompanied by the 6-foot-tall ‘Nimmi Fish’, PETA members will hand out pro-vegetarian leaflets at a screening of the new Disney-Pixar film Finding Nemo in order to encourage moviegoers not to eat the real-life counterparts of the film’s stars and to go vegetarian.

Why does PETA want people to get hooked on compassion and go vegetarian? A study published by the Royal Society just weeks before the movie’s premiere confirms the findings of other studies, as well as what many marine biologists have been saying for years: Fish feel pain, just as all animals do. Commercially-caught fish are often cut open while they are still alive or are left to die slowly – gasping, struggling and suffocating. Another study – recently published in the respected journal Nature – reveals that fully 90 per cent of the populations of large ocean-fish species have disappeared from the world’s oceans in recent decades. Furthermore, countless non-target animals, such as sea turtles, dolphins, birds and seals, die in commercial fishing nets every year.

Certain species of fish who return to rivers to spawn – like Hilsa shad – are caught in huge numbers using gill and seine nets, particularly at points where their migration is impeded by artificial barriers, such as dams. Moreover, though many believe fish to be ‘health food’, fish contain frightening concentrations of toxins, such as DDT and other pesticides and contaminants. In fact, according to a report in the 12 March 2001 Times of India, DDT found in Ganga fish at Patna was 16,000 times more concentrated than that in the water.

Recent research shows that mercury levels in fish are on the rise. Contrary to the belief that eating fish is healthy and nutritious because of their high protein content, research shows that fish contain high doses of mercury, which can lead to irreversible neurological damage in children and increase the mercury level in the blood of women, which can affect foetal development during pregnancy. Fish have always been touted as the best sources for Omega 3 fatty acids, but one can easily find these in vegetable sources like dark green leafy vegetables, walnuts and soya and flaxseed oils.

‘It’s time to sink the old myth that fish don’t feel pain and get hooked on compassion’, says PETA Campaigns Coordinator Dilpreet Beasley. ‘The easiest way for people to help fish and other animals is to cast fish out of the kitchen and reel in the bounty of delicious and healthful vegetarian foods.’

For more information about what’s wrong with eating fish and other animals and to get delicious vegetarian recipes, please visit our Web site PETAIndia.com.

Requested by DB