PETA India’s Special Sea Billboards Highlight the Marine Victims of Discarded Plastic Fishing Gear for Earth Day
For Immediate Release:
21 April 2022
Contact:
Hiraj Laljani [email protected]
Radhika Suryavanshi [email protected]
Mumbai – To mark Earth Day (22 April), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has teamed up with Zen Digital Media to put up billboards in the sea! They depict a turtle ensnared in plastic netting as a reminder that killing fish also costs turtles their lives. Up to 1 million tonnes of fishing gear – which can take 600 years to degrade – enters the oceans every year, killing over 250,000 turtles who get caught in it.
The billboards can be seen at Juhu Beach and on the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. Billboards depicting the same artwork have been erected by PETA India in other coastal places: Chennai, Goa, Kochi, and Kolkata.
Called “bycatch” by the fishing industry, non-target animals killed by fishing gear also include 720,000 seabirds, 300,000 whales and dolphins, 345,000 seals and sea lions, and 100 million sharks and rays. PETA India notes that fishing is considered to be the biggest threat to marine wildlife.
“Eating one sensitive, intelligent fish can spell suffering for many more animals, some of whom are endangered,” says PETA India Senior Campaigns Coordinator Radhika Suryavanshi. “PETA India urges everyone to keep aquatic animals in mind this Earth Day – and every day – by choosing compassionate vegan foods.”
More fish are killed for food each year than all other animals combined. Fish feel pain as acutely as mammals do, have long-term memories, and sing underwater – yet they and other marine animals are impaled, crushed, suffocated, dropped into pots of boiling water, or cut open and gutted, all while conscious.
PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview – offers a free vegan starter kit packed with tips, recipes, and more. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
#
