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PeTA: EAT ROADKILLS |
PETA Claims It’s Healthier, More Humane Than Commercial Meat
For Immediate Release:
May 23, 2002
Contact:
Bruce Friedrich 757-622-7382
PETA Assistant to the Director of Vegan Outreach and Texas A&M alumna Jennifer Gentry has sent a letter to her local member of the Texas House of Representatives, urging him to introduce legislation that would make it legal for Texans to remove dead animals from highways and eat them. In her letter to representative Fred Brown, Gentry explains that roadkill is less contaminated with chemicals, is cheaper, and usually entails much less suffering than meat from animals raised on factory farms, shipped to slaughter, and sold at markets.
"It’s time to mess with the Texas law that makes roadkill illegal," says Ms. Gentry. "Die-hard meat-eaters should be allowed to keep the taste, reject the cruelty, and take the kinder, roadkill option on their plates.
PETA recently dispatched its "Possum Posse" of sexy vegetarian cow gals to promote the idea of eating roadkill by passing out samples of roadkill barbecue to hungry lunchtime crowds in cities across Texas. When they discovered that Texas, unlike states such as West Virginia, prohibits the practice, they were forced to substitute soy kebabs.
PETA believes that it’s inane to allow the atrocious conditions that animals are routinely subjected to when raised for their flesh while it remains illegal to eat organic, pesticide-free flesh from animals who are already dead and enjoyed their freedom while they were alive.
For more information, please visit our Web site at GoVeg.com.
PETA’s letter to Texas State Representative Fred Brown follows.
May 23, 2002
The Honorable Fred Brown
Representative in the Texas House of Representatives
4444 Carter Creek Pkwy.
Bryan, TX 77802
1 page via fax: 979-268-7655
Dear Representative Brown:
As a Texas A&M alumna from your district and a representative of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), I am writing to ask you to change a law that serves no good purpose. I became aware of it when PETA planned to cook and serve "roadkill" animals to make a point. We found that in Texas, unlike in states such as West Virginia, it is illegal to eat roadkill.
Please consider this: The bodies of animals killed on streets and highways in Texas need not simply go to waste. They provide a free source of food for meat-eaters who can’t give up their bad habit. These animals enjoyed grass, trees, streams, and the freedom to raise families and live a natural life before they were killed. Hopefully, they also died, quite literally, without knowing what hit them. Their flesh is natural, organic, pesticide-free, and available free of charge.
Cattle, hogs, chickens, turkeys, and other animals raised on factory farms are not so lucky. These miserable animals are denied everything natural or enjoyable. Most are condemned to lead frustrating lives in filthy, cramped cages, stalls, and sheds, where only a steady diet of pharmaceuticals keeps them alive in barren, stressful conditions. These factory-farmed animals, whose capacity for pain and suffering is similar to our own, have their beaks cut off with a hot wire, their tails severed, and their horns removed and are castrated—all without painkillers. Many, like pigs and chickens, never feel a ray of sunshine on their backs or take a breath of fresh air—until their hellish, harrowing ride to the slaughterhouse where, if they’re lucky, workers stun them before hoisting them upside down and slitting their throats.
PETA urges all meat-eaters to kick the habit and take up a healthy, compassionate vegan diet. But even some die-hard meat-eaters are upset by the cruelties rampant on factory farms and in slaughterhouses and would prefer the kinder option of roadkill. Will you please introduce legislation to overturn the archaic law prohibiting the consumption of roadkill?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Gentry