Provocative anti-meat billboard asks rib fest attendees: Why love dogs but eat pigs?

Mercy For Animals Pro-Vegetarian Ad Questions Calling Some Animals Pets and Others Dinner

BURLINGTON, ON, Sept. 2, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ - A new anti-meat billboard campaign by Mercy For Animals is giving attendees of Canada's largest Rib Fest some serious food for thought. The eye-catching billboard, located on Lakeshore Road —on the way to Spencer Smith Park where Rib Fest will be held in early September— features an adorable puppy and a lovable piglet sitting side-by-side and asks, "Why love one but eat the other?" Motorists are encouraged to "Choose Vegetarian." The campaign aims to spark debate over why we call some animals pets, and others dinner.
 
Far from receiving the kindness and respect afforded to most dogs and cats, the millions of cows, pigs, and chickens raised and killed for meat in Canada lead lives filled with misery. The green pastures and idyllic barnyard scenes of years past are now distant memories. On today's factory farms, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy, windowless sheds, wire cages, gestation crates and other cruel confinement systems. These animals will never root in the soil, build nests or do almost anything that is natural to them. They won't even feel the sun on their backs or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto trucks bound for slaughter.

Farmed animals have little to no legal protection, and numerous undercover investigations by Mercy For Animals have revealed rampant animal abuse at Canada's factory farms. Cruelty that would be illegal if it were inflicted on dogs or cats, such as neglect, mutilation, transport through all weather extremes, and gruesome and violent slaughter, is commonplace in the meat industry. Yet farmed animals are no less intelligent or capable of feeling pain than are the dogs and cats we cherish as companions.

"The hidden cost of every hot dog, burger, and nugget is egregious cruelty to animals," says MFA's Managing Director Krista Hiddema. "Before reaching the dinner table, cows, pigs and chickens endure a nightmarish life of intensive confinement, mutilations without painkillers, violent handling, and finally, a merciless slaughter."

To view undercover video of conditions on factory farms, visit www.meatvideo.ca.

SOURCE Mercy For Animals Canada

Image with caption: "The eye-catching billboard, located on Lakeshore Road (CNW Group/Mercy For Animals Canada)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20150902_C8237_PHOTO_EN_488951.jpg

Krista Hiddema, [phone]