- A PETA advert has gone viral after suggesting that eating cats and fish is the same thing.
- A passerby told a BBC reporter they thought the advert was "sick."
A PETA advert put up in the English seaside town of Cleethorpes has gone viral after suggesting that eating cats and fish is the same thing.
The advert, which the nonprofit animal rights group placed outside a fish and chip shop, features a woman dressed as a fishmonger holding a cat. Underneath the image it reads: "Sea things in a different light. Respect all life. Go vegan."
A passerby told a BBC reporter that they thought the ad was "a bit sick".
"It's a cat. You don't eat a cat," he said.
—Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) April 26, 2023
One person wrote on Twitter, "A cat is a mammal that's soft and cuddly, most of the time, and interacts with humans while a fish is cold and has hardly any interaction with us."
Another Twitter user said: "I'm speechless, respect for every animal is right, for example I'm a vegetarian, but I find this advertisement horrible and in bad taste... surely it could have been done better!!"
Speaking to the BBC, PETA's Jennifer White said the poster was intended "to remind people that all animals deserve protection," adding that the fishing industry was the "biggest killer of animals on the planet".
She said that the debate over the poster "comes down to speciesism, which is the misguided belief that some species are more important than others — and this is how humans justify mistreating animals."