Ad company rejects PETA’s billboard for cows killed in NC, says it violates policy
A tractor-trailer carting cattle overturned in North Carolina last week — killing 21 on board, according to the fire department.
Now PETA is involved.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced its plan Monday to put a billboard near the wreck site “in honor of the cows who were injured and killed,” the animal rights group said in a news release Monday.
“I’m Me, not Meat,” the billboard would read. “See the individual. Go vegan.”
But the advertising company PETA sent the request to said it likely won’t accept on Wednesday, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.
Lamar Advertising Co. of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, no longer accepts advertisements from PETA, its spokesperson reportedly told the Journal. The vice president of the animal rights groups cited a controversial billboard over one of SeaWorld’s orcas as the reason.
A representative from Lamar Advertising told The Advocate in 2017 the decision was based on PETA’s pattern of violating its policy barring advertisers from “using provocative and critical copy to create negative impressions of other entities.”
The truck crashed on Interstate 40 near Winston-Salem in the early morning hours on Feb. 18, the Winston-Salem Fire Department said on Twitter.
It was carrying 41 cattle, nearly half of which died, officials said.
“Those who survived were rounded up and presumably taken to slaughter,” PETA Executive Vice President Tracey Reiman said in the release.
The driver reportedly told WFMY he was taking the cattle from Kentucky to a slaughterhouse in Asheboro when a family of deer ran into the roadway. He swerved and over-corrected — “and the weight of the cattle pulled the truck down,” the media outlet reported.
It took close to 11 hours before the wreck was cleared and the roadway reopened, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
Firefighters said crews from the surrounding area, Emergency Management, Piedmont Emergency Management Rescue and N.C. Animal Rescue worked to unload the animals, which were separated into 10 separate compartments..
The driver had minor injuries and was cited for failing to maintain lane control, a state trooper told the newspaper.
According to PETA, more than 100 wrecks in 2019 involved trucks hauling animals for food.
“There have already been 20 since the start of 2020,” the animal rights group said.
This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 12:57 PM.
