For immediate release:
August 31, 2021
Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382
Norfolk, Virginia. – While families are deciding how to spend their Labor Day weekend, a new PETA video released today, offers a strong warning about fishing and how it can harm more animals than most people think. The video shows PETA field workers answering a call about a great blue heron hanging from a line from a tree on the banks of the Elizabeth River in Norfolk. While they were able to reach the scene and free the heron, the badly injured bird died on its way to the veterinary clinic, and countless other animals suffer a similar fate from discarded fishing gear.
Photo available here.
“The story of this heron shows how abandoned – or caught but not retrieved – fishing trash can be a death sentence for unintentional victims such as waterfowl and turtles,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Investigation of Cruelty Daphne Nachminovic. “PETA is encouraging fishermen to take up a new hobby and asking people to help make waterways safe for wildlife by collecting discarded hooks and lines when they see them.”
In addition to catching delicate animals with sensitive mouths, watching them slowly suffocate, and sometimes even gut them while they are still alive, anglers inflict debilitating injuries on millions of animals that swallow fishhooks or become entangled in fishing line. Approximately 640,000 tonnes of ghost fishing tackle enter the oceans every year.
PETA, whose motto is in part that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way,” is opposed to arrogance, a worldview focused on human superiority. For more information please visit PETA.org or subscribe to the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram…