PETA activists campaign on M G Road in Camp on Tuesday. (Express photo by Ashish Kale)Close on the heels of the killing of tigress, Avni, members of the animal welfare organisation, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), organised an awareness campaign-cum-protest in the city on Tuesday morning. Three girls, whose bodies and clothes were painted in tiger stripes, urged people to become vegans to save animals.
The co-ordinator of the campaign, Ayushu Sharma, said the tigress was a part of the man-animal conflict that resulted in its death. “Not just Avni, but a lot of animals in day-to-day life are killed just because we encroach upon their territories for our own use,” she said.
The campaign was kicked off in Camp, where the three girls held posters that said: “Eating Meat Contributes to species extinction — Try vegan”. The drive spread awareness on how the meat industry is destroying the biodiversity, said an activist.
“We are urging people to try veganism, which is a type of vegetarian diet. When we demand meat, a lot of forests are cleared up to raise animals, which are our food and also for growing crops required to feed them. This process requires a lot of land and for that we are clearing our forests, which in turn leads to extinction of the species. And while animals are going extinct, there is also a huge change in the environment, which we can prevent by becoming vegan,” said Sharma.
A PETA volunteer, Khuspreet Binu, said while wildlife extinction and habitat loss are discussed, people often ignore everyday choices that they make such as food choices that lead to such situations.
