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Despite being approved initially by Transport For London, London bus bosses have now backtracked and refused to allow an advert to run which promotes a vegan message on the grounds it may cause offense.
The advert, by animal rights charity PETA, was meant to be featured on 100 buses this Christmas, and shows a glazed dog’s head on a platter, replacing the traditional choice of turkey, eaten by many for Christmas dinner with the words: “If you wouldn’t eat your dog, why eat a turkey? Start a new tradition. Go vegan.”
Speaking about the decision, PETA Director Elisa Allen said: “It’s shameful and confusing that PETA’s campaign was rejected when Londoners are bombarded with ads selling turkey corpses.
“What’s truly offensive isn’t the ad but killing gentle birds – who have the same capacity to feel pain as the dogs with whom we share our homes – for a fleeting moment of taste.
“Turkeys, just like dogs and cats, have feelings and can suffer. The average turkey bred for meat in the UK will spend his or her short life in a space two-thirds the size of an opened broadsheet newspaper.
“Farmed turkeys are bred to have such large breasts that they can’t mate naturally and sometimes can barely walk. They’re intensively confined, part of their beaks is cut off, they’re pumped full of grain laced with antibiotics, and they’re slaughtered when they’re just 5 months old.”
