Reuters reported that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals decided to pull its pro-shark ad campaign which featured a billboard that asked, “Would You Give Your Right Arm To Know Why Sharks Attack, Could it Be Revenge?” The billboard was a crass attempt by PETA to cash in on the publicity surrounding the shark attack on 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast.
PETA spokesman Dan Shannon told Reuters,
Our message is that humans kill billions of fish, including sharks, each year, in the most hideous ways, and sharks aren’t really to blame for doing what comes naturally, because, unlike us, they don’t have choices when it comes to what to eat. But right now people would just shoot the messenger without hearing the message.
Live by public relations disasters, die by public relations disasters. Now PETA needs to come clean about whether or not the Ranger who fire four shots into the shark that attacked Arbogast was morally justified in doing so.
Source:
Animal rights group pulls be-kind-to-sharks ad. Reuters, September 4, 2001.