PETA: Sports Teams Should Stop Using Leather Balls

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is angry that both the National Football League and Major League Baseball continue to use balls and other equipment made out of leather, and is urging animal rights activists to contact professional sports leagues and ask them to end the practice.

Not surprisingly, it takes relatively few animals to meet the needs of professional sports. In its press release, for example, PETA notes that, “it takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs!” That’s not exactly an impressive figure, especially since that leather is obtained from animals who are slaughtered for food anyway. PETA might as well urge major stadiums to stop selling hot dogs and other food items made from meat.

If PETA wants to stop the use of “athletic shoes, and other gear supports the cruelty of factory farming,” though, it could start with its own celebrity activists. Why not begin by protesting James Cromwell who has guest starred at several PETA protests but recently told a reporter of his fond love for leather shoes.

Not that PETA will actually do anything about that, since it always puts potential publicity ahead of its principles.

Source:

Help Get Leather Out of Sports. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Press Release, October 18, 2001.