Angry PETA “koalas” protested outside New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s office today holding a PETA ad banner featuring a burnt and bloodied koala lying on a meat tray, along with the words “Eating Meat Kills Koalas“.
The “koalas” also held signs that say, “It’s Me or Meat”. The protest aims to spread the warning that farming other animals for meat is a huge threat to the native animal.
“Since the Berejiklian government weakened land-clearing rules in 2017, habitat destruction in New South Wales has increased by approximately 60%. Nationwide, the most significant driver of that destruction is land clearing for cattle grazing,” says PETA spokesperson Emily Rice. “We want to help compassionate Australians realise that, while there are many threats to koalas, resource-intensive animal agriculture is one that each and every Australian can tackle, simply by leaving meat off our plates.”
A new report reveals that Australia remains the only developed nation on the list of deforestation hotspots. Between 2010 and 2018, more than 88,000 hectares of primary forest were cleared in New South Wales, where the main driver of deforestation is agriculture. Logging, including for animal agriculture, combined with drought, ever-hotter summers, and devastating bushfires is exacerbating koala population decline, as some experts warn of the extinction of the species by 2050.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview – notes that so long as there is demand for meat, vulnerable koalas, along with countless other animals, will be killed or left to languish without suitable food, habitats, or homes.
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