For Rapid Launch:
February 6, 2024

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

Wichita, Kan. – Immediately, PETA despatched a letter to Aaron Landrum, president and CEO of Wichita-based Likelihood Rides, the biggest producer of amusement rides within the nation, asking that the corporate finish the manufacturing and sale of animal-themed carousels that normalize the usage of animals as conveyances and amusements and as a substitute produce carousel figures within the form of vehicles, airplanes, spaceships, bulldozers, and different automobiles or extra whimsical designs, like taking pictures stars, rainbows, or brooms. PETA factors out that animals used for rides and different types of leisure—together with camels, horses, elephants, and dolphins—are sometimes crushed into submission, disadvantaged of every little thing that’s pure and necessary to them, and even slaughtered as soon as their our bodies put on out and that public opinion has turned towards such acts of human domination over different species.

“Youngsters be taught by means of play, and instructing them to have respect and compassion for all residing, feeling beings might help create a extra simply and merciful world,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, writer of 50 Superior Methods Children Can Assist Animals. “PETA urges Likelihood Rides and all different carousel producers to hit the brakes on old style animal-themed rides and embrace designs that have interaction kids’s creativeness and showcase human expertise.”

If Likelihood Rides makes the change, it might be a part of a rising listing of compassionate corporations—together with Nabisco, Dealer Joe’s, and Dukal Company—which have efficiently up to date their designs to replicate society’s altering perceptions of {our relationships} with others on the planet.

PETA—whose motto reads, partly, that “animals aren’t ours to make use of for leisure or abuse in every other approach”—factors out that Each Animal Is Somebody and provides free Empathy Kits for individuals who want a lesson in kindness. For extra info, please go to PETA.org or observe the group on X (previously Twitter), Fb, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to Landrum follows.

February 6, 2024

Aaron Landrum
President and CEO
Likelihood Rides

Pricey Mr. Landrum:

I’m writing on behalf of Individuals for the Moral Remedy of Animals—PETA entities have greater than 9 million members and supporters globally, together with hundreds in Kansas, with a suggestion: Would you please finish the manufacture and sale of animal-themed carousels and as a substitute completely produce figures within the form of automobiles, comparable to vehicles, unicycles, tractors, airplanes, rockets, and bulldozers, that kids are drawn to or much more whimsical designs, like taking pictures stars, rainbows, or brooms? Please enable me to clarify what’s behind this maybe surprising however necessary request.

Occasions change, and our understanding of animals has vastly developed over the previous few many years. Animal-themed carousels unintentionally have fun the exploitation of sentient beings. Animals used for rides and different types of leisure—together with camels, horses, elephants, and dolphins—are confined and in servitude, by no means free to pursue their very own lives and pursuits. They’re additionally typically crushed, tormented, and even slaughtered when their our bodies put on out. As an illustration, PETA Asia’s exposé revealed horrific abuse of camels used for rides in Egypt, exhibiting that these delicate animals are hit, yanked, tied up, and compelled to stroll on their knees, all whereas bloodied and crying out in ache. One other PETA Asia investigation into the usage of horses, camels, and donkeys in Petra, Jordan—a preferred vacationer vacation spot—revealed that animals endure from untreated sores and lameness and are badly crushed when too exhausted to hold on. Even on this nation, horses used for carriage rides are sometimes pressured to toil in excessive climate, pulling outsized hundreds for hours on finish, typically till they collapse, as certainly they do.

Elephants used for rides are additionally sorely abused. Infants are taken from their devoted moms and “damaged”—i.e., crushed with bullhooks and different weapons till they change into submissive to people—and the dolphins exploited for leisure by marine parks have both been violently captured and torn away from their households and ocean properties or bred, usually by way of synthetic insemination, and confined to cramped, stress-inducing areas that always end in illnesses, extreme frustration, and immense bodily and psychological struggling.

All animals are considering, feeling, affectionate, playful, and social beings who kind sturdy bonds with their offspring if permitted to maintain them (a rarity). They crave freedom from oppression. Animal-themed carousel units reinforce the notion that these sentient beings are merely right here for our leisure, reasonably than people with the identical capability to expertise concern, ache, pleasure, and love as any of us.

Deciding to modify away from these figures would ship two highly effective messages:

Animals are to be revered, not exploited, and corporations can and ought to evolve to maintain up with the occasions. You’ll be a part of many companies which have efficiently up to date their designs to replicate society’s altering perceptions of {our relationships} with others on the planet. As an illustration, in 2018, following talks with PETA, Nabisco changed the greater than 100-year-old design of caged animals on its Barnum’s Animals Crackers packing containers with imagery of untamed animals roaming free. In 2019, after a push from PETA, Dealer Joe’s redesigned its Bamba Peanut Snacks, bathroom paper, and natural peanut butter packages to now not embody photos of elephants performing tips. And simply final winter, after listening to from PETA, Dukal Company stopped promoting bandages depicting animals in circuses.

Thousands and thousands of individuals worldwide are calling for an finish to the exploitation of animals in leisure, together with utilizing horses, camels, and others as in the event that they had been residing taxis. Would you kindly pledge to cease selling this abuse by now not producing carousel figures in animal kinds? Thanks on your consideration. We sit up for listening to from you.

Very actually yours,

Ingrid Newkirk
President