I am deeply concerned that Disney has allowed People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), to exploit a poster for its latest animation, ‘Finding Nemo’, to promote vegetarianism in youngsters.
PETA is an extreme animal rights organisation which has run high profile campaigns to get angling banned. This latest partnership is irresponsible and potentially damaging, both in terms of nutrition and in terms of young people’s perceptions of animals and conservation.
It seems that PETA want children to believe that animals have human emotions, which research suggests they do not.
This campaign threatens the nutrition of a generation who need all the healthy dietary examples they can get in an age of junk food. Fish should be a key part of the diet, as many nutritional experts agree, and a marketing campaign aimed at destroying this message is immensely harmful.
Not only do PETA want us to believe that fish inhabit the “happy ending” world shown in this cartoon, but that fishing itself is at odds with the welfare and conservation of fish – this could not be further from the truth. No one does more than anglers to ensure that fish stocks and waterways remain healthy and flourishing. For a marketing campaign based in fantasy to challenge the reality of angling is both insulting and damaging. Children need to be aware of the real world, not force-fed trite fairy-tales.
I will be writing to Disney to ask them if they really want to be linked to a group that advocates an extreme code of putting animals ahead of the rights and welfare of people.
If Disney truly has the welfare of young people at heart they should be promoting the sport of angling and eating fish, not denouncing them.
Charles Jardine
Director, Campaign for Angling
367 Kennington Road
London
SE11 4PT
