'Canada's Club Scene Sucks,' Say Music Stars in New PETA Ads
For Immediate Release:
April 13, 2011
Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382
Los Angeles -- As the annual massacre of baby seals begins on the ice floes of eastern Canada, PETA is launching a global campaign featuring two of music's most outspoken stars: Iggy Pop and Ke$ha. The ads feature the artists alongside an inset photo of a baby seal and the words "Canada's Club Scene Sucks."
The campaign, set to run on music sites in several countries, aims to combat the Canadian government's attempts to market baby seal fur internationally in order to prop up the dying seal massacre. In addition to reaching young consumers online, PETA members will display the posters at concerts and major music festivals where Iggy Pop and Ke$ha will perform this spring and summer to encourage the icons' fans to write their own protest letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa.
"Clubbing baby seals is sick and gives Canada a black eye," says Iggy, who also filmed an exclusive video interview with PETA. "Don't let the greed of a few tarnish the image of the whole country."
"I was lucky enough to get to watch a bunch of wild seals recently and truly fell in love with these amazing creatures," says Ke$ha, who titled her first album Animal. "Canada gets to be host to harp seals each year during their migration to the ice to give birth which is beautiful and peaceful. But because the babies' fur is so soft, there are people who club and brutally kill these young animals. The Canadian seal slaughter is barbaric and archaic. My music and my fans are part of a movement of youth taking over the world with positive change. I know they’ll help me and PETA ban the Canadian seal slaughter so the only place you see baby seal fur is in a museum."
The Canadian government spends $7 million each year defending the controversial seal slaughter, which makes up less than 1 percent of Newfoundland's economy. Prominent Canadians who have voiced opposition to the slaughter include Sarah McLachlan, Peaches, Bryan Adams, Pamela Anderson, and Ryan Reynolds, who penned a blog about it for the Huffington Post. But most politicians in Canada defend the seal slaughter because both the conservative and the liberal parties crave the region's seven swing seats in Parliament. World leaders, including Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, have spoken out against the clubbing of baby seals, and Canadian seal products have been banned by the U.S. and most recently the E.U.—a ban that the Canadian government is spending an estimated $10 million to challenge.
For more information or to view the ad, please visit PETA.org or click here for Iggy's ad and here for Ke$ha's .