New Hampshire Animal Rights League is pleased to share the news of our successful outreach efforts at the Market Days Festival in downtown Concord, NH.
During this three-day event (June 22- 24), we spread the word about the work we do for animals and made sure everyone who stopped left knowing that Yes, Fish Feel Pain.
(We also snuck in a Dairy is Scary message to accompany our oat milk latte giveaway.)
Visitors to our booth not only learned that there is scientific evidence that fish experience pain, but also that commercial fishing is cruel, destructive, and kills great numbers of sea turtles, dolphins, and other non-target sea animals.
- Bottom trawlers (left above) drag nets larger than football fields along the ocean floor, scraping up everything in their path, including non-target marine life — known as “bycatch” — while destroying underwater ecosystems in the process.
- Long line fishing (right above) uses thousands of baited hooks hanging from a single line which can be 60-120 miles long. Sea turtles, dolphins, sea birds, and many other non-target fish and aquatic animals are caught on these lines. Marine animals may spend hours or days impaled on hooks before the gear is hauled up.
Seeing is Believing
More than 300 people, young and old, agreed to watch the following 1-minute video, “Do Fish Feel Pain?”
Those who watched the video received a free can of vegan cold brew coffee from RISE Brewing Co. (or a lemonade) along with some conversation about what they had seen.
Fish Toys
We gave out fish backpack key chain “fidget” toy with a thought-provoking tag:
“Please be my friend by letting me live in my underwater home.”
Goodie Bags
We handed out more than 250 “goodie bags” containing vegan literature (sampling below), coupons, and Swedish fish (an accidentally vegan candy), tagged: “The only fish you should eat.”
Movie Poster
We recommended the film Seaspiracy (watch on Netflix or Google “watch Seaspiracy for free”).
Information cards
We created and shared information cards about:
- Right whales
- Lobsters
- Catch & Release Fishing
- Risks of Eating Fish
Dairy is Scary
As a final bit of advocacy, we shared these scary dairy facts as visitors selected their non-dairy milk latte:
- Cows need to be pregnant and give birth to produce milk.
- Taking newborn calves from mothers hours after birth is standard practice
on dairy farms everywhere, organic or not. - Male calves have no use on a dairy farm, so they are chained in crates and sold as veal.
Thank you
Thank you to all our supporters and to everyone who stopped by to learn about the harms of fishing and eating fish.
