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Posted by
Gold_12TH
on Sun Apr 1 17:58:41 2012
edf40wrjww2msgDetail:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d  Don’t be frightened if you see snakes on a train — Penelope and her offspring haven’t gotten loose on the T again — it’s just the handiwork of PETA, which hopes to expose Hub straphangers to the “cold-blooded horrors” of the exotic skin trade.
PETA president Ingrid Newkirk told the Herald her international animal rights group is petitioning the MBTA to purchase a week-long ad — in the form of realistic, rubber snakes coiled around a subway car’s straps and poles — in an effort to call attention to the suffering of snakes, alligators, crocodiles and lizards used to make fashion accessories.
“We thought the T would be the perfect place to launch our campaign, and the Massachusetts member who suggested it had indeed read the story of Penelope,” Newkirk said, referring to the 3-foot-long pet boa that escaped from its owner last winter and spent a month riding the Red Line before being found. “I’m hoping the transit authority will say yes. ... Stranger things have happened.”
PETA, known for dousing fashion show catwalks with red paint and for posing supermodels and celebrities naked to promote its anti-fur crusades, faxed a letter Friday to the MBTA asking about placing the serpentine advertisements on a subway car.
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo would not say yesterday whether the cash-starved authority, which in January pulled the plug on alcohol ads in response to critics, would shoot down such an unusual offer.
“If the MBTA receives such a request, it will be reviewed like any other request,” Pesaturo said.
Newkirk said if the T rejects the bid, local PETA activists have vowed to take matters into their own hands and bedeck T subways with the lifelike critters.
PETA also wants to hang posters inside subway cars reading: “Snakes Make Your Skin Crawl? Shed All Scaly Belts and Bags! Watch Video at peta.org.”
The video, narrated by actor Joaquin Phoenix, shows graphic images of reptiles being slaughtered to make handbags, belts and shoes.
“Their killing methods are atrocious,” explained Newkirk. “People don’t realize how cruelly and crudely they are killed.” Alligators and crocodiles, some raised in fetid farm tanks, are gaffed alive and strung up, while pythons are stuffed with hoses and inflated with water or air to stretch their skins, she said.
“Many of these animals are skinned while still alive,” Newkirk said, adding that reptiles, due to their slow metabolism, are typically conscious and able to feel pain long after being decapitated and stripped of their skins.
In its letter to the T, PETA wrote: “The video is far creepier to watch than the rubber snakes are to see, but commuters will come away with an education that we hope will change their buying habits forever.”
---- http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220401snakes_on_a_train_peta_slithers_ahead_with_anti-exotic_skin_campaign/srvc=home&position=3
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