For Immediate Release:
March 29, 2022
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Westlake, Ohio â As American Greetings CEO Joe Arcuri arrives home from work on Thursday, heâll be greeted by a âchimpanzeeâ mascot and PETA supporters who will be gathering to remind him that itâs high time that his company stopped selling cards that exploit great apes.
When: Thursday, March 31, 5:15 p.m.
Where: Arcuriâs home
In 2016, American Greetings agreed to stop distributing greeting cards featuring Connor after PETA alerted the company to his life of abuse, yet it continues to sell cards featuring other equally exploited chimpanzees as well as other great apes put into costumes and showing the fear grimace often mistaken by customers for a grin. Such images increase the demand for great ape babies, taken away from their mothers to become âpets,â and hinder conservation efforts by misleading the public into believing that chimpanzeesâendangered animalsâare prevalent in nature.
âThereâs nothing funny or forward-thinking about a company that profits from the exploitation of endangered great apes in human costumes and poses,â says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. âPETA is calling on American Greetings to stop producing cards featuring great apes who need to be protected, not ridiculed.â
PETAâwhose motto reads, in part, that âanimals are not ours to use for entertainmentââopposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.
For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
Source: Peta.org