Animal rights group PETA has erected a poster outside a chippy in a coastal town - comparing eating fish with eating a dead cat.
The poster in Grimsby, Lincs., shows a smiling fishmonger holding up a limp fish, which is replaced with a dead cat when viewed from a different angle.
The group said they chose to run the poster in Grimsby due to its history as the centre of the UK’s seafood processing industry.
But it has sparked anger in the town and one fishmonger said the group was trying to 'tarnish' the town's 170-year-old fishing industry.
PETA, which campaigns for the end of animal suffering, said it hoped to offer “food for thought” to pedestrians making their way past one of the town’s many chippies.
The group's Vice President of Programmes Elisa Allen said the group want to bring awareness of the suffering faced by fish and other animals through their advert.
She said: “Fish are animals with feelings who can experience pain just as much as our animal companions can, yet fishers haul them out of the ocean, causing them to suffocate, and gut them while they’re still conscious.
“Everyone deserves protection from abuse, and PETA is reminding Grimbarians that sea animals all have a will to live and don’t want to die for human dinners.”
But fishmonger Nathan Godley, 49, blasted their direct action and branded the group a 'pain'.
He said: “They want to live in this idyllic world, I suppose, but I think it is a bit of a kick in the teeth when you see how hard we work.
“I can understand why we’ve been targeted. If you want to do a protest, you’ve got to do it somewhere you’ll be noticed.
“But there are lots of us here who are still earning our living out of the seafood industry. It’s a huge employer in the town.
“They are a pain, and I don’t like the wokeness of the world.
“There’s no middle ground for these people. They want it their way, and they’ll never get it their way, but perhaps they’ll get a little bit of it in due course.”
Nathan said his industry had a proud heritage and thousands of jobs would be lost if it was abandoned overnight.
He said: “If you clicked your fingers overnight and the world stopped eating fish and seafood, then they’ll be a lot of people out of work.
“It’s not by chance or fluke that the fishing industry is here.
“Whether it’s people like me who are buyers or perhaps filleters, processers, the people here know what they are doing.
“So I can understand why they’re highlighting it in Grimsby, but obviously, I disagree.”
Nathan said he didn’t believe that the fishing industry had to be closed down for sealife to prosper, arguing that the sector had never been so sustainable.
He went on: “There are rules and regulations in place now that stop the seas being raped of fish. I’m not a believer in the fact that the seafood is on a trail of destruction – it’s not.
“It’s all fished sustainably. The quotas have never been better.
“I get a bit weary of these people. I am a big horse racing fan, and I tend to think that people in horse racing love those animals more than you could ever imagine.
“I feel sorry for them when they get tarnished.
“Those types of protesters just want an end to horse racing, and these kinds of protesters just want an end to fishing and eating of fish. There’s no middle ground for these people.”
