Clever, Not Sly: PETA Proposes Fox-Friendly Name Change for Birmingham Pub

Clever, Not Sly: PETA Proposes Fox-Friendly Name Change for Birmingham Pub

Birmingham – Will the new year bring a new name for Birmingham’s historic The Sly Old Fox? PETA hopes so. PETA has sent a letter to the pub’s manager urging them to rebrand the eatery to The Clever Old Fox, pointing out that “sly” carries negative connotations like “cunning” and “deceitful” – an unfair and inaccurate perception of foxes who are often derogated as “pests” and violently persecuted as a result.

“The words we use matter, and perpetuating negative stereotypes about foxes makes it easier to justify hunting or poisoning these unique and intelligent beings,” says PETA Vice President of Programmes Elisa Allen. “PETA encourages The Sly Old Fox to become The Clever Old Fox to show respect to one of Britain’s most iconic native animals.”

Foxes are highly resourceful and can remember where they stored cached food even weeks later. In the UK, they’re among the most persecuted and abused wild animals, and fox parents who are poisoned or shot often leave behind babies who starve to death without them.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA UK on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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