PETA’s Birthday Gift to Lewis Hamilton Is … a Megaphone!

Present Geared to Pushing Hamilton to Loudly Decry F1’s Ties to Cruel International Dog-Sled Event

London – A PETA-blue megaphone is on its way to Sir Lewis Hamilton for his birthday on 7 January, perfect for the vegan Formula 1 (F1) champion to use to bellow his condemnation of the cruel 1,000-mile Iditarod dog-sled race for the world to hear, despite the F1 ban on political speech that he opposes. PETA hopes the gift will inspire Hamilton to speak up for the “underdogs” forced to run in the gruelling and deadly Iditarod race by urging F1 owner and Iditarod sponsor Liberty Media to join Exxon Mobil and Coca-Cola in cutting all ties with the event.

“Lewis is a defender of the underdog – and one word from him could be all it takes to persuade F1’s owner, Liberty Media, to stop giving a financial lifeline to this deadly, shameful dog race,” says PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk.

In the Iditarod, dogs are forced to pull heavy sleds through some of the most extreme weather conditions on the planet, with up to 80-mph winds and temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees. Nearly 250 dogs were pulled from the trail last year due to exhaustion, illness, or injury, leaving the remaining ones to work even harder to pull the mushers. The Iditarod’s official death toll of more than 150 dogs doesn’t include the countless animals who were killed because they weren’t fast enough or who died during the off-season while chained to dilapidated boxes or plastic barrels in the bitter cold, a practice exposed by an undercover PETA US investigation.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview – named Hamilton its Person of the Year in 2018.

For more information, please visit PETA’s website or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Contact:

Iona Kirby +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]