PETA urges Wings to fine, ban fans who bring octopus to Joe Louis finale
Keep the octopus on ice, not the playing surface.
That's the message PETA is sending to the Detroit Red Wings and their fans with two final games to be played at Joe Louis Arena, a building wherein many a cephalopod mollusc has been thrown from the stands over the years.
In a letter to team president and CEO Chris Ilitch, PETA suggests a $5,000 fine against anyone who brings an octopus into the arena, as well as a permanent ban from all future Wings games.
More from the letter, via Kukla's Korner:
Octopuses are extraordinarily intelligent and self-aware and have 10,000 more genes than humans do. Like other sea animals - including fish - they use tools, communicate with one another, and form social bonds. They've even been observed using coconut shells as shelter and wielding the poisonous tentacles of Portuguese men-of-war like swords. They can navigate mazes, solve puzzles, and open childproof jars ... They are sentient beings, capable of feeling pain. It's no more acceptable to kill them for a decades-old tradition than it is to harm any other living beings. Please, won't you prohibit fans from engaging in such insensitive acts?
PETA further encouraged the organization to encourage fans to bring stuffed octopi to the rink in lieu of the real thing.
Time will tell whether the message wraps its tentacles around the Wings and their fans in time to avoid such an incident.