PETA Plans to Use Billboards and Bus Benches to Feature Shark Attack Ads

A man who was reportedly bitten by a 9-foot bull shark while fishing off of the coast of Anna Maria Island on Saturday is now the target of a vicious outdoor advertising campaign on bus benches and billboards in and around Manatee County.

As the friends who helped save his life were interviewed on national television and C.J. Wickersham was recovering after getting 700 to 800 stitches in his leg at Bayfront Medical Center, PETA was completing the design of its anti-fishing campaign featuring a shark swimming with a bloody human leg in its mouth.

Officials with PETA said the campaign was prompted by reports that Wickersham was bitten by a shark while spearfishing in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Anna Maria Island. The message behind the outdoor advertising campaign is meant to be that the deadliest killers in the water aren't sharks — they're humans.

The ad shows what PETA describes as "a human drumstick" hanging out of a shark's mouth next to the words "Payback Is Hell. Go Vegan." 

While the billboards may be in poor taste, there is nothing in county ordinances to prevent the outdoor ad campaign from coming to Bradenton, said County Commissioner Carol Whitmore.

"It's all free speech," she said.

So far a lack of outdoor advertising space is keeping the campaign off of the Island, but PETA officials are looking for highly visible billboards in Bradenton and throughout Manatee County, said Ashley Byrne, manager of campaigns for PETA.

While PETA would not answer questions about whether the ad was in poor taste, the organization said the timing is critical. PETA wants people who come to the Gulf Coast to fish that they are participating in a harmful sport.

"In spite of the image, the message is that sharks are not the most dangerous predator, humans are," Byrne said. "Humans kill over 12  billion fish. Hopefully because of message, will be seen as a way to encourage people to take up pasttimes that are more positive and kind to anumals. And also safer."

Fish are aware of their surroundings, have complex nervous systems, and feel pain, Byrne said. Sport fishers impale the animals with spears and metal hooks and drag them out of their natural environment as, thrashing and struggling for their lives, they slowly suffocate or die from their injuries.

"Humans hook, spear, maim, and kill fish for 'sport' every day," PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said. "The most dangerous predator of all is the one holding the fishing rod or standing at the 'all you can eat' seafood buffet."  

As the organization builds on its anti-fishing mission with campaigns like "Don't Let Kids Become Hookers" someone, over the weekend, dumped dead fish and crabs outside its Norfolk, Va. headquarters and smeared fish guts on the building’s windows and doors.