PETA got on its high horse this week, calling on the country’s largest manufacturer of amusement rides to stop selling animal-themed carousels.
The animal rights organization sent a letter to Kansas-based Chance Rides on Tuesday arguing that using designs of horses and other animals for the merry-go-round “unintentionally celebrates the exploitation” of animals that are “thinking, feeling, affectionate, playful, and social beings.”
By eliminating animal-themed amusement rides, it would be a blow against industries that still use real animals for entertainment like camel rides or dolphin shows, PETA insisted. Those live animals can face abuse or horrid conditions, the group noted.
PETA suggested to Aaron Landrum, the CEO and president of Chance Rides, that his company only use objects like cars, unicycles, rockets or other designs like shooting stars, rainbows or brooms.
“All animals are thinking, feeling, affectionate, playful, and social beings who form strong bonds with their offspring if permitted to keep them (a rarity),” PETA’s president Ingrid Newkirk wrote in the letter. “They crave freedom from oppression.
“Animal-themed carousel sets reinforce the notion that these sentient beings are simply here for our entertainment, rather than individuals with the same capacity to experience fear, pain, joy, and love as any of us.”
Newkirk noted other companies have taken stances against using animals on its products.
She said that Nabisco replaced its design of caged animals with animals roaming free on its Barnum’s Animal Crackers boxes after PETA raised concerns in 2018.
The following year, supermarket Trader Joe’s redid the design of several of its products so they no longer included elephants performing tricks.
Chance Rides, which operates out of Wichita, boasts numerous carousels that mainly consists of “fantasy horses.”
The Post sought comment from the company late Wednesday.
“Children learn through play, and teaching them to have respect and compassion for all living, feeling beings can help create a more just and merciful world,” Newkirk said in a press statement.
“PETA urges Chance Rides and all other carousel manufacturers to hit the brakes on old-fashioned animal-themed rides and embrace designs that engage children’s imagination and showcase human talent.”