It was windy weather for catching stuffed dogs on the New Haven Green Tuesday afternoon. That didn’t stop Marta Holmberg. She’d traveled too far to let this catch go.
Holmberg came to New Haven from Norfolk, Va., with two other members of the animal rights group PETA. They’re on a “whirlwind tour” of waterfront cities (next stops: Atlantic City and Wilmington, Del.) to promote their “Fishing Hurts” campaign.
The threesome set up at the College-and-Chapel corner of the Green at lunchtime, with Holmberg at center stage. She swooped her fishing rod to and fro with a toy puppy at the other end.
The puppy was cute. That was the point.
Donning placards, her fellow PETAs stood nearby with pamphlets to hand out to passersby about why they shouldn’t go fishing or eat the critters from the sea. The fish have a lot of chemicals in them and are bad for you, PETA argues. Plus, fishing hurts the fish.
“If you wouldn’t hook a dog,” asked Karin Robertson as she handed out the pamphlets, “why a fish? Fish feel pain just like dogs and cats do.”
Plus, she said, “fish are smarter than dogs.”
The reaction of passersby was mixed.
Kenneth Dixon, a 35 year-old Yale custodian, said he would “definitely” read the pamphlet.
Will he stop eating fish?
Definitely not, he said. “Fish is my favorite food.”
What about PETA’s argument about the pain the fish feel?
Dixon shrugged. “You gotta survive somehow,” he said.
Twenty year-old handyman Giovanni Negron of Ansonia (at left in photo with Holmberg) was more open to changing his lifestyle.
Wearing a “Budway Smokefresh — Marijuana diet” T‑shirt, Negron conceded that he likes fishing. He hasn’t fished for a few years, though, he said.
“I think they have a good point,” he said. “There’s a lot of things we need to give up.”