Wet Litterbox
Have you ever heard of a Sea Kitten? No? Me either, not until a member of the Rabble called me a few moments ago and told me where to find them.
“Sea Kittens”… it’s a new campaign from the wonderful folks at PETA, who are so concerned about our world’s fish population they’ve devised a plan to convince our children that fish are actually the “kittens of the sea”. Soft, cuddly, and playful, fish are an exciting and wet alternative to our feline pets.
The silliness of the notion is exemplified in their “Create your own Sea Kitten” game, which allows you to dress a fish up not only like a kitten, but as an elephant, a punk rocker, a ballet dancer, or even Donald Trump. You can see an example here to the left, where I’ve taken an innocent little mahi mahi and decked it out with a spiked collar, iPod, and more.
Worse yet is the story book section. It contains four two- to three-page tales which detail the travails of Tara the Tuna, who gets caught in a fisherman’s net, Tony the Trout, a bright fish who, when eaten, causes the young boy whose dinner he becomes to lose a few points of IQ, Sally the Sea Kitten, who spends her days plotting evil acts on the innocent Land Kittens, since they get to live carefree lives while her cousins get eaten, and Fred the Flounder who, true to his name, flounders about in circles, chasing his own tail since all of his friends have been caught to feed those evil land dwellers.
From their “about” page…
People don’t seem to like fish. They’re slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads—which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you’re swimming, and the big ones—well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by.
Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy—stat. Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You’ve done enough damage, buddy. We’ve got it from here. And we’re going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?
According to PETA campaign coordinator Ashley Byrne, “Most parents would never dream of spending a weekend torturing kittens for fun with their families, but hooking a sea kitten through the mouth and dragging her through the water is the same as hooking a kitten through the mouth and dragging her behind your car.”
There are about a billion arguments which could be made against such an inane statement. For instance, if indeed we were eating cats, like we eat fish, we wouldn’t use hooks on lines to catch them, nor would we have to drag them anywhere. We use fishing poles and hooks to catch fish because they’re under water, and it’s the most efficient way to do it. Cats, on the other hand, would be easier to kill with the same gauge of shot used to hunt squirrel or rabbit. The discussion could go on from there, but Ms. Byrne would probably either faint or become enraged at the notion of shooting a rabbit (which is arguably as cute as a kitten), so I think we’ll just end it there.
I’m off to get some catfish. Er, I mean cat-sea-kitten.
