Mastic Bull Inspires PETA To Place Billboard Nearby

LONG ISLAND, NY — Barney's bid for freedom is continuing to inspire.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Long Island Orchestrating for Nature are seeking to place a billboard in the Manorville area featuring a bovine under a clear blue sky with the slogan, “I'm me, not meat. Help Others Escape the Slaughterhouse: Go Vegan.”

A PETA spokeswoman could not specifically say where the billboard would be placed, only that the groups are "working with advertisers and reviewing our options for available billboards in the area."

LION is currently one of the rescue groups on the ground somewhere in the Manorville area trying to get Barney to Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in New Jersey, "where he can live out the rest of his days in peace," officials stated in a news release Wednesday afternoon.

PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said that the bull is "fighting hard to gain his freedom, just as any of us would be doing if someone were after us with a knife."

“PETA’s billboard will remind each of us that we can honor his bravery and win freedom for all animals, from bulls to birds, by keeping them off our plates," she added.

The bull broke through a fence at a farm on Barnes Road in Manorville where it was scheduled to be slaughtered as part of a Muslim holiday last Tuesday. Suffolk County police were first notified that the wayward bovine was seen running around a neighborhood in nearby Mastic at about 8:20 a.m. Rescuers tried wrangling him and even tempted him with a lady friend named Norma Jean, as well as baiting him with some scrumptious sweet feed, but to no avail.

Suffolk's Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Chief Roy Gross then asked curiosity seekers at a location near where the bull escaped to "stand down" to reduce the people at the site as to allow rescuers to do their jobs, but the animal is still hiding in the woods.

Since his escape, Barney has become a bit of an internet sensation as readers follow him and the travails of his rescuers. His story has been extensively covered by regional, as well as national media outlets, and he has inspired a ton of memes on Facebook.

So far, Barney has been nicknamed "Long Island's Most Wanted," has been listed missing on a mock milk carton, has been featured partying at Smith Point County Park, as well driving a red convertible "somewhere in Mastic."

LION president John DiLeonardo said that rescuers are working very hard on a happy ending for "Barney," and have secured a place for him to live with 90 other bovines.

"Now we just have to find him and secure him," he told Patch. "That may be easier said than done, but it's never been easier to save animals just like him by going vegan."

A PETA spokeswoman said that each person who goes vegan saves nearly 200 animals a year from "daily suffering and a terrifying death," a spokeswoman said.

"Cows in the meat industry are often confined to cramped, filthy feedlots without protection from the elements," the news release stated. "At the slaughterhouse, workers shoot them in the head with a captive bolt gun, hang them up by one leg, and cut their throat—often while they’re still conscious."

The group's motto is “animals are not ours to eat” and it "opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview."