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One related PETA post on X has been viewed over 18 million times.
Last year, PETA filed a complaint in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to shut down the Maine Lobster Festival, aka “a municipally-endorsed spectacle of animal suffering,” according to the animal rights organization.
This year, the organization is turning to a provocative protest to draw attention to its cause.
In the latest installment of its years-long feud with the Rockland festival, PETA has sent a nearly nude woman painted like a lobster to the five-day event this week to “force people to see the victim behind the tradition.”
One PETA post on X of the protest has been reposted almost 4,000 times and been viewed more than 18 million times.
Other posts have captured attendees’ varied reactions, including one video that shows an apparent festival worker attempting to escort the woman out of an area.
The organization also shared a video of a flipbook where a lobster roll transforms back into a crustacean — and then is boiled alive.
In response to PETA’s lawsuit last year, festival organizers told the Portland Press Herald that “the Maine Lobster Festival has celebrated Maine’s iconic lobster industry for 78 years using traditional, lawful, and widely accepted cooking methods.”
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