For the busy holiday travel season, PETA has erected a sky-high appeal on the Long Island Expressway (heading into the city), reminding drivers that mother cows form strong bonds with their babies and that families don’t wish to be separated, killed, and reduced to steak or shoes.

“A mother’s love must come before brie, burgers, and boots,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, a vegan for 50 years. “PETA encourages everyone to offer cows and their calves a little comfort and joy this holiday season and beyond by choosing vegan foods and fashions.”

Cows and other animals used for food endure extreme crowding, routine mutilations without pain relief, and a terrifying trip in all weather conditions to slaughterhouses, where they’re killed violently and painfully on blood-soaked floors. In the dairy industry, calves are torn away from their mothers, often within a day of birth, so that the milk meant to nourish them can be stolen and sold to humans. Once mother cows’ bodies wear out from repeated pregnancies, they’re sent to slaughter.

Animal agriculture—which includes the leather industry, a major part of meat and dairy profit margins—is responsible for nearly one-fifth of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. The World Bank reports that cattle ranching has caused over 80% of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest since 1970. Because of fires—many of which are deliberately set to clear land to raise cows and grow crops to feed them—hotter temperatures, and droughts, parts of the Amazon are now emitting more carbon dioxide than they can absorb.

The billboard is located on the Long Island Expressway heading into the Manhattan-bound Queens-Midtown Tunnel.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. The group offers a free vegan starter kit and recommendations for animal-friendly clothing and accessories. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.