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SAN FRANCISCO July 17 (Reuters)
- Your tuna sandwich may not be hurting the dolphins, but is
your yogurt skunk safe?
In a new campaign, a California
animal rights group has declared that Yoplait brand yogurt containers
are leading to the agonizing deaths of skunks across the country.
"Thousands of skunks and
other wildlife are dying in yogurt containers," Camilla
Fox of the Sacramento, California-based Animal Protection Institute
said Friday.
"They jam their heads in
as they are looking for yogurt and then get trapped."
The stink over skunk-safe yogurt
follows earlier campaigns for dolphin-safe tuna, in which animal
rights activists targeted tuna fishing nets they said were responsible
for the needless deaths of dolphins.
Fox said Yoplait, with its distinctive
tapered container, is equally deadly for skunks.
"They are attracted to the
smell of the yogurt, and wedge their heads into the container,"
she said. "When they try to pull out, the rim that curves
in acts as a locking mechanism against the animal's fur.
"Because they have short
legs, they are unable to push against the container to extricate
themselves."
Fox said the skunks, locked in
a Yoplait helmet they cannot remove, are blinded and frequently
die of suffocation.
"They bump around, they
get run over by cars, and they obviously are easy prey,"
Fox said. "It is a fairly brutal death. One they don't deserve." |
Officials at General Mills Inc
, the maker of Yoplait, say they have been taking the problem
seriously enough to mount rigorous design tests in which they
stuff fake skunk heads made of foam into different prototype
containers.
Larry Sawyer, General Mills'
Director of Government Relations, was not available to comment
Friday. But he told the San Jose Mercury News the company was
trying to help.
"It is a problem,"
he said. "We're working on a solution."
Over the next several weeks,
a new, "skunk friendlier" Yoplait container with a
warning to consumers and a special ridge at the bottom to help
skunks extricate themselves will hit supermarket shelves. But
the familiar tapered design will stay because it makes the brand
recognizable, Sawyer said.
Fox and other skunk advocates
say this is not enough, and are encouraging consumers to write
to General Mills president Steve Sanger to demand a total container
revamp.
"We are trying to negotiate
with them," Fox said. "We want to talk more before
we call for a boycott."
Donna Backus, a Massachusetts
wildlife rehabilitator who was one of the first to identify the
Yoplait threat to skunks, says General Mills officials simply
do not understand how dangerous the containers can be.
"I'd like to put a huge
Yoplait container on the CEO of General Mills and set him out
loose on the streets of New York," Backus told the Mercury
News.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. |
