City Council Needs to Kill the PETA Sheep Fiasco

SAN ANGELO, TX — The City of San Angelo is embroiled in controversy following its decision to allow a provocative artwork commissioned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to be displayed inside the City Hall Annex. The artwork, titled "E(n)d Shearin," depicts a sheep adorned with messages condemning the wool industry, aiming to challenge the city's historical ties as a hub for wool and mohair production. That is, the PETA strategy is to shame San Angeloans for its hertitage everytime one of us pays our water bill even though not many of us are remotely connected to the wool and mohair industry today.

From photographs and a description provided by PETA, the featured sheep has a painting holding signs with messages like “I’m Not Your Socks!” and “Where Is Your Empathy?” It even condemns wearing wool sweaters. The photograph is heavily photoshopped so it is not clear if it actually exists. But still.

According to PETA, the organization “secured” its placement through lawfare. That’s not exactly how all of this happened, so let me fill in the blanks for you.

The City of San Angelo Parks Department coordinated the placement with the City.

The San Angelo City Council voted to approve the display of PETA's controversial sheep statue, “E(n)d Shearin,” following a debate over First Amendment rights and the city's historical ties to the wool industry back in October 2023. This was after the Public Art Commission's rejection of their application. This set into motion putting the sheep’s placement upon the shoulders of Carl White, the City’s Parks Director.

White said Saturday that the agreement is to place the sheep inside the Annex on July 1 but he has not heard from the organization to coordinate. The application to place the sheep was reported in December to be a woman named Nanci Cox who back then White had not been able to contact via her phone number with a Virginia area code.

Downtown San Angelo, Inc. manages the sheep statue program. Back in 2023, then-Director Del Velasquez said his non-profit organization would refuse to sell a sheep to any organization wanting to turn the sheepscape venture into a political demonstration. Since then, Velasquez has retired and Monica Ramos now heads DTSA.

Ramos said this morning that she is not aware of any attempt by PETA to purchase a sheep from her organization. Although, she said, if an individual wanted to buy a $1,980 fiberglass sheep to paint, the purchase may have happened.

“We just don’t know for what use of the sheep is if an individual buys one. Almost all of our sales of the sheep go to businesses and have business names in our records, though,” she said.

Ramos said she heard that a blank sheep was sold at an estate sale recently and she has one purchase in her records that was in the name of an individual, not a business or organization. Ramos also said that PETA could possibly purchase a sheep from DTSA’s fiberglass sheep supplier.

Back in December, White said the only representative from PETA he had talked to was in San Francisco.

There is a difference between evocative and provocative speech. Although both kinds of speech fall under the first amendment, the Constitution does not demand that taxpayers spend money on the upkeep and care for PETA’s monument denouncing us. No one at the City and none of your elected officials pushed back at all on this demand that a bunch of San Francisco liberal malcontents use our heritage to shame their community. Shame on our city council for allowing this travesty.