Ethiopian Review

Grand Haven’s Lake Michigan lighthouses are the prime location sought by an animal rights group for its anti-fishing campaign headquarters.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has applied through a federal program to take over the structures and lighted catwalk that are frequently photographed for dramatic sunsets, thick winter ice and crashing waves.

The area gets nearly 2 million annual visitors, including anglers casting lines into the Grand River channel and heading out in boats for Great Lakes salmon.

“We want to renovate the Grand Haven lights as a memorial to the billions of fish killed annually by sport fishermen, as well as for their flesh (commercial fishing industry),” said Lindsey Rajt, manager of PETA’s campaigns department. “We also want to make it a fun and educational place.”

Tentative PETA plans call for an education center, where visitors would learn about fish. There also would be a cafe, offering vegetarian fare including “faux fish.”

Signs would likely announce the lighthouse as home of PETA’s Fish Empathy Center.

Locals are dumbfounded by the proposal.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me at all,” Capt. Dan Tebo said Tuesday, a mile offshore in his Grand Haven-based fishing charter boat the D’Ann Marie. “We fish here for the fish. That’s what God gave them to us for.”

Nonprofit groups have been encouraged to apply for ownership of lighthouses nationwide to help the government shed the cost of preservation.

PETA also has applied to take over three more lighthouses: Robbins Reef off Bayonne, N.J., Punta Tuna in Puerto Rico and Kewaunee, Wis.

Authorities in Grand Haven don’t believe the National Park Service will allow the politicization of a public property.

“I don’t think PETA is who Washington had in mind,” said Marci Cisneros of the Grand Haven area convention bureau.

By Doug Guthrie | detnews