PETA wants "Ye Olde Clever Cocks" instead.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to the oldest bar in Britain on Monday demanding that it change its historic name because “Ye Olde Fighting Cocks” is offensive to chickens.

PETA director Mimi Bekhechi said the name should be changed to “Ye Olde Clever Cocks” because that would “celebrate chickens as the intelligent, sensitive and social animals they are,” according to an article in the Mirror.


The pub is Britain’s oldest, according to Guinness World Records, and has had the name since 1872.

According to PETA, however, history just doesn’t matter when it comes to something this serious.

“We understand that the pub has long been called Ye Olde Fighting Cocks and that there may be some resistance to making a name change, but just as many pubs with names tied to slavery changed their names to match modern sensibilities, so it’s high time for The Cocks to change,” the group’s special-projects manager Dawn Carr said in a letter, according to the Herts Advertiser.


(Yes — “slavery.”)

Carr added that the name change would “encourage people to rethink the way that we treat chickens and grant these birds the respect and kindness that they deserve.”

#related#Despite all of these super-compelling arguments, however, the local newspaper St Albans & Harpenden Review is reporting that the pub has no plans to change its name.


“We have a responsibility to preserve the history of this building,” landlord Christo Tofalli said. “We celebrate the fact that cock fighting was banned in the 1800s, but we won’t consider changing our name.”

“We are animal lovers here and are one of the few pubs left that welcomes dogs,” he continued. “And we usually support animal welfare organizations and a lot of the great work they do.”

— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.