HELP! HELP! HELP US! OH MY GOD, HELP US PUHLEEZE, no SUNLIGHT, no FORAGING!
JUST CHRONIC UTTER BOREDOM. PLEASE, RESCUE US. LET US RANGE FREE!
There is a wonderful article in a recent New York Times called "Advocates for Animals Turn Attention to Chickens." The piece, by Elizabeth Becker, focuses on the rescue of ten chickens from an egg farm in Maryland, by the DC based group "Compassion Over Killing."
Becker writes, "Members of the group court arrest by entering chicken sheds at night and filming the rows of hens crammed 10 to a cage the size of a file-drawer cabinet. They get close-ups of swollen eyes, infected skin and shattered wings entangled in cage wire." The industry is taking animal protection activism seriously:
"Earlier this year the United Egg Producers, a trade group representing 85 percent of the country's egg producers, issued revised guidelines in response to the complaints of animal welfare groups. The industry promised to increase gradually the size of the enclosed wire cages it uses, known as battery cages, by 30 to 40 percent; improve procedures for trimming chickens' beaks; and figure out how to force chickens to molt, which induces them to lay more eggs, without starving them for several days....Both animal rights activists and the industry point to Europe as the model for their moves. European animal welfare advocates in recent years have won sweeping changes, including a ban on forced molting and a gradual ban on the battery cages used in the United States."
We learn that Al Pope, head of the United Egg Producers trade association "tried to head off such sweeping changes by establishing less radical guidelines." The article provides an amusing quote from Pope, who seems to suggest that he heads up a welfare agency for human and nonhuman animals, rather than a trade association:
"We will live or die on what's best for the bird and best for the consumer."
There is a nice quote from COK's Miyun Park, who says her greatest ally
is
public opinion: "Most consumers still think eggs come from hens who
walk
around with their little chicks following in a row."
The article ends on a touching note as Miyun Park and COK's founder
Paul
Shapiro let the hens "walk on the earth for the first time."
"'Are you guys ready to touch ground?' Mr. Shapiro asked. "
You can read the full New York Times article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/04/national/04CHIC.html
Here's a link for AOLers:
<A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/04/national/04CHIC.html"Advocates
for Animals Turn Attention to Chickens</A
The page includes a sweet photo of Miyun Park holding one of the rescued
chickens.
You can learn more about Compassion Over Killing at: http://www.cok.net
and more about this egg farm investigation in particular, and see lots
of
photos, at:
http://www.cok.net/camp/inv/rb/details.php
Please help increase the attention brought to this issue by writing
a
letter to the editor regarding the need to change the way society treats
chickens, farmed animals in general, or about our whole relationship
with
those of other species. You may like to write about the pleasures of
a diet
devoid of animal products and animal suffering.
The New York Times takes letters at: letters@nytimes.com
Link: mailto:letters@nytimes.com
Always include your full name, address, and phone number when writing
a
letter to the editor.
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
www.DawnWatch.com
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal
issues in
the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media
outlets. You can learn more about it at www.DawnWatch.com. To subscribe
to
DawnWatch, email KarenDawn@DawnWatch.com and tell me you'd like to
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tag line.)
<------- GO TO THE CHICKEN
CHARITY IDEA WEBPAGE.