United Poultry Concerns’ Letter to New York State Education Department, September 20, 2008

September 20, 2008

Dr. Ann Crotty
Associate in Science Education
Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Instructional Technology
New York State Department of Education
89 Washington Avenue, Room 320EB
Albany, NY 12234
(via email 9/22/08 to acrotty@mail.nysed.gov)

Re: Canandaigua Academy Chicken Slaughter Project

Dear Dr. Crotty:

I am writing to you about an ecology class activity at Canandaigua Academy known as the “chicken project.” The project entails airmailing chicks to the school from a Midwestern hatchery to be raised by students who then slaughter and barbecue them, as lessons in “where food comes from” and “the reality of life and death.”

Since February, our office has urged the Canandaigua City School District to eliminate the slaughter project from the curriculum as a gratuitous form of instruction that, if deemed “necessary” and within the scope of the curriculum, could be taught by showing videos of commercial slaughter and/or by visiting a slaughter plant. We urged that if high school students were going to slaughter chickens as a class exercise in a tax-funded educational institution, then the entire slaughter operation should be audio-videotaped for public scrutiny.

It is our understanding that under Education Law Section 809 – Humane Treatment of Live Vertebrate Animals – this project may be illegal. We hope so. The slaughter is not being taught as vocational education or for taking a state or national advanced placement examination. It has been repeatedly described by school district administrators in the media as an elective designed to teach students about “life and death” and “where food comes from.”

In addition to the project’s legality, we have inquired, unsuccessfully, as to how exactly the students killed the twenty-one birds they slaughtered in December 2007 – e.g., by decapitation? Severance of the jugular veins and/or the carotid arteries followed by bleedout? One student commented in the Daily Messenger on September 12, 2008, that “only 10 minutes of a 50+Hour class is devoted to the actual killing of the birds.”

This student comment, and the dismissive context of thought in which it appeared, adds weight to the question of what these students even know about the neurophysiology of chickens, location of pain receptors and other relevant information, let alone what they are learning about empathy and sensitivity towards sentient animals. Repeated assertions of “humane” handling and slaughter of the chickens have substituted for information.

We earnestly hope that your investigation into this project will result in a determination that it is illegal under Section 809 - the Humane Treatment of Live Vertebrate Animals.

Thank you very much for your very kind attention. I look forward to hearing from you, and I will be more than glad to supply additional information, as well as meeting with you in your office, upon your request.

Sincerely,

Karen Davis, PhD, President
United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405
(757) 678-7875. Karen@upc-online.org

Enclosed copy: Letter to School Superintendent Donald Raw, Jr.

United Poultry Concerns is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl.
www.upc-online.org. www.upc-online.org/classroom/canandaigua.html.