From the Clippings Department

The New York Times Sunday, September 25, 1994 Section 3 Business

To the Editor:
Chickens are not electrically stunned during the slaughter process but are immobilized with a very mild yet very painful electric current. Stunning is deemed by the poultry industry to be incompatible with commercial considerations, so countless millions of birds go through the slaughter process fully conscious.

The cruelty of the poultry slaughter process has increased in recent years because younger and heavier birds with extremely fragile capillaries are now being processed, resulting in a greater susceptibility to hemorrhage under an electrical current. Consequently, poultry companies are lowering the electricity even more than before.

Partly because poultry is not covered by the Federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, billions of birds endure horrendous pain in being subjected to the technology that is used to fast-track their bodies to consumers' plates.

No matter what the poultry industry says, chicken is not a healthy or a happy choice. The birds go to slaughter loaded with pathogens. They are subjected to cruelty from the hatchery to the slaughterhouse. Their flesh tells a tale that consumers understandably respond to by saying, "Oh, please. Don't tell me about it."

KAREN DAVIS
Potomac, Md., Aug. 31
The writer is president of United Poultry Concerns Inc., a nonprofit information organization.

The VivaVine newsletter of The VivaVegie Society, Sept/Oct 1994

To the Editor:
Our vigil at Townsends chicken slaughter plant in Millsboro, DE in late April went very well. There were at least 25 people from several states and we got extensive coverage. I did several preliminary radio interviews, and got letters in the newspapers. It was proclaimed by the DE media that this was the first "chicken" protest ever in Delaware--a major poultry producing state, unused to attention in this area. You should have seen the chickens being trucked past fancy shops on the Main street with their sad, defeated little faces and hopeless eyes. It's the saddest thing in the world.

KAREN DAVIS, United Poultry Concerns
THE VIVAVEGIE SOCIETY takes vegetarian advocacy to the streets.
To join contact The VivaVegie Society, Prince St. Station, PO Box 294, NYC 10012 (212) 966-2060.