To learn more, UPC member Jim Dunn visited the Museum, talked to staff, took pictures, then wrote to UPC: "The exhibit gets approximately 8000 to 8200 fertile eggs a year from Phil's Egg Company in Forrest, Illinois. The chick hatchery, which was started in 1954, is in the section titled 'Food for Life.' In one corner of this section is the hatchery. From the photos you can see that the hatchery is a 2-part affair. On one end is an incubator in which, according to a sign, they place eggs scheduled to hatch that day. After the chicks hatch, and their feathers dry out, they are moved to the other end of the hatchery. The chicks peck their way out of the shells and lie there alone on the metal grate."

According to the Museum's hatchery manager, the Lincoln Park Zoo picks up the chicks once a week.

UPC wrote to the Lincoln Park Zoo: What happens to these chicks at the Zoo? The General Curator wrote back: "While some chicks received at Lincoln Park Zoo become participants in educational programs, most are utilized as nutrition for reptiles in the collection."

The Museum of Science and Industry is misleading the public about the use and fate of these birds. The "science education" consists of conditioning visitors to view chickens mechanistically by placing them on display in a mechanical setting as they struggle from their shells. The "Food For Life Baby Chick Hatchery" masks an economic arrangement between the Museum and the Zoo. The purpose of the hatchery, in addition to promoting the use of poultry & eggs, is to feed captive reptiles while programming thousands of visitors to think they're having a "real scientific experience" with baby chicks who are going to the Zoo's "farm."

Photos by Jim Dunn

• If the Museum is feeding its exhibit chicks to the reptiles at the Lincoln Park Zoo, it has an obligation to say so in writing at the exhibit site and in its fundraisers. The Museum solicits public funding. Express your concerns to:
  • Dr. James S. Kahn
    President-CEO
    Museum of Science and Industry
    57th St. & Lake Shore Drive
    Chicago, Il 60637-2093
    ph: 312-684-1414; fax 7141.
    

  • Letters Editor
    Chicago Tribune
    435 North Michigan Ave.
    Chicago, IL 60611-4041
    ph: 312-222-3232
    Letters fax: 312-222-2598
    

  • Chicago Reader
    11 East Illinois
    Chicago IL 60611-3581
    ph: 312-828-0350; fax: 9926
    

• If you are in Chicago, visit the Museum of Science and Industry and complain about the Hatchery Exhibit as well as the Museum's heavy promotion of animal products--an outmoded program dating from the 1950s. Call Chicago-area newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations and ask them to do a story. Suggest that they contact United Poultry Concerns for comments, information, and interviews.

• If you are a contributor to the Museum, stop donating and tell them you won't resume until they eliminate the Hatchery Exhibit and start promoting a healthy "Food for Life" diet based on vegetables, nuts, fruits, and grains. As The Washington Post Health Section reported in "Meatless Wonders" on February 3, 1998, "Well-planned vegetarian diets are increasingly endorsed by doctors, researchers and organizations such as the National Cancer Institute, American Heart Association, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and, most recently, the American Dietetic Association."