Machipongo, VA - When WOIO-TV, Channel 19 in Cleveland, Ohio announced on April 28th that West Side Poultry was being shut down for putrid filth and other health code violations, United Poultry Concerns asked the City of Cleveland to allow us to place the remaining birds in permanent sanctuaries and homes. Today our goal was reached when the last 141 chickens were removed from their squalid cages by loving hands at 9 a.m. and taken away.

On May 3rd, United Poultry Concerns representative Mary-Kate Grover of Burke, Virginia was joined by a Cleveland area resident in liberating the first group of birds and all the rabbits from the slaughterhouse behind the West Side Market: 27 ducks, 4 rabbits, 41 chickens, and 1 guinea fowl left under the supervision of the Cleveland Department of Health. Forty chickens, including a hen with a missing leg and eleven roosters, arrived at United Poultry Concerns' chicken sanctuary in Virginia last night. Grover and her daughter Bryony adopted the guinea fowl they named Betty and a baby chicken they named Ginger.

This morning United Poultry Concerns rescuers Franklin Wade, Liqin Cao, and Mike Radzvilowicz arrived from Maryland and Connecticut to complete our removal of the rest of the birds. The directors of Oohmahnee Farm took many of the birds back to their sanctuary in Pennsylvania. Radzvilowicz took forty-six chickens to Connecticut, and Medina, Ohio resident Donna Robb adopted several hens.

Today's action was part of a campaign United Poultry Concerns launched in January to investigate and close down West Side Poultry after Eastlake resident Beverly Whelan notified UPC's office of the horrible filth and cruelty of the place. "I think even the people at the slaughterhouse were affected by seeing our compassion and concern for these birds and how glad they obviously were to be rescued," said UPC web site administrator Franklin Wade today in Cleveland. "This just has to make a difference in people's feelings and understanding."

United Poultry Concerns is a national nonprofit animal advocacy organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. For more information visit our web site at www.upc-online.org.