Less Suffering in Slaughterhouses Needs Welfare Pressure
Photo By: L. Parascandola
Trade magazine PoultryUSA's April cover article, "Future of Gas Stunning," starts out: "Recent activity by welfare advocacy groups United Poultry Concerns and PETA has resulted in renewed interest in alternatives to electrical stunning in the U.S. poultry industry." Inaccurately the article says that the Poultry Inspection Regulations of 1984 require that chickens "be rendered insensible to pain prior to slaughter." In fact, the regulations state only that "Poultry shall be slaughtered in accordance with good commercial practices in a manner that will result in thorough bleeding of the carcasses and assure that breathing has stopped prior to scalding."
Birds are excluded from the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act and tortured with paralytic electric shocks every day in the slaughterhouses. In addition, millions of chickens are scalded alive in the tanks after their throats are cut. Former Tyson chicken slaughterhouse worker Virgil Butler testified that in the tanks the chickens "flop, scream, kick, and their eyeballs pop out of their heads."
While claiming that an argon/nitrogen-based stun/kill system would cost more than the electric shock system now in use, the article concludes that "gas stunning might be mandated due to pressure generated by activist and consumer groups" who influence restaurant chains, industry trade groups, and legislators.
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Be Vegan and:
Urge your Senators and House Representative to sponsor legislation to include poultry under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. To learn your Members of Congress call the Capital Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Or visit www.senate.gov or www.house.gov. To learn more, order Poultry Slaughter: The Need for Legislation from UPC. Donations to cover costs are appreciated.
Urge the National Chicken Council (U.S. industry trade group), KFC and McDonald's to pressure poultry producer/suppliers like Tyson, Perdue, and Pilgrim's Pride to switch to the argon/nitrogen-based Controlled Atmosphere Stunning technology recommended by poultry scientists to reduce the suffering of billions of birds significantly in the slaughter plants each year.
George Watts, CEO
National Chicken Council
1015 15th St. NW, Suite 930
Washington DC 20005
Phone: 202-296-2622; Fax: 202-293-4005
Email: Gwatts@ChickenUSA.orgJames A Skinner, CEO
McDonald's Corporation
McDonald's Plaza
Oak Brook, IL 60523
Phone: 630-623-3000; Fax: 630-623-5004
David Novak, CEO
KFC-Yum! Brands
1441 Gardiner Lane
Louisville, KY 40213
Phone: 502-874-8300; fax: 502-874-8291
Hotline: 800-225-5532(For global KFC heads/ board of directors/ contact information, visit www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com/addresses.asp.)