KFC
Slaughterhouse Cruelty Update
Your
Letters and Calls Needed
In
July 2004, PETA revealed
the results of an investigation into a KFC-supplying slaughterhouse in Moorefield,
West Virginia, where workers were caught on video stomping on chickens, kicking
them, and violently slamming them against floors and walls. Workers also ripped
the animals' beaks off, twisted their heads off, spat tobacco into their eyes
and mouths, spray-painted their faces, and squeezed their bodies so hard that
the birds expelled feces—all while the chickens were still alive. Dan Rather
echoed the views of all kind people when he said on the CBS Evening News, "[T]here's
no mistaking what [the video] depicts: cruelty to animals, chickens horribly mistreated
before they’re slaughtered for a fast-food chain."
On
January 11, 2005, Ginny Conley, head of a state prosecutors organization, told
the Associated Press that criminal charges would not be filed "due to the
fact that these were chickens in a slaughterhouse." She also said that the
abuse "needs to be handled more on a regulatory end than prosecuting someone
criminally," even though there are absolutely no federal or state regulations
dealing with humane poultry slaughter and despite the fact that these sadistic
acts were clear violations of the state’s cruelty-to-animals statute.
Animal
welfare experts are in agreement that the cruelty at this KFC supplier is reprehensible.
Colorado State University professor of animal science, biomedical sciences, and
philosophy, university distinguished professor, and university bioethicist Dr.
Bernard Rollin writes, "I can unequivocally state that the behavior I saw
exemplified in [this] videotape was totally unacceptable. ... The tape showed
evidence of a work force that apparently failed to recognize that chickens are
living sentient beings capable of feeling pain and distress." Dr. Temple
Grandin, perhaps the industry’s leading farmed-animal welfare expert, writes,
"The behavior of the plant employees was atrocious," and asserts that
even though she has toured poultry facilities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia,
New Zealand, France, the Netherlands, and the U.K., the video showed "the
WORST employee behavior I have ever seen in a poultry plant." University
of Guelph professor of applied ethology and university chair in animal welfare
Dr. Ian Duncan writes, "This tape depicts scenes of the worst cruelty I have
ever witnessed against chickens. … and it is extremely hard to accept that
this is occurring in the United States of America." University of California
at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine graduate and avian veterinarian Dr. Laurie
Siperstein-Cook writes, "In NO case can the behavior of the workers be considered
a necessary or acceptable way of killing or stunning chickens."
If
dogs or cats suffered this abuse, felony charges would have been filed long ago.
Please remind officials that chickens are just as capable of experiencing pain
and suffering and that these acts are not exempt from the state cruelty-to-animals
statute.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Please contact
the prosecutor who decided not to file charges in this case and ask that she reconsider
and file felony cruelty-to-animals charges against all those responsible for the
torture of chickens at Pilgrim’s Pride in Moorefield, West Virginia. Please
write respectful letters to:
Please also contact the governor
and governor-elect of West Virginia to politely ask that they use their full authority
to ensure that a special prosecutor is appointed, as requested by the judge in
the case:
