Kentucky Fried Cruelty Australian Anti KFC Campaign 26/3/03
Wednesday 26th March was National Anti-KFC Campaign. Animal Rights groups across Australia targeted KFC outlets with leaflets and posters informing KFC customers of the cruelty involved in �growing� hens for the Colonel�s Secret Recipe. (See picture1)
To follow People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal�s (PETA) international campaign against KFC and their parent company Yum. Animal Activism QLD has just completed an investigation of Woodlands Poultry Pty Ltd, Beerwah broiler sheds. It is not known if Woodlands supply KFC but the conditions of broiler farms appear similar in their disregard for animal welfare. Due to the short life span of hens bread for meat (6 weeks) hens are regularly de-populated and replaced with new hens. The investigation took place after a depopulation and therefore hens had not began to develop the ailments common to hens �grown� under the barbaric conditions of broiler farms. Dead hens were noted in the hatchling shed. (See picture 2)
Animal Liberation Victoria succeeded in rescuing 20 broiler chickens on January 28 after a series of undercover investigations at Fowl Folly broiler chicken factory in Parwan, Victoria. (See Picture 3). The rescue team had been at this same property five years ago and made complaints, yet nothing was done and now the farm has doubled in size to four sheds each holding 40,000 birds. FOWL FOLLY is contracted out to BAIADA POULTRY, who supply KFC amongst others.
PETA has requested improvements of KFC, yet after two years of opportunities, KFC still refuses to act. Despite its claims, KFC continues to support the worst abuses of chickens, and Yum! as a whole continues to support the worst abuses of other farmed animals. Effective public relations may ease the consciences of Yum! executives, but these animals continue to be treated in ways that would warrant prison terms for these same executives, if dogs and cats, rather than pigs and chickens, were treated so badly.
PETA asks that KFC commit to it has claimed to do�enact a comprehensive animal welfare plan that will protect animals from abuse and neglect. KFC could end PETA�s campaign tomorrow by, quite simply, agreeing to implement comprehensive farmed-animal welfare standards, including replacing the present painful and traumatic slaughter methods with gas killing, mandating automated chicken catching using well-designed, gentle machines, breeding birds for less aggression and healthier weights, and enriching the birds� barren living environments. Furthermore, cruelty to animals can be subtler than overtly violent abuse. Denying animals the opportunity to act according to their natures can be even more cruel than harming them physically, and KFC denies chickens almost every natural desire and need�from foraging to dust bathing to forming reasonable social hierarchies (pecking orders). (Bruce G. Friedrich, Director of Vegan Outreach).
PETA challenge Yum! to name one procedure or guideline that it has implemented for the humane treatment of animals on farms or during transport. Animals spend the majority of their lives on farms, yet Yum! has not done a single thing to address the treatment of animals in that area. Yum!�s supposed �guidelines� address only the slaughterhouse, and even there they are woefully inadequate. The birds are dumped from crates, often breaking limbs, and their injured legs are snapped painfully into metal shackles. Animal welfare experts are in agreement that chickens are often conscious throughout the slaughter process, resulting in the tremendous suffering of millions from being shocked by machinery, having their throats cut, and being scalded alive. Yet Yum!�s guidelines protect birds from none of these abuses, and Yum! refuses to adopt the gas killing of birds, which would eliminate them all. (Bruce G. Friedrich, Director of Vegan Outreach).
More than half of all chickens killed for KFC are consumed outside of the United States, yet KFC has not said a single thing about applying any animal welfare standards outside the U.S., despite the implication that its standards apply to all suppliers. Yum! also claims that its suppliers are being audited, but PETA ask whether a single audit has ever resulted in disciplinary action. If not, might the reason be that Yum!�s �standards� are, in fact, simply the same abusive status quo that has been in existence for years? (Bruce G. Friedrich, Director of Vegan Outreach).
Debbie Morris Animal Activism QLD http://brisbane.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=5393&group=webcast
