Fwd: AFA Weekly Email 4-3-2003

[Guest guest]

This story almost made me cry...The poor, poor birds.

 

 

 

" You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake " --Jeanette Rankin

 

 

 

 

 

----Original Message Follows----

Action for Animals <afa

Undisclosed recipients: ;

AFA Weekly Email 4-3-2003

Thu, 3 Apr 2003 15:57:23 -0800 (PST)

 

 

Instead of our normal weekly email, we are asking you to read the

following story from PETA's Animal Times. Please ask yourself what you are

doing to help the most abused of all animals: chickens.

 

If you have not gone vegan yet - please do so. Going vegan is the single

best thing anyone can do to help animals, especially chickens. While it

may at first be difficult for a myriad of reasons - parents or peer

resistance, limited supply of vegan food, addiction to animal foods -

these are all easy to over come when you think about the intense suffering

and mass slaughter animals endure for eggs, dairy and meat. As a vegan of

ten years (since age 16) I can assure you that it only gets easier, and

the majority of your friends and family will go from resistance to

support, many may even follow in your footsteps when they open their eyes

to the many benefits of a vegan diet and lifestyle.

 

Thank you for everything you already do to help end animal suffering and

thank you for being a voice and an example for the animals.

 

For Liberation,

 

Dave Bemel

 

 

 

No Greater Outrage

by Robyn Wesley

 

We heard about the accident on the radio. A truck carrying chickens to

slaughter had overturned, and hundreds of yellow plastic crates containing

nearly 5,000 birds were scattered about the highway. DJs made jokes about

chickens " crossing the road. " I and other PETA staffers headed to the

scene.

 

The owner of the trucking company was demanding that the birds be loaded

back onto the truck and shipped to slaughter. We reminded law-enforcement

officials that although the law is routinely flouted, it is illegal to

transport injured animals to slaughter and that all the birds would have

to be examined. The officers agreed, and a veterinarian went about

examining the birds.

 

Some had been impaled on shards of broken crates or were bleeding where

their combs had been ripped. Intestines trailed from living birds. Many

were still in intact crates but nevertheless had broken wings and legs

from being roughly grabbed and shoved into the crates back at the farm.

Some cried out pathetic little wails that sounded exactly like infants'

cries.

 

Uninjured birds were placed back on the truck. Soon it became apparent

that examining several thousand birds would take all night, and

eventually, the truck driver got tired of waiting and left with some of

the victims. Having come so close to sparing the birds from slaughter, it

was heartbreaking to watch some of them being driven off into the

darkness.

 

We would spend the rest of the night putting the injured and dying birds

out of their misery.

 

We had to work quickly in teams to get the birds out of the crates, hold

them gently and let the humane officers inject them with sodium

pentobarbital. I can still see the goose-pimpled pink flesh of their

necks. It looked delicate, and yet the needle would resist going in, then

suddenly puncture the skin. It made me cringe every time, but the chickens

never flinched; it was nothing compared to what they'd been through.

 

Long before the accident, most of the dead chickens we pulled out of those

crates had withered away after an injury or illness had made them lame and

unable to get to food and water.

 

I'd never touched a chicken before that night even though I'd grown up in

Maryland's " chicken country " and was familiar with the barns where

chickens were raised. My sister dated a chicken farmer's son in high

school and he described walking through the barn to pick up the chickens

who'd died each day overnight. Birds don't just die unless their living

conditions are horrendous.

 

The truck carrying these birds was bound from North Carolina to a New

Jersey slaughterhouse. It was a hot, humid day, with crates stacked 10

high and many rows deep. The chickens in the outside crates were whipped

by the wind, but those in the interior must have had it so much worse. I

doubt fresh air even made it to them. They must have been suffocating from

the stench of waste covered birds around them and gasping for breath in

the unforgiving heat. All this with no water, their cramped joints aching,

and no understanding of what was happening to them.

 

We were able to end the suffering of thousands of birds that night. After

the initial shock subsided, we all went to work, almost in a trance, but

here and there, you'd hear someone scream out when they found a chicken

with grotesque deformities or injuries that happened mostly on the farm.

Toes so curled that they looked like pretzels. One chicken's toes had

gotten slammed in a crate. The ends were still plump, but the middle parts

were flattened. Oozing sores, gouged-out eyes and missing toes. Not one

looked like a normal chicken-they were all filthy and missing feathers.

 

Just after midnight, with hundreds of birds still awaiting help, we

decided we needed reinforcements and somebody went off to roust the

interns from their beds. Many of them started to cry when they arrived.

When a bird was clearly dying, Ingrid would instruct us, " Hold them while

they go, " which always caused the tears to well up.

 

At dawn, some chickens started crowing. I was struck by this, thinking,

this is the first time any of these birds have seen the sun rise, how did

they know to announce it?

 

As I opened the final crate, I wanted to remember that these birds were

individuals, not just flesh and feathers. The chicken inside stood up very

tall, stretching his legs. He was so friendly and cooperative, with

bright, golden eyes. A stately gentleman I knew for a brief moment. I

picked him up, held him close, and really looked at him. I watched his

face the whole time as he was injected; his eyes blinked, and then his

head slowly fell onto my arm.

 

We looked like zombies when we returned to the PETA office, exhausted and

numb. Our clothes were covered in feces, blood and filth; beyond saving,

they had to be thrown away.

 

I still cry at the memory of that night and all the birds who died

unnoticed and unmourned by all but the few of us who witnessed their

passing. Plutarch summed it up well: " But for the sake of some little

mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that

proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. " The

only reason these birds lived was so someone could eat their broken

bodies, and I think there is no greater outrage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

======================================

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