DawnWatch alert: 1/2/09 pro-chicken story on ABC!

January 5, 2009

Hey everyone,If you don't get DawnWatch alerts notifying you of animal-related media stories, I recommend you sign up at www.DanWatch.com!

Check out Karen Dawn's writeup re: this local story on SF's ABC station, and note the contact info at the bottom so you can write a quick note of thanks to let the station know you appreciate this story.

Thanks!NoraPeople who have been receiving DawnWatch over the years have seen many a wonderful animal story come from reporter Dan Noyes at San Francisco's ABC-7. How nice to learn that he is not the only one at the station looking at those issues! As Dan anchors the news show on Friday, reporter Dan Ashley brings us a report, written and produced by Ken Miguel, about " Urban Chickens. " It tells us about people who choose to raise hens in their backyards instead of heading to supermarkets to get their eggs.

The piece begins as a lighthearted fluffy piece showing the joy of having chickens. Such pieces always worry me slightly as they tacitly suggest that this is the cruelty free alternative to factory farming; unfortunately it isn't entirely cruelty free as truly bad things happen to the male offspring of the hens that are bred for eggs. Yet the hens themselves seem to do well in the backyard, and this system is incomparably kinder than most as it avoids keeping any animal in a battery cage for years. Moreover the story presented the hens as animals as opposed to egg-laying objects. We are told that those who have chickens say they make great pets, and we see a young girl smiling gleefully as she holds and gently pets a contented looking chicken.

Most importantly, while the story could have just been a fun piece about " Urban Chickens, " the ABC-7 team chose to include some shocking video of factory farming and commercial slaughter. We are taken inside a hellish looking battery-cage egg-laying hen shed. We are also shown video, from the recent Chino slaughterhouse undercover investigation, of an injured dairy cow being shoved along the ground with a forklift towards slaughter.

The reporter tells us, " Images taken by many animal activists expose large-scale factory farms and the mistreatment of animals. The videos have led some people to be more concerned about where their food comes from. "

Susan Anderson, who is one of the people raising backyard hens, says, " I was little worried about where our food was coming from, I wanted to know... I think that bit where they were pushing the cows over with the bulldozer just totally got me. "

The piece therefore used warm backyard animal images as it invited people to watch, then packed an unexpected strong punch against factory farming and the commercial treatment of animals raised for food. You'll find it on line at http://tinyurl.com/8vqb7t

Please thank ABC-7. You can comment at the bottom of the web page and have your comment widely read by other viewers. And please send an appreciative comment directly to the news team at http://tinyurl.com/4ca4b7

Choose the first option from the pull-down menu to send your comment to ABC-7 News. Happy New Year!Yours and the animals',Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)

-- " The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. " -Gandhiwww.chooseveg.com Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

-The Lorax by Dr. Seuss