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Mike Royko, the well-known syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune, revised
his stance on the use of contact lenses for chickens. His original column (1/31/96),
well-meaning but misinformed, praised this proposed assault on chickens based on his
phone call with a poultry researcher claiming to hold a patent on the red plastic
lenses he designed for the commercial egg industry (which to date has
not adopted them).
In his follow-up column of Feb. 16, Royko expressed his surprise: "I have been
bombarded with letters and calls from other chicken experts and researchers who say
there is nothing humane about red contact lenses for chickens. Just the opposite, they
say. They make the already miserable life of a chicken even more
depressing.
"This came from Mary Finelli, senior researcher for the Humane Society of the
United States. 'Benign or beneficial as contact lenses for chickens may
initially seem,
this is far from the truth. Anyone who wears contact lenses can attest to the
discomfort which can result from a mere speck of dust getting under one. Today's
intensive confinement systems for chickens are notoriously dusty and rank with ammonia
and other irritating gasses. To permanently set contact lenses in the eyes of birds
who exist for 1 to 2 years under such conditions is grossly
inhumane.
'The problem is that the birds are inhumanely housed. Under natural conditions
they live peacefully together in small groups. The only true solution to the abnormal
aggression which their
mistreatment causes is to provide these sensitive animals with humane living
conditions.'
"And Karen Davis, Ph.D., president of United Poultry Concerns Inc.,
wrote:
'In 1991, I undertook to investigate the use of permanent red contact lenses in
laying hens upon receiving two written complaints from employees in the poultry unit
at a university in California. We removed four lensed hens and had them examined by a
veterinary ophthalmologist at the University of California. The hens' eyes had already
been traumatized by the non-gas permeable lenses that did not allow the eye to receive
oxygen, resulting in corneal ulcers, ruptures, microbial contamination, ocular seepage
and blindness.
'The cruel and gruesome research you reported has already cost thousands of hens
their sight and more. Adding unremovable lenses to the complicated miseries these hens
already endure at our hands, then blaming our victims for their failure to cope, does
not solve the problems that we have created for a bird endowed with excellent
full-spectrum vision who belongs outdoors ranging in the open
sunlight.'
"And others offered even more cruelty-to-chickens information. Some of it is so
gruesome, you're better off not knowing. . . . For the average chicken in this country,
life is hell. And if these experts are to be believed, red contact lenses will only
add to their miseries. . . ."
What Can I Do?
You can thank Mike Royko by writing to him at Tribune Media Services, 435 North
Michigan Avenue, Chicago IL 60611-4041. For a copy of UPC's Report on the use of red
contact lenses in laying hens, send $5 to UPC, PO Box 59367, Potomac MD 20859.
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