United Poultry Concerns
Promoting the compassionate and respectful
treatment of domestic fowl

PO Box 150 Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
(757) 678-7875 * FAX (757) 678-5070
www.upc-online.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 16, 2000 Contact: Karen Davis 757-678-7875

Carnegie Science Center Promotes Animal Abuse, Child Abuse With Proposed Chick Hatchery
Hatchery Cruel, Uncreative, Irresponsible;
Dishonest Hatchery Should NOT Be Supported

The Carnegie Science Center has been flooded with mail from animal sanctuary directors, humane educators, Pittsburgh residents, and citizens throughout the United States urging the Center not to install a perpetual chick hatchery as part of a new "Exploration Stations" program. United Poultry Concerns sent a letter to every CSC Board Member respectfully urging that the hatchery be replaced with a technology that will not propagate thousands of chicks, thereby teaching children that it is neat to propagate baby animals that conveniently disappear, out of sight, out of mind, after the "miracle of birth" is over.

The Center intends to lie to children, and to the public it solicits for funding, about the true fate of these birds that no one, sadly, is asking for--baby birds the Center will dump, week after week, at auctions and anywhere else it can get rid of them. There will, of course, be no accountability. The Center is going to lie to the public by posting photos at this shameful exhibit of "happy endings."

United Poultry Concerns has respectfully urged the Carnegie Science Center, in express-mailed letters, to replace the proposed live bird hatchery with an "exploration station" that, while being fun, also incorporates mature and compassionate values. The hatchery does not meet this standard. It is not creative, it is not compassionate, it is not about "Nature." It is an abuse of nature, because the birds are being hatched, motherless, in a piece of mechanical equipment, and dumped somewhere each week. The hatchery is an exhibition of sordid politics and dishonesty. It is a betrayal of the public which the Center solicits for funding.

The Carnegie Science Center, in doggedly going forward with this irresponsible, inhumane chick hatchery display, despite local and national public protest, based on incontrovertible arguments, is saying that it not only doesn't care about the chicks (many of whom will be born deformed and trashed alive, where the public can't see). The Center is showing that it doesn't care about children or about public trust either.

If we have any compassion in us for the innocent trust of children, or for the helpless life of these baby birds, we must tell Carnegie: "Install a computerized chicken program instead."