View this article and comment online at: Corvallis Gazette Times. Regarding the articles “Climate study scorches beef,” July 23, and “Beef pollutes more than pork, poultry, study says,” July 21: Scientists are remiss to suggest that the answer to cattle pollution is to eat more poultry. In addition to the cruelty of poultry production, and contamination of poultry products with salmonella, campylobacter, and E. coli bacteria, poultry production is a major cause of environmental pollution.

UPC photo of Maryland chicken shed dumping ground by Garett Seivold www.upc-online.org/environment

Poultry litter — the mixture of fecal droppings, antibiotic residues, heavy metals, decaying carcasses, larvae, cysts and sawdust the birds are bedded in – contains harmful levels of nitrogen, phosphorous and other ingredients that burn plant cells and poison the water.

Poultry waste spawns excess algae that consume aquatic nutrients and block sunlight needed by underwater grasses.

Factory poultry manure exposes wildlife to diseases such as blackhead disease, which sickens and kills wild birds who eat the worms that carry this disease from chicken manure in the soil.

Areas of natural beauty in the southeastern United States have been turned into smelly, fly-infested places by the poultry industry.

Wildlife habitat is destroyed to erect ugly new chicken sheds, slaughter plants, and trailer camps for slaughter plant workers.

With dwindling land to absorb the volume of poultry manure and slaughterhouse refuse in the United States, the industry seeks land elsewhere. This expansion is needless.

Plant proteins are far more sustainable for us to eat than poultry, including the cropland that is poisoned with pesticides to feed the unhealthy birds confined in filthy, sunless sheds.

Karen Davis, President
United Poultry Concerns
Machipongo, Virginia