This year, the final and largest night of the Kaporos week landed on Saturday evening September 23rd, culminating 6 days of cruel and unnecessary use of chickens in the Kaporos ceremony that we see in the streets of New York City. Cases of Avian Influenza (H5N1) had been reported in Brooklyn just a few weeks prior, but of course we did not see any representatives from the USDA at any site. The Week of Action was field directed by AECK Co-Founder Rina Deych and NYC Director Jill Carnegie with the assistance of volunteer marshals and strategy partners.

Through the week 15-30 activists were highly visible administering care to the crated 5-week-old chickens left stacked in public spaces: activists provided watermelon, water, and pressed for the surrender of chickens found to have broken bones or significant injuries or illness. Practitioners of Kaporos could see that the baby animals not only require and are deserving of this baseline care, but that they are denied the fundamental needs of food and water by Kaporos site managers and we were able to negotiate the surrender of sick birds who had been discarded with the dead.

We had maintained a good relationship with members of the NYPD in Community Affairs for one precinct, Officers Melendez and Deboise. This year a Lieutenant joined them as well as a newly-instated Commanding Officer (not on-site) who severely stalled our efforts to provide necessary care. When it became clear that the Lieutenant and C.O. were not going to enforce animal cruelty laws, the activists staged a sit-in at the crates in the street. After over two hours, our rescue team was able to take three birds and administer emergency care. Despite his obstructive methods, the Lieutenant told organizers that he had never seen, “such a focused and organized group of nonviolent activists” in his career and commended the dedication of all involved.

On Thursday the 21st, we took on a new location because the first Kaporos event with chickens on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in over a decade was to take place. The set-up was extremely small and contained to the back of a small van. The practitioners at this location were a mix of Jewish folks, many of them more progressive and more receptive to the efforts of our outreach team. Our visiting sanctuary partner from Oregon, Hadassah of Tikkun Olam Farm Sanctuary, was able to connect with the Rabbi on location and secured the surrender of several birds.

On the final night of Kaporos week, we employed new tactics and created a visual impact that could not be ignored by practitioners. Groups of activists were stationed around the infamous massive Crown Heights Kaporos on President Street holding safe-candles and television screens (thanks to activist Rachel Levy Ejsmont) airing realities paying practitioners don’t usually see. Theme 1 was the medical care that the rescued Kaporos survivors required due to their awful treatment, Official Rescue Team administering medications and wrapping broken bones, and including a caption in Hebrew that roughly translated to “animals rescued from your community.” Theme 2 showed the thousands and thousands of dead birds discarded by Kaporos site managers in garbage bags and being loaded into sanitation trucks to prove that they are not donated to the “poor” as so many Kaporos organizers have claimed. The Hebrew captions for this compilation included the religious mandate declaring “no waste” and also a saying widely embraced by Jewish people that roughly translates to, “A mitzvah (good deed) cannot come from sin.” While activists held the television screens, other groups went to the transport trucks to provide a last meal and drink of water to the chickens waiting in the crates. And we had a massive mobile billboard parked on President Street playing our video, literally alongside the line every practitioner waited on to buy their tickets.

The video was edited to resemble the promotional flyers and literature distributed within the Chabad community of Crown. Activists reported that many people in the community seemed impacted by the videos and were then more receptive to conversations. The organizers at this location were enraged by this tactic, but could do nothing to initiate removal of the vehicle/billboard nor the television screens because there was no amplified sound from our devices and there was no permit for their “block party” that would be required to prevent us from parking on the residential street.

The Rescues

Our Official Rescue Team, coordinated by Paola Gavino and Michael Dolling and overseen by Director Jill Carnegie, has continued its incredible dedication to conducting the largest annual animal liberation in the United States with a team of volunteers who have been doing this work for years. We erected a temporary triage hospital which was stocked under the oversight of our partner Tamerlaine Farm Sanctuary and their veterinary partners, coordinated multiple foster locations to quarantine separated flocks of survivors (as per avian flu biosecurity protocols), recruited a team of short- and long-distance transport drivers, and secured permanent homes for over 300 birds through our national network of sanctuaries and private homes.

Between the first “delivery night” of birds to Kaporos sites and Thursday the 21st, the Official Rescue Team rescued well over 200 survivors and aided activists in the surrender of over a dozen more. Our carers oversaw the largest number of complex injuries that we have ever experienced: 13 compound wing fractures, three broken legs, a broken beak, six chickens with “splay legs,” two deep wounds requiring stitches, multiple toes broken requiring minor interventions and respiratory illnesses and other injuries that were handled 100% internally by our qualified team of carers.

Cases of H5N1 Avian Influenza had been reported on Thursday the 21st at a slaughterhouse in Union City, NJ. Our fosters were at full capacity, and we had planned to send our first transports on Friday evening to make space for more survivors. Our initial safety protocols that had included 5-day quarantine plus testing had to be abandoned because the supplier of the affected slaughterhouse is also a known supplier to several Kaporos sites and we had good reason to believe that birds who had been newly delivered could be infected as well. Heartbreakingly, we had to cease rescues after grueling assessment and discussion with several experts working with us, based on the best information we had. The Official Rescue Team had no option but to extend the quarantine of the survivors we had in foster to the maximum recommended 21 days. As a rescue effort, we could not be responsible for introducing a single bird positive for the virus into a sanctuary population. A few individual birds managed to come under our care after the pause on intake was instituted, but numerous activists opened their homes to foster those nine separate birds under the guidance of the Official Rescue Team!

Even with the unprecedented obstacle of H5N1, we rescued over 280 survivors. As of this writing, nearing the end of their quarantine, we are thrilled to report not one case of H5N1. The birds are thriving and we know they are set up for success at their forever homes. The transports start the weekend of October 7th and will continue through the middle of the month, and your support is still needed! Please do consider making a donation to support the rescue, treatment, foster, and transportation of these survivors to their homes.

The total financials for the 2023 Kaporos rescues are:

Triage+Foster expenses …………	$7,434.18
Medical expenses ……………………	$16,265.28
Sanctuary Support ……………………	$2,608.01
Transport Expenses …………………	$5,865.53
Total Expenses ………………………	$32,173.00
Total Raised ………………………………	$30,319.97
2022 surplus ………………………………	$3,047.23
2021 surplus ………………………………	$12,000.00

We also incurred $1,659.15 in other expenses for 25 large custom umbrellas, large truck rental with video screens, one 32” TV screen and harness to supplement the 3 borrowed screens, and electric safe candles.

Thank you for your continuing support!