On May 15, 2012, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals announced a $151,100 grant to Frank Reese, owner of the Good Shepherd Poultry
Ranch, in Lindsborg, Kansas. A company that produces 72,000 chicken eggs and 30,000 turkey eggs per season will now “be able to increase this amount
to 600,000 chicken eggs and 100,000 turkey eggs per season,” said ASPCA spokesperson Bret Hopman, who calls Good Shepherd “the market leader in
the sale of chicken and turkey products that come from birds raised entirely outside of the factory farm industry.”
ASPCA’s claim that Good Shepherd is outside the factory farm industry is false. As UPC president Karen Davis explained in the June 2012 edition of
ANIMAL PEOPLE (www.animalpeoplenews.org): “A commercial animal production operation is not an alternative to factory farming, but an
extension of it. In this instance, chickens and turkeys are being mass-produced in mechanical hatchery incubators, raised motherless for human consumption
by the thousands, and slaughtered, i.e., factory farmed. In addition to cruelty and commodification of animals being falsely represented as
‘humane,’ ‘compassionate,’ ‘anti-factory farming,’ etcetera, is that these relatively smaller farms seek to grow and
expand. Regardless of what size they are, they do not reduce the amount of resources needed to raise and slaughter animals.
“It is unethical,” says Davis, “for an ‘animal welfare’ organization to suggest to the public that millions and billions of
people can continue to eat the same number of animals, as long as these animals are raised ‘humanely’ on non-factory farms. Humans will never
set aside hundreds of millions or billions of acres of land to accommodate billions of animals living ‘free range,’ yet this is the false
prospect being offered to a public that wants to believe that incompatible desires and realities can be reconciled.”
STICK UP FOR CHICKENS & TURKEYS!
Tell the ASPCA you are shocked to learn that an organization that’s supposed to protect animals from cruelty is using charitable donations to fund
and promote a poultry slaughter operation. (Note that while the ASPCA supports slaughtering and eating animals, it does nothing to encourage vegetarianism,
which it immorally dismisses as a merely “personal and private determination.”) If you are an ASPCA donor, please explain that you cannot
support an animal charity that funnels donations to finance a poultry company. Be prepared for a response designed to “correct” your
misunderstanding and pull at your heart (purse) strings. Beware.
Ed Sayres, President & CEO
ASPCA
424 E. 92nd Street
New York, NY 10128-6804
General phone number: 212-876-7700
Public inquiries: 888-666-2279 or
publicinformation@aspca.org
ASPCA’s farm animal welfare campaign director:
Suzanne McMillan, 212-876-7700 /
suzanne.mcmillan@aspca.org
ASPCA spokesperson:
Bret Hopman, 646-291-4574 / suzanne.mcmillan@aspca.org
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“The public comes to feel that the use of animals for food is in some way acceptable, since even the animal welfare people say so. This cannot help
but make it much more difficult to eliminate the practice in the future. Far better to follow the strategy of union activists, who demand 20 percent in the
hope of receiving at least 10 percent.” – Harriet Schleifer, “Images of Death and Life,” 1985.
