| Below is the Letter Sent By United Poultry Concerns President
Dr. Karen Davis to San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie M. Dumanis
Urging Prosecution of the Ward Egg Ranch for Throwing Thousands of
Live Hens Into Wood-Chipping Machines
Bonnie M. Dumanis
San Diego County District Attorney
330 West Broadway, Suite 1300
San Diego, CA 92101
Dear Ms. Dumanis:
United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization with over 15,000
members that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment
of domestic fowl. We are informed that San Diego County is investigating
an episode at two Ward Egg Ranch farms in which employees reportedly
threw approximately 30,000 hens into wood-chipping machinery, according
to the San Diego Union-Tribune (2/22). We urge you to prosecute
Ward Egg Ranch for this act of extreme cruelty to animals.
I respectfully draw your attention to the fact that dumping chickens
into wood-chipping machinery cannot be defended as “standard
agricultural practice,” nor is this method of killing included
as an acceptable method of animal disposal in the 2000 Report of
the AVMA Panel on Euthanasia. The AVMA Report states that the term
euthanasia means a “good death,” one that occurs “with
minimal pain and distress” (p. 672). The Report states that
“When animals must be euthanized, either as individuals or
in larger groups, moral and ethical concerns dictate that humane
practices be observed” (p. 674).
Humane practices were not observed in the Ward Egg Ranch episode,
and the hens did not experience a “good” or “painless”
death. Rather, they endured a monstrous death of slow torture because
workers reportedly were tired of breaking their necks. Whatever
the reason it is no excuse. No one would dare to suggest that throwing
a dog, cat, parrot, or human being into a wood-chipping machine
was “humane” or “painless.”
This is not to suggest that other methods normally used by the
poultry industry to dispose of unwanted birds are humane (i.e. gassing.
suffocation, and cervical dislocation). Rather, it is to observe
that throwing live three- to- four- pound hens into wood-chipping
machinery does not even have the justification of “standard
agricultural practice” or the approval of the American Veterinary
Medical Association.
We therefore urge you, please, to take this crime seriously and
to prosecute Ward Egg Ranch. Society is growing increasingly aware
and intolerant of the “anything goes” approach to the
treatment of birds and other animals in production agriculture.
The fact that these animals are in agricultural production systems
does not justify our moral and legal abandonment of them. On the
contrary, it increases our obligation to protect them.
I speak not only for myself and my organization but for a large
and growing public in urging you to prosecute this case. As San
Diego County Animal Services Lt. Mary Kay Gagliardo told the North
County Times (2/28): “It’s clearly animal cruelty.”
I will be happy to send you scientific documentation regarding
the capacity of chickens to experience, pain, suffering, fear, and
distress the same as mammals. There is an ample body of evidence
regarding the neurophysiological sensitivities and cognitive complexity
of chickens.
Thank you very much for your attention to this matter, Ms. Dumanis.
I can be reached at 757-678-7875 if you have questions or need additional
information. I look forward to hearing from you and to helping you
however I can be of service to you in your prosecution of this case
of indefensible cruelty to thousands of helpless birds.
Sincerely,
Karen Davis, PhD
President
United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that promotes
the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. http://www.upc-online.org
United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
757-678-7875
FAX: 757-678-5070
www.upc-online.org
(Battery Hens: Egg industry stalked by pressure to give its birds more room )
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