“The chicken gets quite vocal when she gets excited.” – Dennis Murawska
The story of Cluck Cluck, a hen whose loud cries alerted her grateful family to a fire in their Wisconsin home on December 28, thus enabling them
to escape, has resounded around the world. Reporters love this story, and rightly so! But Cluck Cluck’s Heroism with its Happy Ending and
shower of praise also echoes the cries of tens of millions of chickens and turkeys on farms throughout the United States whose clamor upon sensing
a fire in their houses is totally ignored by their owners, who refuse to install even minimal fire protection equipment, claiming it would
cost too much. They prefer to let the birds burn alive and collect the insurance and taxpayer reimbursement from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. On Dec. 20, 2012, 25,000 turkeys burned to death on a farm in Virginia. Last May, 500,000 hens burned to death on a farm in Colorado.
Last June, 14,000 turkeys burned to death – 7,000 in North Carolina and 7,000 in Minnesota.
When we learned in July 2012 that the National Fire Protection Association, “the authority on fire, electrical, and building safety,”
had proposed an amendment requiring all newly-constructed farmed animal housing facilities to be equipped with sprinklers and smoke control
systems, and that the agribusiness lobbies had successfully joined forces to defeat the proposal, we filed our own Appeal and gave testimony at the
NFPA’s Meeting on the proposal on August 7 in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Though the agribusiness lobby won the first round, we will continue to fight for a NFPA provision mandating that fire protection equipment be
installed in all farmed animal housing facilities. Nothing shows more starkly their total lack of compassion and accountability than the refusal of
farmers and farming corporations to install basic fire protection equipment in the buildings they trap their animals in. If the alarm cries of one
single hen could be heard two floors from where the Wisconsin family lay sleeping, imagine the sound of many thousands of birds trapped in their
cells, and nobody listening as they scream, burn, and suffocate to death together.
Read more:
Wisconsin Couple Saved from Fire by Pet Chicken
The Beloved Pet Chicken Who Saved a Couple from Their Burning Home
Twenty-five Thousand Turkeys Burn to Death in Virginia Poultry House Fire
United Poultry Concerns Seeks Fire Protection for Farmed Animals
United Poultry Concerns wishes everyone a very happy and productive 2013. Thank you for your continuing support for UPC and the Birds!
Karen Davis holds a hen rescued from Little Rhody Egg Farm.
Photo by Davida G. Breier
