United Poultry Concerns president Karen Davis published the following letter in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas), Sunday, August 8, 2004, page 2E in response to the Associated Press article: "Prosecutor doesn't see chickens as tortured" (Aug. 4, 2004)
Prosecutor See should have his eyes checked if he failed to see the cruelties documented at the Pilgrim's Pride [chicken slaughter] plant [in Moorefield, West Virginia] as torture. And his comment that "that was the quickest method they had available to them to kill the birds" doesn't make sense.
Chickens are slaughtered inhumanely - that much is true. However, the inhumane treatment of the birds depicted on tape is not part of the slaughter process. Those abuses were conducted in a spirit of malice, not business.
The fact that such business stimulates gratuitous cruelty among workers does not excuse those workers any more than if they had been parents venting rage and frustration on their children.
The Pilgrim's Pride workers should pay for their crime of animal cruelty. To give a pass to perpetrators of cruelty to animals encourages child and spousal abuse - a fact well known to law enforcement agencies. Prosecutor See has a duty to perform. I hope he will do honor to his office.
President Karen Davis
United Poultry Concerns
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United Poultry Concerns, Inc.