Fri Feb 10 2012

Urgent KFC Campaign Update
by Dan Shannon
May 9, 2003

Greetings, Activists!

Please read this ENTIRE e-mail message, as it contains important, detailed information regarding our KFC Campaign, which is NOT being called off. In fact, it’s going full speed ahead. Please continue to organize as many demonstrations as you possibly can, write letters, and so on. The pressure must continue!

As you may have heard, KFC’s president, Cheryl Bachelder, recently flew to PETA’s hometown of Norfolk, Va., for a meeting with PETA president Ingrid Newkirk and Bruce Friedrich to discuss our demands of KFC. As a result of the meeting, KFC has pledged to make several important improvements in the way chickens are treated. Here’s what KFC has pledged to do:

·       put cameras in all U.S. slaughterhouses to help discourage the sadistic abuse of chickens and to help catch and punish any employees abusing birds

·       implement humane mechanized chicken-gathering at one-fourth of all U.S. slaughterhouses by the end of next year

·       increase the amount of living space for each bird by about 30 percent

·       perhaps most importantly, give chickens in sheds mental and physical stimulation, such as cabbages, hay, or corn to peck at and play with

These are significant improvements, and we should all be proud that we have helped make a difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of animals. For full details regarding what KFC is doing, Ingrid Newkirk’s letter is now at KFCCruelty.com.

However, KFC has still not addressed several of PETA’s major demands. And now that they are starting to respond, it is crucial to continue to push for more action. At this point, KFC has NOT pledged to do any of the following:

·       kill chickens using a humane oxygen-withdrawal “gas” method (currently, many of the birds are hurt being “decrated” alive at the slaughterhouse and even after “stunning” can regain consciousness or not be knocked out fully or at all)

·       implement humane mechanized chicken-gathering at all slaughterhouses (chickens’ heart rates go through the roof when the men pick them up and slam them into the crates, and as the men work, they get tired and sloppier, resulting in more injuries and bruising to the birds)

·       stop using genetics and drugs to produce chickens who are so fat that their legs, hearts, and lungs cannot support their weight (current breeding is responsible for the breeder birds’ having their combs, spurs, toes, and beaks cut off with a hot blade and sticks put through their nostrils to stop aggressive behavior, including fighting for food, which is restricted)

·       implement all its animal welfare guidelines internationally (because more than half of the 736 million chickens KFC killed last year were not raised, killed, or eaten in the U.S.)

Because KFC continues to support such large-scale abuse, including drugging and breeding crippled animals, breaking their bones, and scalding them alive, and seems to have no plans to stop doing so, we are continuing our KFC Campaign. Our May Month of Action will go on as planned, and we need your help to be sure that it does. PETA has made some campaign concessions to KFC as a result of this meeting, but none of them affect you as activists. Please, continue to do demos, hand out leaflets, put up posters and stickers, “educate to liberate,” and do whatever else you have been doing and can think of to do to get the word out to consumers that if they are eating at KFC, they are supporting cruelty to animals. In fact, we should all take this opportunity to step up our actions. We know that KFC will make these improvements eventually (its own panel of experts agrees with PETA on these issues), but it is up to all of us and your actions to stop as much suffering as possible for these birds as soon as possible.

If you have any sort of demonstration planned, even just yourself with a poster handing out leaflets at a KFC restaurant, please be sure to alert your local newspaper and TV stations. If you have any questions about this, feel free to contact Jennifer at JenniferG@peta.org.

Please keep checking back in to KFCCruelty.com for developments on the campaign, and please stay active! We’ve already pushed KFC this far; if we keep up the pressure, we can make even more unprecedented improvements in the lives and deaths of literally billions of animals. Thank you so much for your continued effort and support. And congratulations on the victories that we’ve already won.

Sincerely,
Dan Shannon

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