Sad about swans? Think about chickens

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/sad-swans-chickens-article-1.1610298#ixzz2t6Rc3w7f DAILY NEWS Opinion Sad about swans? Think about chickens Countless are slaughtered inhumanely every year BY BRUCE FRIEDRICH / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, February 12, 2014, 4:30 AM VASILY FEDOSENKO/REUTERS New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation is currently taking public comments on its proposal to kill 2,200 mute swans by 2025. As you can imagine, there has been fierce opposition from many who enjoy seeing the beautiful animals in New York’s parks. Wildlife experts rightly note that the state’s purported concerns about the swans being an invasive species are overblown — and that even if there are problems with the birds, the solution need not involve mass slaughter. Which brings us to a topic that is the subject of substantially less public scrutiny, despite government oversight: cruelty to birds — 4 million times as many birds, in fact. First, some background: In 1958, Congress passed the Humane Slaughter Act, to require animal welfare improvements in our nation’s slaughterhouses. But in enforcing the law, the USDA chooses to exempt many animals — including fish, rabbits and birds, even though birds represent more than 8.8 billion of the 9 billion animals slaughtered annually in the United States. That’s right: The agency charged with enforcing the Humane Slaughter Act refuses to apply it to more than 98% of slaughtered animals. Because the USDA refuses to protect them, most birds in slaughterhouses are subjected to abuses that would warrant cruelty convictions under federal law if cows or pigs were the victims. You really have to see poultry slaughter to believe it, but as just one example, USDA records indicate that almost a million chickens are boiled alive every year when they miss the neck-slicer and go, fully conscious, into the water bath that is used for feather removal. Although no plant has yet gotten in trouble for boiling birds alive, the USDA has repeatedly recognized its own obligation to stop this horrible cruelty, because the abuse of birds leads to adulterated meat, in violation of the Poultry Products Inspection Act. In 2005, it published a notice in the Federal Register proclaiming that bird welfare is a “high priority” for its inspectors and detailing multiple ways in which ill treatment causes adulteration. The government is legally obligated to ensure that cruelty-based adulteration is prevented, just like it works to ensure that other forms of adulteration are addressed. But, almost a decade after proclaiming its commitment to bird welfare, it has not produced a single regulation focused on that aim. That said, the USDA does encourage its inspectors to look out for abuse. For example, in a 2009 directive, the agency asks inspectors to observe whether, for example, employees are “breaking the legs of birds to hold the birds in the shackle” or “driving over live birds with equipment or trucks,” and also whether birds are “frozen inside the cages or frozen to the cages themselves.” Sadly, though, it does not give inspectors power to stop these abuses, nor has it codified such abuses as explicit violations of law. The USDA’s failure to create regulatory humane requirements has led, predictably, to a lack of concern among inspectors. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, my organization received complete poultry inspection records for an 18-month period. We found that inspectors at more than half of plants were doing nothing at all on the issue. That’s why we have joined with the Animal Welfare Institute to file a legal petition with the USDA, calling on the agency to fulfill its statutory mandate by creating humane regulations for poultry slaughter, as required by the Poultry Products Inspection Act. The DEC’s plans to kill 2,200 mute swans is worthy of our concern, but let’s not exert our outrage only on behalf of the birds we see in parks; let’s also take a stand against horrid mistreatment of the birds who are killed behind the cold walls of our nation’s slaughterhouses and wind up on most Americans’ dinner plates. Friedrich is senior policy director for Farm Sanctuary, a national farm animal protection organization based in upstate Watkins Glen. Friedrich is senior policy director for Farm Sanctuary, a national farm animal protection organization based in upstate Watkins Glen. © Copyright 2013 NYDailyNews.com. All rights reserved. Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/ "The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs