Beleaguered ‘Bird’ Sets Sights on Local KFC to Protest Factory-Farming Abuses

For Immediate Release:
December 7, 2005

Columbia, S.C. — A giant wheelchair-bound "chicken" will repeatedly cross the road in front of a local KFC to lead a protest against the company’s abusive treatment of chickens. Other PETA members will distribute leaflets to passersby, and one activist will wear a body screen TV showing shocking video footage of factory-farming abuse:

Chickens are excluded from the only federal law that protects farmed animals—the Humane Slaughter Act. KFC drugs and breeds chickens to grow so large that many become crippled from the weight of their massive upper bodies, slits their throats, and scalds them to death in defeathering tanks—all while they are still conscious. An undercover investigation at a KFC "Supplier of the Year" slaughterhouse in Moorefield, W.Va., revealed that workers were stomping on live birds, tearing their heads off, spitting tobacco in their eyes, and spray-painting their faces. KFC ignored the advice of its own animal welfare advisors, including five who have since resigned out of frustration. Former KFC advisor Adele Douglass told the Chicago Tribune that KFC "never had any meetings. They never asked any advice, and then they touted to the press that they had this animal-welfare advisory committee. I felt like I was being used."