The Cyberactivist

Well, PETA has done it again. Have you seen the story in the New York Times yet? Oh, it is a good one. This time they got an investigator into a Pilgrim's Pride chicken slaughter plant, ironically one of KFC's "Supplier of the Year" plants. He worked the hanging cage for 8 months, documenting the terrible cruelty that goes on. And, of course, he hit pay-dirt. What did he find? Well, let me give you an idea.

There were workers doing all sorts of things to the chickens, and the supervisors not caring. Things like:

jumping up and down on live chickens, drop-kicking them like footballs and slamming them into walls, apparently for fun.
"hundreds" of acts of cruelty, including workers tearing beaks off, ripping a bird's head off to write graffiti in blood, spitting tobacco juice into birds' mouths, plucking feathers to "make it snow," suffocating a chicken by tying a latex glove over its head, and squeezing birds like water balloons to spray feces over other birds.
On April 6, one day he filmed, workers made a game of throwing chickens against a wall; 114 were thrown in seven minutes. A supervisor walking past the pile of birds on the floor said, "Hold your fire," and, once out of the way, told the crew to "carry on."
On another day, he said, the supervisor told the crew to kill correctly because inspectors were visiting.

And, why did they do it?

Well, according to the investigator, it was "to alleviate boredom or vent frustrations," especially when so many birds were coming in that they would have to work late.

Sound familiar?

Makes my claims not seem so outrageous after all, huh? I told everyone that this sort of thing was widespread. Some people didn't want to believe that. Well, I guess this pretty much proves it. Workers do abuse chickens - terribly - and the supervisors not only know about it, but they do nothing to stop it. Sorry, but I just have to gloat a bit here.

I have a feeling there will be a lot of meetings on this now. Maybe we can at last start to improve the way chickens are treated. It's hard to defend against a video. They attacked me mercilessly, trying to destroy my credibility when I came forward with similar accusations, but they can't attack a video. They can't destroy its credibility, now can they?

And, don't let them convince you that this was an isolated incident. It's not. This sort of thing happens industry-wide, just like I said. These torturous cruelties happen every day and night, also just like I said. It seems that the more time that goes by, the more I am being proved right.

Check out the whole story. It's a good one, and one that will haunt the industry for a long time.

Just like mine will...