PETA has a busy week

It's been a busy week (so far) for PETA.

UPI reports that KFC Canada has bowed to five years of pressure ... from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ... on the way its chickens are slaughtered:

From its headquarters in Norfolk, Va., the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has pressured the global chain since 2003 to end the practice of slaughtering the fowl using electric shocks, the Canwest News Service reported.

After seven months of talks with the food retailer at its headquarters north of Toronto in Vaughn, KFC Canada president Steve Langford said the company had agreed to have its suppliers switch to a system in which oxygen is replaced with other gases to render the birds unconscious before slaughter, the report said.

In the meantime, those wacky folks of PETA have an idea for folks who are distressed about the concept of boiling and eating lobsters.

PETA would like to turn a century-old county jail in Maine into a “lobster empathy center.” According to MaineToday, the county jail is up for sale as the sheriff, staff and inmates prepare for a move to a new, modern facility this summer.

And finally, PETA is urging prosecutors to bring animal cruelty charges against Eight Belles' trainer, Larry Jones. In the photo at left, Eight Belles is examined after breaking both front ankles at the Kentucky Derby.

--Alice Short

Lobster photo: Karen Tapia/Los Angeles Times

Eight Belles photo: Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

Comments

[Neil Seigel]

Bravo PETA! You've helped many animals this week -- esp. the millions of chickens in Canada who are slaughtered every year for human gluttony. Please keep up the great work!

[Mark]

AMAZING!!!

PETA had ended more suffering than perhaps any other animal organization to date. Keep it up!

[jewel]

peta is group of morons and hypocrites that care more for animals than for humans and kills more animals than any other organisation.

[Mark]

PETA has been extremely successful in improving the lives of literally MILLIONS of animals, via their pressure campaigns against companies.

But PETA's main goal is to point out that our assumption that the suffering that other species should not be taken seriously is a form of blatant prejudice, called "speciesism" by analogy with racism and sexism.

Once we rethink this assumption, it is easy to recognize that the amount of suffering we cause other species for our most trivial benefits is comparable with that which we have caused members of our own species in what we now consider the darkest periods of human history.

[Beverly]

PETA spends less than one percent of its multi-million dollar budget actually helping animals. The group euthanized (killed) more than 1,900 animals in 2003 alone -- that's over 85 percent of the animals it received. In fact, from July 1998 through the end of 2003, PETA killed over 10,000 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals" at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That's more than five animals every day.