Poultry Slaughter Law Suit
A Law Suit Brought by Members of the US Humane Society Champions Humane Poultry Slaughter
Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has allowed a law suit against the United States federal government to go ahead: the suit challenges the inhumane treatment of domestic poultry.
On Sept 6, 2006, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the US district court ruled that the US Department of Agriculture can be sued for their unsafe and inhumane policies on poultry slaughter.
In 1958, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act stipulated that animals could not be hung upside down and/or slaughtered while conscious - they have to be slaughtered in such a way that they do not feel pain. In the poultry slaughter house, however, things are different: for some reason turkeys, chickens, and other birds are excluded from humane slaughter requirements. It's not that the wording of the act excludes them (it doesn't mention any birds, but it does mention "other livestock"): it's that the act has been interpreted as excluding them. To this day, domestic birds are stunned with electricity, scalded to death while conscious and hung by their feet while conscious.
The poultry law suit alleges that current methods of poultry slaughter are not only inhumane, but also dangerous: they risk contaminating the poultry, destined for consumer's dinner tables, with organisms that cause human disease.
Your author does not eat poultry and this is one of the reasons why. Moreover, I can't imagine how it makes sense to anyone that a pig or a cow is deserving of humane treatment but a bird is not. I'll be watching this law suit and hoping to see some big changes in the way birds are treated in the poultry slaughter house (and after that, maybe we can do something about the way they're treated in the barn...).
Read more about the health risks of inhumane slaughter: Poultry Slaughter and Contamination
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What do you think of the attempt to enforce more humane poultry slaughter in the United States? Start a discussion.
