PETA calls for humane culling

PETA calls for humane 'bird flu' killing

By David Irvin
Montgomery Advertiser


If bird flu gets loose in Alabama's chicken population, lots of birds will be killed off as the government tries to prevent a wider outbreak.

How these birds die is of great concern to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The animal rights group sent a letter Thursday to Ron Sparks, Alabama's commissioner of agriculture and industries, urging a humane approach to killing birds if avian flu comes to this state.

The PETA letter pointed out that other countries have resorted to burning and burying chickens alive when faced with the epidemic, a practice that wouldn't occur here, state officials said. Because of the large number of chickens in question -- Alabama raises more than a billion each year -- PETA wants to make sure it doesn't.

"We just want to make sure we deal with it with as little suffering for the animals as possible," said Matt Prescott, a campaign manager at PETA.

PETA's proposed method for destroying infected birds is called controlled atmosphere killing (CAK). Basically, the chicken house is sealed and quantities of nitrogen and argon are pumped in with deadly carbon dioxide. The birds fall asleep and eventually die.

This method is preferable to other possible methods, PETA said, which include bludgeoning, bleeding and poisoning.

In Alabama, state officials typically would use straight carbon dioxide gas to "depopulate" a chicken farm, which PETA said is painful for the birds and should be avoided. Sparks disagreed, calling the method "very humane."

"We certainly are not opposed to a more ethical treatment of animals," Sparks said. "We would be more than glad to have our scientists sit down with their scientists" to discuss the CAK process of killing birds.

Officials with the animal-protection group admit they would like to see the CAK method used throughout the chicken industry at all times and are using this campaign to get their message across. In the letter, the group offered its services to the state free of charge to plan for an outbreak and help deal with any aftermath.

In May, Sparks and other state officials outlined their plans for dealing with the disease, which included killing all the birds in infected areas.