The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Save fowl from cruelty, PETA appeals to poultry industry

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 28, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Save fowl from cruelty, PETA appeals to poultry industry

Staff Reporter

‘Follow international standards in raising and slaughtering’

PHOTO: Satish H.

For a cause: Animal rights activist Amala Akkineni releasing a report on Wednesday on the poultry industry.

HYDERABAD: People for the ethical Treatment of Animals, an international organisation working on animal rights, has given a call to the poultry industry to be more humane towards the birds it raised and killed.

Raised in crammed metal cages, their beaks chopped off so as to curtail aggression, rendered immobile by overgrown bodies, transported to slaughter houses with broken bones, hung upside down from conveyors, and killed while other birds watched in fear, the chicken in a farm go through a virtual hell, a 40-page investigative report by the organisation said.

Releasing the report

on Wednesday, animal rights

activist and secretary of the Blue Cross Amala Akkineni said that all the poultry

consumers would be happy if cruelty-free meat is available.

Asking the poultry

industry to follow

international standards in raising and slaughtering the chicken, she quoted from a study that spoke of bacterial contamination due to unhygienic

conditions existing in Indian poultry farms.

Following international standards would serve a dual purpose of eradicating

diseases such as avian flu and guilt-free consumption of cruelty-free food, she said.

The Campaign Coordinator of PETA India Rohini

Kamath said that the report had been prepared after five years of investigation in poultry farms across India.