For Speedy Launch:
January 19, 2023
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
Fremont, Neb. – Following a whistleblower tip, PETA has simply obtained U.S. Division of Agriculture (USDA) data revealing that greater than 2,000 chickens froze to dying inside tractor-trailers carrying them to Lincoln Premium Poultry close to Fremont in December—the most recent in a string of transport-related horrors on the unique provider to Costco. In response, the group fired off a letter at this time to the power’s director of administration, Jessica Kolterman, calling on her to livestream video footage from all the firm’s contract haulers’ vehicles and contract manufacturing unit farms and from the slaughterhouse to assist forestall extra egregious struggling.
On December 22 and 23, temperatures close to Fremont dipped to fifteen levels beneath zero, with wind chills tumbling to minus 50 levels. Regardless of this, chickens had been hauled throughout Nebraska in tractor-trailers. On December 23 alone, a USDA supervisor decided that no less than 2,070 chickens had died in “the acute chilly,” describing the birds as “inflexible,” “frozen,” and with their “heads and necks cocked abnormally.”
“Chickens are sentient beings, not commodities, and they need to by no means be uncovered to excruciating subzero temperatures,” says PETA Vice President Daniel Paden. “PETA is asking on Lincoln Premium Poultry to livestream all its operations publicly and reminds everybody that the one humane meal is a vegan one.”
Earlier USDA experiences obtained by PETA reveal a sample of horrific deaths at Lincoln Premium Poultry. Final summer time, 1,000 chickens had been “consumed” by “enormous flames” and one other 1,500 had been injured and ultimately killed after a tractor-trailer carrying them caught fireplace. In 2020, no less than 1,622 birds had been discovered lifeless after being held in severely crowded crates on vehicles in a single day with out meals or water.
PETA—whose motto reads, partly, that “animals will not be ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For extra data on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please go to PETA.org or observe the group on Twitter, Fb, or Instagram.
PETA’s letter to Kolterman follows.
January 19, 2023
Jessica Kolterman
Director of Administration
Lincoln Premium Poultry
Pricey Ms. Kolterman:
Given U.S. Division of Agriculture data that element how hundreds of chickens froze to dying whereas being transported on December 22 and 23, 2022, to Lincoln Premium Poultry—and that your supervisors instructed a federal agent that the corporate’s fuel beautiful operations had been malfunctioning, probably inflicting the survivors ache—we ask that you just instantly implement adjustments within the hope of decreasing rooster struggling in your growers’ sheds, throughout transport, and on the slaughterhouse.
Underscoring the necessity for adjustments are the information that 1,000 chickens had been “consumed” by “enormous flames”—and one other 1,500 had been injured and ultimately killed—after a tractor trailer carrying them caught fireplace final June and that greater than 30,000 chickens had been crated with out meals or water in January 2020, killing no less than 1,622 of the birds.
Will you please publicly livestream video from all areas of your operations the place dwell chickens are dealt with? Your contract manufacturing unit farmers, contract haulers, and slaughterhouse staff would take extra critically their responsibility to deal with and transport animals lawfully in the event that they knew caring folks had been watching. Because the world’s foremost professional on livestock welfare, Dr. Temple Grandin, writes, “Vegetation [t]hat are doing a great job ought to present what they’re doing.”
Your business usually complains that at this time’s shoppers don’t perceive how animals are raised and killed for meals. You would assist by enabling us to watch all of your growers, transporters, and different staff dealing with thousands and thousands of particular person chickens—who worth their lives as we worth ours—in sheds, crating and hauling them on crowded vehicles in all kinds of climate, making an attempt to stun them, slashing or sticking their throats, and bleeding them to dying.
On the very least, will you report these drivers answerable for these newest merciless deaths to the Nebraska State Patrol for investigation for potential violations of the state’s Livestock Animal Welfare Act? Thanks in your consideration.
Sincerely,
Daniel Paden
Vice President of Proof Evaluation