A Virginia-based poultry protection group has condemned a Community School project in which chickens were raised and later slaughtered to teach eighth-graders about the realities of food production.
"This is an issue of both animal abuse and child abuse," said Karen Davis, president of United Poultry Concerns. "Certainly, we're going to do all that we can do to prevent it from happening again."
The project was started in September when The Community School eighth-grade class procured 16 Cornish-cross chickens, a variety bred for meat production. After raising them to maturity in seven weeks, the class killed and dressed the animals for a "good foods" banquet to emphasize the need for healthy eating.
Participation in killing the chickens was voluntary and required parental permission. For slaughter, the animals were placed in cone-shaped devices to prevent flapping and their throats were cut, a method of killing that the class and teachers deemed humane.
Davis doesn't agree and said the method inflicted pain and suffering on the birds.
"At this point, we're not going to let a school project go on in which eighth-graders are allowed to build killing devices and cut the throats of chickens," she said.
United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Machiponga, Va., was established in 1990 to promote "compassion for chickens and other domestic fowl."
The organization claims to have stopped a similar chicken project in 2008 at a high school in New York state. It has criticized Oprah Winfrey for giving away free coupons for Kentucky Fried Chicken meals to help people through the recession and protests what it calls "cruelty" in the chicken and egg production industries.
Davis said United Poultry Concerns is now researching the Community School project before determining its next course of action.
"Legal action could certainly be part of what we do," she said. "Right now we just want to learn more about the project."
Community School eighth-grade teachers Naomi Goldberg and Scott Runkel defended the project in a statement provided to the Idaho Mountain Express. They wrote that first-hand experience showed some students the benefits of vegetarianism.
"It is highly unrealistic for us to expect our students, or our fellow Americans, to all become vegans," the teachers wrote. "What we tried to show the students was that if they are going to eat meat, it is possible to mitigate some of the more awful effects of factory farming by choosing to eat meat that has been raised and slaughtered in the most humane way possible."
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
