‘Bad Chicken’ at University of Canterbury Prompts PETA Offer of Vegan Chicken
After the University of Canterbury reported that more than 100 of its students had fallen ill in a suspected case of food poisoning after eating a bad chicken souvlaki at their halls of residence, PETA sent a letter to Chancellor Amy Adams urging her to remove bird flesh from campus menus. We have also offered to send the university some vegan chicken should she agree!
As UC students experienced first-hand, chickens have pathogens such as campylobacter and salmonella in their gut, which can contaminate their flesh – but more importantly, every chicken is an individual with a unique personality who experiences love, joy, pain, and fear and doesn’t want to be hacked to bits for a meal.
Chickens are curious, social birds, who are as intelligent as mammals, but in New Zealand, some 124 million of them are killed for their flesh annually. Most are raised on factory farms where they’re confined to dark sheds that hold around 40,000 birds, giving each individual a space smaller than an A4 sheet of paper in which to live. At just 6 weeks old, they’re shackled upside down and electrocuted, then their throats are slit.
Aside from the immense cruelty involved, meat production is a major driver of environmental damage and increases the risk of zoonotic pandemics like avian flu.
We’re urging the University of Canterbury to protect students and birds by replacing avian flesh with delicious vegan upgrades.
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