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Horrified by the conditions at the farms of KFC's suppliers, PETA initiated its "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" campaign. According to PETA's website, more than 850 million chickens are destined to fill the colonel's buckets. While the sheer volume alone might have made KFC PETA's target, there is a lot more to this than the consumption of large quantities of meat.

PETA has been working with KFC since 2001 to require its chicken suppliers to employ humane measures for housing and killing the birds. PETA is not alone in this fight; more than a dozen organizations, including the Humane Society of America, support PETA in requiring that chickens be treated more compassionately. With more than 11,000 restaurants in over 80 countries, KFC controls a large percentage of the fast-food chicken market, making it an obvious target for efforts to improve the methods for slaughtering chickens.

Most if not all of KFC's suppliers employ a practice called electrical stunning. Electrical stunning slaughter is a six- step process. Wrought with mishaps, every step along the way the system can malfunction, leaving birds unnecessarily injured or tortured. Suffocation, overcrowding, broken bones, cutting necks of conscious bird, dropping conscious birds into scalding water - these are just a few of the cruel outcomes of this process.

In addition to the use by its suppliers of inhumane slaughtering methods, there have also been reports of unprovoked vicious behavior by employees. Employees have been seen doing cruel things such as throwing birds against the wall for pleasure.

In response to PETA, KFC has established an advisory panel and guidelines for its suppliers. Unfortunately, they have done nothing to demand that suppliers follow the guidelines. This suggests that the guidelines were developed to appease PETA, and not with any intention of seriously seeing that they were followed.

It is this behavior by KFC that has caused PETA to redouble its efforts. PETA is demanding that KFC implement the animal welfare program developed by its own advisory board. This program has five components:

*Adopt the "Animal Care Standards" plan, which improves the birds living conditions prior to slaughter.
*Switch to the more humane controlled-atmosphere killing.
*Use mechanized chicken gathering
*Breed for health rather than rapid growth, which can cause painful deformities
*Set up a program to ensure that suppliers are following the guidelines, and post the results of both announced and unannounced independent audits on KFC's website.

Over the years, PETA has tried a variety of strategies to get KFC to change its ways. Initially this took the form of discussions with KFC. Later undercover investigations were held, and there have been more than 12,000 protests.

With so many humans starving, freezing, and being slaughtered in war, the misfortunes of chickens may not seem to measure up. Perhaps this is not so much about the suffering of animals, but about what the indifference to this suffering says about the people involved.

Learn more about this author, Frances Simon.
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