Published: December 30, 2006 09:58 pm         

PETA protests KFC production practices outside Terre Haute restaurant

TERRE HAUTE — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protested Saturday morning on the sidewalk in front of Terre Haute’s Wabash Avenue Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

PETA accuses the restaurant chain of “torturing” chickens by the millions each year.

“We sent an undercover investigator into KFC’s ‘supplier of the year,’” said Lindsay Rajt, a Kentucky-based PETA activist who led Saturday’s protest. “Our investigator found people stomping on live animals, tearing them apart, spitting tobacco juice into their faces,” she said. “You’ve got to ask yourself, ‘if this is the best KFC has to offer, what does the worst look like?’”

PETA is calling for a boycott of KFC.

The protesters, who included a young PETA volunteer from Kentucky dressed as a chicken walking with a crutch, and at least five Wabash Valley supporters, handed out PETA literature on KFC as well as a PETA DVD featuring model/actress Pamela Anderson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and actor Alec Baldwin. “If people knew how KFC treats their chickens, they’d never eat another drumstick,” the DVD jacket quotes Anderson saying.

“They’re entitled to free speech and everything,” said Terre Haute KFC owner Bill Kanuer of the protesters gathering in front of his restaurant. “The less I say the better.”

KFC has in excess of 11,000 restaurants in more than 80 countries, according to the company’s Web site. It released a news statement in 2003 criticizing PETA for “attempting to mislead the public” by showing outdated video on its chicken production.

“The beak-trimming machine shown in the PETA video is a … model used about 30 years ago,” the statement said. “The system is no longer in common use in our industry.”

One of the protesters at Saturday’s demonstration, Jeanee Miller of Sullivan, held a sign showing a chicken having its beak cut off.

“KFC chickens are raised in huge, filthy sheds, where they have barely enough room to spread a wing,” Rajt said. KFC cuts off their beaks because chickens in cramped quarters become “stressed” and “peck each other,” she said.

“Beak trimming is never performed on … animals sold for their meat,” the KFC statement said. “It is conducted on day-old male birds … in order to prevent injury to other birds as roosters become aggressive with maturity. Only the sharp tip of the beak is removed, not a large portion as shown in the outdated PETA video.”

PETA wants KFC to catch, breed and kill chickens in “more humane ways,” Rajt said, including using “gentle machines” to gather birds instead of workers. Implementing PETA’s recommendations would only add about 2 cents to the price of a KFC meal and would “pay for itself” in about a year and a half, she said.

“PETA’s objective is not to improve animal welfare but to eliminate meat, poultry and other food of animal origin altogether from the human diet,” KFC’s release said. “They desire a totally vegan society” and “even [approve] the use of violence.”

“Ideally we’d love a vegan world,” Rajt said.

PETA opposes “using animals to eat, to wear, to use for entertainment or to experiment on, but we’re also pragmatic,” Rajt said. “We know KFC isn’t going to stop killing chickens tomorrow. We want [KFC] to kill the chickens as humanely as possible.”

Arthur Foulkes can be contacted at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.