MUMBAI: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India founder, Ingrid Newkirk, willfully caged herself in Bandra on Thursday outside the American chicken-meat restaurant chain KFC in order to bring a powerful message to Mumbai at the start of World Vegan Month — that chickens killed for food endure immense stress and deprivation in filthy, cramped cages or sheds long before they're shipped to a slaughterhouse, where they die painfully.
Newkirk sat in the cage surrounded by "chicken" props beside a sign that read, "Please Try to Relate to All Living Beings — Go Vegan" .
"What did a chicken ever do to us to deserve such abuse?" Newkirk asked. "These sensitive, intelligent animals have feelings, families and friendships, just as we do, and if we can't imagine sitting in a cage awaiting a painful death, we have no right to force any animal to die for our taste buds." Chickens are crowded by the tens of thousands into filthy sheds that reek of ammonia from their accumulated waste. At the slaughterhouse, their throats are sawn with a dull knife and their bodies are dunked into scalding-hot water to remove their feathers, often while they are still conscious. Other animals slaughtered for meat are crammed into vehicles in such large numbers that many are severely injured or die outright en route to the slaughterhouse. The animals are hit, dragged and cruelly handled and are often denied basic necessities, such as food and water.
PETA - whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to eat" - offers a wide variety of delicious and healthy vegan recipes on its website. Vegan meals help reduce the risk of heart disease, strokes, diabetes, obesity and cancer, and they also help the environment: raising animals for food is a leading cause of water pollution, land degradation and the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change.
