United Poultry Concerns
(UPC)
July 2015
Feral chicken
Hawaiian activists are urging people to contact Kirk Caldwell, mayor of the city and county of Honolulu, and demand that he stop the round-up and gassing to death of feral (free-living) chickens in Honolulu.
Exposure to concentrated CO2 causes panic, pain, nausea, vomiting and severe respiratory irritation. Shooting cold CO2 through hoses into the gas chambers freezes and burns the birds’ eyes and lungs.
Urge Mayor Caldwell to use birth control instead of trapping and gassing the chickens. Tell him you are outraged that his administration would trap and torture these birds to death when contraception is available for the purpose.
Please sign the online petition here.
And/Or better yet, make direct contact:
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell
phone (808) 768-4141
[email protected]
twitter.com/mayorkirkhnl
www.facebook.com/MayorKirk
Hawaiian activists are urging people to contact Kirk Caldwell, mayor of
the city and county of Honolulu, and demand that he stop the round-up and
gassing to death of feral (free-living) chickens in Honolulu. An article in
the Honolulu Star Advertiser on July 11 explains that the city has hired
Sandwich Isle Pest Solutions to remove the chickens – roosters, hens, and
chicks – at 70 city facilities using wire traps. The article cites a
customer services director saying the CO2 gas will be applied to chickens in
sealed containers “so the chickens will go to sleep and not feel any fear or
pain in the euthanizing process.”
But as Animal Haven President Frank DeGiacomo says in the article, ‘The
animals will still be suffering regardless.” The trapping of the chicken
families is traumatic, and death in a carbon dioxide chamber does not put
chickens “to sleep.” Exposure to concentrated CO2 causes panic, pain,
nausea, vomiting and severe respiratory irritation. Shooting cold CO2
through hoses into the gas chambers freezes and burns the birds’ eyes and
lungs.
Chickens exposed to CO2 try desperately to escape. They take deep breaths
trying to expel the gas and the sensation of slow suffocation but the deep
breaths cause them to inhale even more gas. Death by CO2 is a horrible,
brutal way for chickens to asphyxiate to death.
Humane Alternative:
According to Animal Haven’s Frank DeGiacomo, a birth control bait called Ovo
Control would reduce the chicken population effectively. An alert posted on
ar-news notes that the city of Honolulu has been trapping chickens for over
a decade “using a variety of hunters, trappers and exterminators,” knowing
full well that the trapping is futile, whereas birth control works.
Letter from UPC to Honolulu Star-Advertiser
July 25, 2015
Asphyxiation cruel to chickens
UPC Letter in Today’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Feral Chickens
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, July 15, 2015
Animal Haven president Frank DeGiacomo calls killing the chickens on Oahu
with carbon dioxide (CO2) inhumane (“Initiative targets feral fowl
overrunning city facilities,” Honolulu Star-Advertiser, July 11). He’s
right. That this method meets American Veterinary Medical Association
guidelines means nothing. CO2 is used to kill animals because it’s cheap.
Since “euthanasia” means a merciful death, the term does not apply to CO2
asphyxiation of chickens in a lethal chamber.
CO2 activates brain regions in birds that activate pain perception.
Chickens’ chemical receptors are extremely sensitive to CO2, causing them to
breathe rapidly and deeply to expel the poisonous gas. Sadly, this
only increases their intake, and their death is protracted and cruel.
DeGiacomo urges the city to use Ovo Control, a contraceptive he says would
reduce the number of chickens on Oahu. If a truly humane method of
controlling the chicken population exists, it should be used instead of
subjecting these birds to a horrible death.
Thank you for everything you do for animals!
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