Alene Anello is an animal law attorney and the founder of Legal Impact for Chickens. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she previously worked at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, The Good Food Institute, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
Q: Tell us about chickens. Why are they your focus?
A: Chickens are sensitive, intelligent animals. They develop friendships with one another, and can even befriend people. These birds feel pain just like a cat or a dog. In sanctuaries or in the wild, chickens reveal their curious, unique, strong, and loving personalities. They develop social hierarchies and befriend both people and one another. They recognize patterns and do other complex cognitive tasks. And they deserve to be treated with kindness.
Yet in modern America, chickens suffer greatly—and in huge numbers. U.S. companies raise and slaughter nine billion chickens each year. That’s more than the entire population of humans on the planet. Because chickens are so small, it takes about 200 chickens to produce the amount of meat that comes from one cow. Partly as a result of this, nine out of every ten land animals farmed nationwide is a chicken. And 99.9% of U.S. chickens live on factory farms.
Chickens raised on factory farms for meat (typically referred to as broiler chickens) live crammed into dark, crowded sheds. The industry denies these birds natural light and fresh air. It keeps them in feces-infested spaces that make fertile breeding grounds for disease. Though chickens’ natural lifespan can be several years, companies breed “broiler” chickens to reach full size when they are still very young. Companies then slaughter these birds at just weeks old. Most chicken meat sold in U.S. grocery stores shows evidence of white striping disease, a condition in which chickens grow so fast that their muscles die from lack of oxygen.
Birds used for eggs face a different kind of nightmare. The U.S. egg industry kills infant male chicks as soon as they hatch—since male birds can’t lay eggs. The egg industry then forces seventy percent of hens to live in tiny wire cages so small that the birds can’t even spread their wings throughout their entire lives. The egg industry also intentionally slices off the tips of female chicks’ sensitive beaks with a hot blade, ostensibly to prevent the trapped birds from pecking one another.
At slaughter, companies dump fully conscious birds onto a conveyor belt, hoist them upside-down by their legs while they struggle, drag them through an electric water bath, and cut their necks with a blade. Companies do this all at a speed of up to 175 birds per minute (a rate USDA has promised to accelerate yet further, along with cutting inspection requirements). After passing chickens by the blade, companies dunk the birds’ bodies in scalding water to remove their feathers. And Legal Impact for Chickens is suing one chicken meat company, Case Farms, for boiling birds alive by dunking them into this scalding tank without killing them first.
Meanwhile, many birds never even make it to slaughter. The dirty, crowded conditions that chickens are raised in and their poor overall health have recently led to a raging bird flu epidemic among U.S. poultry stock. Avian influenza itself causes enormous suffering. Yet the government currently pays little attention to chickens’ welfare. For instance, USDA currently interprets the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, the federal government’s most well-known farmed animal protection law, to exclude poultry.
Chickens deserve better.
Q: A lot of people choose to try to create legislative policy changes, or engage in direct action, or build media orgs, or pressure companies. You believe civil lawsuits are also a piece of the picture. Why? What role do lawyers have in this?
A: Every state has a criminal law against animal cruelty and neglect. In several of these states, there’s no exemption for factory farming. So technically, any type of abuse that’s illegal to do to a kitten in your house is illegal to do to a chicken on a factory farm. Meanwhile, in other states, there’s a weak or partial exemption, such as saying that “customary” animal agriculture practices are exempt—but not abnormal or cruel ones.
Unfortunately, industrial animal agriculture has so much power in our society that it can sometimes feel like Big Ag is above the law. Police and prosecutors may be slow to investigate or pursue animal cruelty and neglect charges when the perpetrator is a powerful company. But cruelty is still a crime, and no one is above the law.
That’s where civil litigation comes in. Several legal doctrines let plaintiffs sue in civil court for violation of a criminal law.
Ultimately, animals, workers, and companies themselves are better off when companies treat animals humanely, and when everyone follows the law. At Legal Impact for Chickens, we believe civil litigation can be a tool in making the humane treatment of animals and the compliance with laws a universal reality as quickly as possible. For example, LIC is suing KFC-supplier Case Farms for its pattern of gross mismanagement and cruelty toward newborn chicks. Case Farms has been documented knowingly operating faulty equipment, including a machine piston that repeatedly smashes chicks to death and a dangerous metal conveyor belt that traps and kills young birds. LIC’s first lawsuit was a shareholder derivative suit against Costco executives for making Costco neglect and abandon chickens.
This Q&A, along with dozens more, is published in the special "Animals Issue" of Current Affairs.
