By Anthony Rifilato
Animal activists call for a boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken
"Boycott KFC!" yelled Bobby Green, a 30-something Seaford resident wearing a yellow chicken mask and flailing about in front of the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet on Grand Avenue last Saturday. He held high a placard bearing the image of Pamela Anderson, on which the former "Baywatch" beauty offered the same words as Green.
Sporting a T-shirt that read "Animals are not fabric" as he paraded close to passing cars, Green, who at first glance might have been mistaken for a KFC mascot, jumped up and down, his voice booming in the January cold. A member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, he was one of two protesters calling for a KFC boycott, saying that the fast-food giant has done nothing to curb what he said is its inhumane slaughter of chickens.
"KFC tortures animals!" Green yelled to a passing motorist.
Some honked and cheered, while other passersby looked on in disbelief, and still others in disgust. But Green - who said he works as a driver when he is not wearing the mask - was unfazed. "I intend to stay out here for at least an hour - then they call law enforcement," he said, adding that more protesters were expected to turn out later in the day. "This is such a worthy cause. PETA knows we're doing this."
Green is hardly alone in his conviction - and hardly the cause's highest-profile spokesman. A number of celebrities, musicians and politicians, on behalf of PETA, are also calling for KFC to treat its chickens humanely, among them Pamela Anderson, Paul McCartney, the rock band Fall Out Boy, Pink, Russell Simmons and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
For the past five years, PETA has dubbed the nationwide fight "Kentucky Fried Cruelty." Its members have staged thousands of protests in front of KFC restaurants across the country, many of them, like Green, dressed in chicken costumes.
"PETA actually launched the campaign in 2003, and it's worth noting that we were in touch with the company and trying to work behind the scenes with them two years before that," said PETA spokeswoman Lindsay Rajt. "Chickens are excluded from the only law - the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act - that protects animals, so KFC is allowed to get away with abusing them in ways that would usually warrant felony cruelty to animal charges. New York has been quite a hotbed for Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaigns. We have a couple of stellar activists, like Bob, on Long Island."
According to PETA's Web site, more than 850 million chickens killed each year for KFC are crammed into excrement-filled sheds brimming with ammonia, and are fed drugs that cause them to grow so quickly that their legs break. When they reach slaughtering age, the chickens' throats are slit and the animals are dropped into tanks of scalding water - often while still alive. Often, PETA claims, the birds are sadistically abused, with workers tearing their heads off or stomping on them, among other abuses.
"Burger King, McDonald's and others have complied in raising animals in a humane way," said Green. "I know we won't change everyone's mind, but maybe we can get a few."
On its Web site, however, Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, maintains that it is committed to the humane treatment of animals, and even initiated an Animal Welfare Advisory Council to ensure that they are handled humanely. The company says it has developed guidelines and audit programs for its suppliers, and monitors them regularly to determine whether they are using humane procedures. A KFC store manager referred inquiries to the franchise's corporate offices.
"Our position regarding animal welfare is perfectly described by our information online," said Rick Maynard, a spokesman for KFC who disputed PETA's claims. "KFC is committed to the well-being and humane treatment of chickens and we're proud of our responsible, industry-leading animal welfare guidelines. We buy our quality chickens from the same trusted brands that consumers buy in local supermarkets. While we don't own any poultry facilities, we require all of our suppliers to follow welfare guidelines developed by us with leading experts on our Animal Welfare Advisory Council."
PETA contends that KFC has ignored its own council's recommendations - which include switching to mechanized chicken gathering and improving the atmosphere in which chickens are killed, among other measures - and they have yet to be initiated. PETA is calling on KFC to adopt many of those recommendations.
"The specific recommendations that PETA and the animal welfare advisors made include breeding, catching and killing chickens differently so that they don't suffer in the worst possible ways," said Rajt.
According to Green, KFC's main supplier of chicken, Tyson Foods, has been anything but humane. PETA has another Web site called TorturedByTyson.com, and the literature Green handed out to motorists and KFC customers is bleak and graphic. On PETA's Web site, Anderson narrates a video in which chickens are bashed against walls and stomped to death by handlers.
"I saw a video on Govegan.com and a PETA Web site, and I was horrified that the animals have to go through this just so we can eat chicken," said 15-year-old PETA volunteer and vegan Jay Astafovic of Deer Park, adding that protesters have campaigned in front of this location several times in the past year. "I'm here for the chickens. They're intelligent animals. I speak for the chickens, because they have no mouths. If KFC were to torture dogs and cats like they do chickens, it would be called animal cruelty."
Last Saturday, Astafovic was even more emotional and vocal than Green, sometimes leaping into the street to get his point across to drivers. "They torture animals - boycott KFC," he yelled.
"Here, man, would you like a pamphlet on the horrible things KFC does?" Green asked a pedestrian.
At one point, a white stretch Hummer limousine crept past and beeped as the two held up their signs in acknowledgment.
Behind them, a man could be seen inside KFC eating what looked like a chicken sandwich. A group of teenage girls leaving the restaurant - Baldwin High School students - looked on in amusement. They said they had not eaten anything, and one said that Green's and Astafovic's arguments were making her re-evaluate the way she eats. "We were going to eat there, but it's too expensive," said one girl, who declined to give her name. "I kind of believe [the protesters]. They have a compelling thing going on. We all torture animals in some way if we eat them."
When he was done waving his Pam Anderson sign, Green walked to a nearby parking lot and got into a car sporting an East Meadow Driving School sign. He took off his mask in the backseat, and then drove off. Astafovic, too, disappeared, done for the day - or perhaps having been warned that law enforcement was on the way.
Inside the restaurant, a line had formed at the counter, as several customers perused the menu, having ignored the man in the chicken mask outside.
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