January
1996
Murder
Most Fowl: Inside the Phoenix Poultry Market
By Catherine de Clare
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The Phoenix Poultry, 159 Grand Street, Manhattan, is
a storefront slaughterhouse. Phoenix has been killing its captive chickens,
turkeys, ducks, and
rabbits
since 1978.
On November 18, 1995, a small group of animal rights activists, including
myself, demonstrated against Phoenix, which is located on a busy sidewalk
in Chinatown. We arrived around noontime, and diligently set up our
accoutrements. We put up the card table, arranged flyers and other informational
materials, and placed posters conspicuously. One lone policeman had
arrived from the local precinct (we had notified the police department,
standard practice for demonstrators). We, however, were not fully prepared
for the scenes of horror we were about to witness.
Inside the entrance to this shop, which was like a concentration camp
for birds, our eyes riveted on two stacks of cages, about five feet
high, eight feet long, and six feet wide. The chickens were beautiful,
their wings striped with mottled gray and white. Each of them was in
a cubicle so tiny that none could turn around or even flap her wings.
Each cage was only about eight inches high, six inches wide, and seven
inches long. This means that each stack contains about one hundred and
eighty birds. Since there are two stacks, there are three hundred and
sixty birds when this, the execution anteroom, is filled to capacity.
We were not able to see the flooring onto which these birds had been
forced. Because the cages are stacked on top of one another, excrement
from the birds above drops down to the ones underneath. This would be
the case if they had been forced into wire mesh cages. The other possibility
is that the flooring is solid, and that the birds have no choice but
to exist in their own excrement. These birds are being pandered as food!
We observed five employees inside busily stoking the fires of their
avian inferno. My ire rose as I heard the anguished cry of a bird. This
was to be only the first of many such anguished cries I was to hear
throughout the course of the three hours we had arranged to protest.
We watched customers enter the shop, numb to the birds’ agonies.
Each of these people seemed to believe that the birds were put on earth
exclusively for his or her benefit. I was horrified by the events which
were to ensue.
One of the killers wrested a chicken from her cell. He grabbed the
bird by her legs so that she would dangle upside down for him. She
flapped
her wings in a fruitless attempt to flee the hand that would so shortly
be draining the life out of her. This was probably the first time that
she had ever been able to spread her wings. The wretch was thrust onto
a scale to weigh her, as if she were a mere sack of potatoes or just
a bag of sand. All the while the obtuse customer was anxiously waiting
for his or her "purchase." I observed the delicate pattern
of the bird’s feathers, unique to her in its configuration, no
two individuals in the universe ever being exactly alike at any given
time. She struggled for her life. She was roughly lifted off the scale,
a hand relentlessly clamped onto her legs. She was taken to the kill
room.
The kill room was concealed from the street. A curtain of wide strips
of clear plastic hung in the doorway. This is the room, where, time
after time, all day long, birds’ short, pained lives end by the
unkindest cut of all. The killer slices her jugular vein with a knife,
or he decapitates her. He then hangs the bird upside down to bleed,
dead or alive, and proceeds to throw her into a scald water tank to
loosen her feathers.
We were fifteen feet from the entrance, but even from this distance,
the stench was overpowering. We were smelling blood, body parts, plucked
feathers, and pounds and pounds of excrement. The killers routinely
wash excrement and blood down the drain. Other "useless" body
parts and dead birds are carried in plastic bags to a dumpster around
the corner on Centre Street in front of a building which houses the
administrative offices of this nefarious outfit.
The activists handed our flyers. Most of the passers-by ignored us,
some took our leaflets, another was downright hostile and encouraged
his children to dislike us, and a few were sympathetic, unabashedly
so. One of the killers stood in the doorway of his shop (one may believably
call this a "chop shop") and smirked at us. He, however, immediately
hid his face when I took a photograph of him. We packed up our equipment
after our three hour time limit had expired. Although I was harrowed
by what I had witnessed, I felt reminded of the reality of the torture
that billions of other "food" animals are experiencing every
year. This reinforced my commitment to work for animal rights.
Catherine de Clare works as an environmental scientist,
and has been active in the animal rights movement since 1983. She lives
in Manhattan.
What you can do.
When you find media painting these putrid establishments
in a picturesque light, write a protest letter to the editor or local
health department of environmental protection. Let them know you do
not want a slaughterhouse in your neighborhood. Educate people about
the ugly reality of poultry slaughter with its attendant filth and cruelty.
Live poultry markets are also a breeding ground for disease. Check your
farmer’s markets to make sure live animals are not being sold.
Support your local vegetarian society or start your own group, emphasizing
delicious homestyle, ethnic, and exotic all-vegetarian cuisine. For
additional information on live poultry markets and other cruel agricultural
practices relating to birds, contact: United Poultry Concerns, P.O.
Box 59367, Potomac, MD 20859. Tel.: 301-948-2406.
