chickens... bunnies... this shit should not be happening.

i copied and pasted this without knowing how to attach the pic to it...

there is a picture of three little bunnies all cuddled up in the original message...

(picture the cuteness here)

------------------------------------------------------------------------


Help Save these Chickens!

Yes, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) these are not actually rabbits, but chickens.

This isn't the first time the USDA has changed the meaning of commonly understood words. Perhaps you remember when the agency declared that ketchup was a vegetable.

USDA officials have a well-established pattern of playing word games to avoid compliance with federal laws. And they're at it again. This time, they're doing it to avoid enforcing the federal Humane Slaughter Actthe law requiring animals to be rendered unconscious before they're butchered.

Fifty years ago, the USDA lobbied against passage of the Humane Slaughter Act. Today, USDA officials continue to do everything in their power to not enforce that law. As a result, farm animalsfrom cattle to pigs to horsesare often subjected to the pain and terror of being brutally skinned, immersed in scalding water, and dismembered while still fully conscious.

And when it comes to smaller animals, the USDA doesn't even pretend to protect them from cruelty. Species that the USDA deems to be "poultry", including the 9 billion chickens and turkeys slaughtered each year, are excluded from the Humane Slaughter Act. Amazingly, the USDA has arbitrarily decided to classify rabbits as "poultry".

This has resulted in nothing short of torture at the slaughterhouse. For some rabbits, this means having their throats sliced open while they're fully conscious and struggling. For others, it means having their necks broken or being struck in the head with a metal pipe or a piece of wood.

"The animals are completely aware of what's happening and are fighting for their lives."

According to the USDA's own meat inspectors, some rabbits are fully conscious as they have meat hooks jabbed through their legs. Workers hang them up by "running a meat hook through a leg muscle" and "possibly through the bone."

Next, they decapitate the rabbits. Hung upside down, the rabbits have their heads sawed off as they struggle and cry in pain. According to inspectors, workers "use a dull knife and have to keep using it over and over to decapitate the rabbit. The workers were having to try three or four times to remove the rabbit's head. There were occasions where the knife slipped and the rabbit's ears were cut off.

"A worker had numerous scratches and bite marks from the rabbits struggling to survive as he was killing them," the inspectors continued. "The rabbits will cry almost like an infant with loud shrieking noises."

Outraged by what they saw, some USDA inspectors contacted their supervisors. They were told that no action would be taken to stop these atrocities "because rabbits are classified as poultry by USDA and are therefore excluded from Humane Slaughter Act enforcement."

STOP THE TORTURE NOW

Please contact the Secretary of Agriculture. Tell him that no farm animals should be slaughtered while still fully conscious. Tell the USDA that rabbits are NOT poultry and ask that they adopt regulations to include rabbits under the Humane Slaughter Act. Urge the Secretary to take immediate action to stop the kind of brutality that his own inspectors are witnessing.

Mike Johanns
Secretary of Agriculture
Room 200-A
United States Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave.,
Washington, DC 20250
Phone: (202) 720-3631
Fax: (202) 720-2166

Please also print the flyer and distribute copies far and wide. You can download the flyer here: http://students.washington.edu/careuw/HelpStopTortureofBunnies!.pdf