Nov 20, 2023 06:20 PM
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23963...erinarians
INTRO: The 2022-2023 spread of bird flu has been the most catastrophic on record in the US. In less than two years, it’s hit hundreds of poultry factory farms across nearly every state in the country, costing the federal government $757 million and counting to manage, and the poultry industry more than $1 billion in lost revenue and other costs (experts also fear that the disease could spark an outbreak in humans). To help stamp out the disease’s spread, all of the more than 62 million chickens, turkeys, and other birds raised for meat and eggs on affected farms have been killed and disposed of, whether or not they actually had the virus, which can spread rapidly and has a very high mortality rate for poultry birds.
This fall, bird flu is surging again. So far in October and November, it’s infected dozens of factory farms largely in the Midwest, including on turkey farms raising animals for Thanksgiving season — resulting in the extermination of 4 million chickens and turkeys in just a month and a half.
I use the word “extermination” deliberately. Although many outlets have written that the birds on farms hit with bird flu are being “euthanized,” the reality of these mass killings is far from the painless end implied by that term.
Last year, I wrote a great deal about the rise of “ventilation shutdown plus” (VSD+), a method being used to mass kill poultry birds on factory farms by sealing off the airflow inside barns and pumping in extreme heat using industrial-scale heaters, so that the animals die of heatstroke over the course of hours. It is one of the worst forms of cruelty being inflicted on animals in the US food system — the equivalent of roasting animals to death — and it’s been used to kill tens of millions of poultry birds during the current avian flu outbreak.
As of this summer, the most recent period for which data is available, more than 49 million birds, or over 80 percent of the depopulated total, were killed in culls that used VSD+ either alone or in combination with other methods, according to an analysis of USDA data by Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a veterinary adviser to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), an animal advocacy nonprofit. These mass killings, or “depopulations,” in the industry’s jargon, are paid for with public dollars through a USDA program that compensates livestock farmers for their losses.
In America’s peer countries, ventilation shutdown has been effectively banned because it’s so inhumane; last year, Danish bioethicist Peter Sandøe told me he was “shocked” by the method’s prevalence in the US and that in the European Union, relying on it would be illegal.
Thousands of US veterinarians, animal welfare experts, and animal advocates have protested the use of ventilation shutdown. But a growing body of evidence obtained through public records requests shows that the poultry industry, in partnership with agricultural and veterinary authorities, is quietly normalizing ventilation shutdown and planning its further use — even though the USDA’s own policy says it can only be used as a last resort... (MORE - details)
INTRO: The 2022-2023 spread of bird flu has been the most catastrophic on record in the US. In less than two years, it’s hit hundreds of poultry factory farms across nearly every state in the country, costing the federal government $757 million and counting to manage, and the poultry industry more than $1 billion in lost revenue and other costs (experts also fear that the disease could spark an outbreak in humans). To help stamp out the disease’s spread, all of the more than 62 million chickens, turkeys, and other birds raised for meat and eggs on affected farms have been killed and disposed of, whether or not they actually had the virus, which can spread rapidly and has a very high mortality rate for poultry birds.
This fall, bird flu is surging again. So far in October and November, it’s infected dozens of factory farms largely in the Midwest, including on turkey farms raising animals for Thanksgiving season — resulting in the extermination of 4 million chickens and turkeys in just a month and a half.
I use the word “extermination” deliberately. Although many outlets have written that the birds on farms hit with bird flu are being “euthanized,” the reality of these mass killings is far from the painless end implied by that term.
Last year, I wrote a great deal about the rise of “ventilation shutdown plus” (VSD+), a method being used to mass kill poultry birds on factory farms by sealing off the airflow inside barns and pumping in extreme heat using industrial-scale heaters, so that the animals die of heatstroke over the course of hours. It is one of the worst forms of cruelty being inflicted on animals in the US food system — the equivalent of roasting animals to death — and it’s been used to kill tens of millions of poultry birds during the current avian flu outbreak.
As of this summer, the most recent period for which data is available, more than 49 million birds, or over 80 percent of the depopulated total, were killed in culls that used VSD+ either alone or in combination with other methods, according to an analysis of USDA data by Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a veterinary adviser to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), an animal advocacy nonprofit. These mass killings, or “depopulations,” in the industry’s jargon, are paid for with public dollars through a USDA program that compensates livestock farmers for their losses.
In America’s peer countries, ventilation shutdown has been effectively banned because it’s so inhumane; last year, Danish bioethicist Peter Sandøe told me he was “shocked” by the method’s prevalence in the US and that in the European Union, relying on it would be illegal.
Thousands of US veterinarians, animal welfare experts, and animal advocates have protested the use of ventilation shutdown. But a growing body of evidence obtained through public records requests shows that the poultry industry, in partnership with agricultural and veterinary authorities, is quietly normalizing ventilation shutdown and planning its further use — even though the USDA’s own policy says it can only be used as a last resort... (MORE - details)
