Chicago Museum Under Fire for Cow-Eye Dissection and Chick Exploitation

For Immediate Release:
September 19, 2022

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

TeachKind, PETA’s humane education division, has just sent a letter to the president and CEO of the Museum of Science and Industry, Chevy Humphrey, calling on her to end the museum’s archaic live-chick display and cow-eye dissection.

TeachKind points out that the cows’ eyes used in these dissection exercises came from slaughterhouses—where the terrified animals were strung up and their throats were slit. And the museum apparently hatches 8,000 chicks every year, only to keep the fragile baby birds in glass cages before sending them to captive-wildlife facilities to be used as food. With these exhibits, the institution is sending a harmful message to children that animals are mere objects to be used and is supporting industries in which animals endure bloody, violent deaths.

“The Museum of Science and Industry is desensitizing kids to violence and teaching them that other sentient beings are disposable,” says PETA Senior Director Rachelle Owen. “TeachKind is calling on this museum to ditch cruelty and bad science and embrace modern, superior, non-animal methods that are on the cutting edge of research.”

TeachKind—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—has directed the museum to humane, non-animal options, such as eMind digital dissection software, clay modeling, and synthetic dissectible models like SynFrog and the Chick Life Cycle Exploration Set. These educational tools would allow the institution to leave vulnerable animals in peace and encourage young people’s innate compassion for other species, as children—according to a recent study—are less likely than adults to see a moral hierarchy among humans and other animals.

TeachKind opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit TeachKind.org or follow the group on Facebook or Instagram.