New York City Police Department Nabs PETA Award for Hen Rescue
Compassionate Officers Saved Chelsea the Chicken From the Streets of Flatbush
For Immediate Release:
December 11, 2019
Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382
A Compassionate Police Department Award is on its way to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) after Officers Karban and Dimonda of the 67th Precinct rescued a chicken who was hiding under a car in Flatbush on the evening of December 3. The officers contacted a Long Island Orchestrating for Nature (LION) volunteer, who took the animal to the organization’s founder and PETA manager John Di Leonardo for care.
When the officers found the hen—now named Chelsea, after the LION volunteer—she was freezing and underweight. The end of her beak had been cut off—a cruel procedure used to prevent hens who are confined together from pecking at each other—her nails were overgrown, and her wings were damaged, likely the result of being kept inside a cramped metal battery cage along with scores of other hens on an egg farm. Once she has recovered, she’ll be adopted by a compassionate PETA supporter in Connecticut.
“Thanks to the kindness of Officer Karban and Officer Dimonda, a little hen who had already suffered so much in the egg industry was spared a terrifying death at the slaughterhouse and can live out her days in peace,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA and LION hope this story will inspire others to come to the aid of any animal in need—and to make a huge difference for hens and other animals simply by going vegan.”
PETA notes that Chelsea is a Red Star hen—a breed that has been genetically manipulated by the egg industry to lay hundreds of eggs each year rather than the dozen or so that the species would lay in nature. On egg farms, Red Star hens often die within a few years, and the ones who survive are sent to slaughter once their egg production wanes and they’re no longer profitable. Every person who goes vegan saves the lives of nearly 200 animals each year.
The NYPD will receive a framed certificate, a letter of congratulations, and boxes of vegan cookies.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, which is the human-supremacist worldview that other species are nothing more than commodities. The group offers free vegan starter kits, available here, which are full of delicious egg-free recipes.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
