The average person eats 70 of them a year. Seven hundred million of them are killed to feed the appetites of millions of Americans, and Rachel Bjork quit her job for them. Now she rides a bike from city to city defending their rights – chickens can’t speak, so Bjork does for them.

On Sunday, Bjork stopped her ride for chickens at the Kentucky Fried Chicken at 1039 E. Main St. in Carbondale to protest what she considers KFC’s torture and abusive nature used in the company’s handling of its livestock. Bjork has traveled to almost 30 KFCs so far. She spends an hour a day at the restaurants before hopping on her bike and riding to her next destination.

“Chickens are basically the worst abused of all the animals that are raised for food,”Bjork said as the beak on her bike helmet bounced up and down. “And I wanted to do something that would bring attention to chickens. Most people never think about what happens to the animals that they eat.”

Advertisement

Bjork had never thought of the injustices that go on in the factory-farm chicken coops. One of the reasons she decided to defend her feathered friends was the cramped conditions they are subjected to. Poultry is tightly packed into tiny chicken coops, so eventually their beaks are broken off as to prevent them from pecking each other to death.

“I want people to know that that drumstick is a living creature that was kept in a shed for all of its life, never got to go outside and had their beaks cut off.”

She started her ride for poultry Sept. 9 in Seattle, Wash. She averaged 60 to 70 miles a day while traveling from town to town. The patient advocacy group Bjork worked for would not spring for a two-month leave of absence she requested, so she left her job to ride for the fowls.

Now on the road, alone and adorned in a shirt that reads, “KFC tortures chickens,” she sits on a bike decorated in chicken memorabilia. From the chicken masthead on her handlebars to the rooster’s crown on her helmet, Bjork is confronting KFC one town at a time.

“If I could just get one person to say, ‘You know, you’re right; I’m not going to eat chickens anymore,’ that would save 70 chickens,” she said. “The average person is going to kill 70 chickens a year. If I could save 70 chickens, that would mean something to me; these are living creatures.

“It’s an animal capable of feeling a pain. I hate to think of the 800 million chickens that die every year. That’s a lot of chickens.”

Bjork’s ride has exhausted her, but she says, “It’s nothing like what the chickens go through.”

Advertisement*

KFC’s general manger refused to comment on the actions the protestors were undertaking on the restaurant’s front lawn, but a drive-thru window attendant said the whole protest was rather comical.

“I guess it’s their opinion,” the attendant said. “People were coming in saying, ‘Hey, are they trying to stop us from buying chicken?’ It’s funny.”

Pulin Modi, a campaign organizer for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that is sponsoring Bjork’s rides, said chickens are subjected to cruel an unusual punishment from the moment they are hatched to the time of their eventual slaughter.

“They are fully conscious when their throats are slit and even at some points when they’re put into the scalding tanks to remove their feathers,” said Modi, who protested on the scene with Bjork and two others. “It’s because if you’re a company like KFC who is buying 700 million chickens a year, there is no way that you be able to keep track of individual animals.

“They are just willing to write that off as an unfortunate thing but something they are willing to do even though their own animal advisers are in favor of what we are suggesting.”

Modi said the actions PETA is employing are a part of a planned campaign to confront KFC so the company would change its animal welfare practices. The organization does not only focus in on restaurant chains like KFC but also focuses a concentrated effort for the general welfare of animals as a whole.

“In the end, you can’t force somebody to do something they don’t want to do,” Modi said. “They have to realize themselves, ‘Okay these are some pretty horrible things that are happening.’ If you did any of these things to a dog or a cat, you would be in jail. So why is that we are doing it to 700 million chickens that KFC is buying?

“It is a desperate situation for these animals who are suffering. Right now as we are talking, they are dying and suffering,” he said. “It’s almost overwhelming, but it’s good to know that individuals can make a difference on one hand and on the other hand companies can also.”

The Harrisons – Steve, Kathy and Kelly, a junior in psychology – were enjoying a chicken meal at the end of their SIUC Family Weekend and just happened to notice the chicken-adorned Bjork.

“I think that as long as there are still chickens around, then we are not endangering their species,” Kelly said.

Steve agreed but felt animal rights is an important issue.

“This is an important issue, and I think the animals shouldn’t be harmed,” Steve said. “The animals shouldn’t be abused, but I think the animals are here for our consumption.”