April 5, 2007 - Chicken may cross road to get to Richmond
Published in the Richmond News and the Richmond Review
April 5 & 6, 2007
Easter is coming and the City of Richmond may be on the verge of being the first city in Canada to “put the chicken before the egg” and remove eggs produced by caged hens from all city-run facilities. This progressive decision would put the city on par with various countries including Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands, as well as the entire European Union (as of 2012). It would ride the wave sweeping across Canada and the U.S. where over 100 universities and colleges have gone cage-free, including the University of Guelph, Canada’s premier agricultural university. Even last week, Burger King, North America’s second largest fast food company, and Wolfgang Puck, the world renowned New York celebrity chef, both came out of the culinary closet and dropped eggs from caged hens. They join the hundreds of businesses and grocery outlets like Whole Foods Market and Capers Community Market, who have stopped selling eggs from caged hens. On Tuesday, April 10th, a day after the Easter bunny puts away his Easter basket and rests his feet for another year, Richmond City Council will vote on this initiative. [Note: this agenda item has been moved to another meeting. The new meeting date will most likely be May 28th. We will post it here when it is announced.]
Do hens need to be in cages? Ask Stephen Easterbrook, owner of Richmond’s only egg farm, Rabbit River, and the first producer of certified organic eggs in Western Canada. “Nature never intended them to live seven to a cage and have less than one square foot per bird to live in,” he told Richmond media in September of last year. His sentiments are echoed by Canada’s top poultry scientist, Dr. Ian Duncan from the University of Guelph in Ontario. “There is 42 years of research showing hens suffer in battery cages and yet they are still in cages,” said Duncan. “This is very frustrating.”
Chickens may not have the same status in society as dogs, cats or even pet budgies, although some would argue they should, but that doesn’t mean they should be treated inhumanely. Farm animals are entitled to, at the very least, the Five Freedoms: freedom from hunger and thirst, from discomfort, from pain, injury or disease and from distress.
Switching to certified organic, free-range, free-run eggs or SPCA Certified is so easy, and it is the least we can do to show compassion for animals. There are 26 million hens kept in cages each year in Canada; that’s more than all the companion animals in the country combined. The caging of hens represents one of the largest animal welfare concerns in North America and it’s why animal protection groups from coast to coast to coast are trying to end it.
Of course there is a cost to buying cage-free eggs. But it’s often the case that when consumers buy the cheapest product on the shelf, someone else pays a price. With cheap eggs, it’s the hens.
Richmond City Council has the chance to be a leader in Canada with respect to animal welfare. The Vancouver Humane Society, the Humane Society International, the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals and hundreds of thousands of animal lovers across the country hope Richmond will do the right thing and put the chicken before the egg on April 10.
For more information on eggs and caged hens, visit www.chickenout.ca.
Bruce Passmore is the Farm Animal Welfare Project Manager for the Vancouver Humane Society and the coordinator of the Chicken Out! project (www.chickenout.ca).
