PETA is asking for a criminal investigation into the deaths of thousands of chickens at Pure Prairie Poultry in Charles City.
PETA says multiple whistleblower reports from now-former PPP employees allege thousands of chickens were left on transport trailers without food or water for five days outside the company’s now-shuttered processing plant. PETA adds federal officials confirmed that more than 50% of the birds died.
Tuesday, PETA sent a letter to Floyd County Attorney Todd Prichard urging him to investigate and file appropriate criminal charges against those responsible.
Prichard tells KCHA/KCZE News that law enforcement is investigating and officials are in contact with federal authorities.
In the letter, PETA says, “birds were held from September 6 to 11 before being brought onto [the 901 N. Main St. lot] for harvesting. Significant mortality increases were noted during an electrical outage that affected cooling fans. On or about September 16, Pure Prairie Poultry admitted to confining chickens at least overnight.”
The letter notes, “The National Chicken Council permits chickens to be deprived of food no longer than 18 hours prior to their slaughter and of water no more than an hour before they’re loaded for transport.”
PETA alerted the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) leadership of the birds’ plight last month and offered to connect them with the eyewitnesses to investigate the plight of the chickens. PETA claims the agency neglected to respond for weeks—and when it finally did, USDA said that because the trailers were parked across the street rather than at the plant itself, the case was out of the FSIS’s jurisdiction.
PETA says they received additional whistleblower reports that chickens in some of Pure Prairie Poultry’s Wisconsin contract sheds have gone unfed for nearly two weeks and have resorted to cannibalism.
***You can read the complete email/letter to Floyd County Attorney Todd Prichard below
Dear Mr. Prichard:
I hope this letter finds you well. I’d like to request that your office (and the proper local law-enforcement agency, as you deem appropriate) investigate and file livestock neglect charges against Pure Prairie Poultry Inc. and its executives who were responsible for depriving thousands of crated chickens of water and food for up to five days—killing many of them—on trucks parked near the company’s now closed-down slaughterhouse located at 901 N. Main St. in Charles City.
In recent weeks, PETA spoke with multiple Pure Prairie Poultry employees—one of whom is interested in speaking with your office—who were concerned about these languishing birds, particularly those left on the trucks for five days in September, during which cooling fans failed and approximately 50% of the animals on the trucks evidently died. PETA reported these individuals’ observations three times to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). The attached response from FSIS confirms your constituents’ eyewitness accounts, stating that “birds were held from September 6 to 11 before being brought onto [the 901 N. Main St. lot] for harvesting. Significant mortality increases were noted during an electrical outage that affected cooling fans.”
On or about September 16, Pure Prairie Poultry
admitted to confining chickens at least overnight. This fatal neglect is entirely inconsistent with the “broiler” chicken industry’s customary practices. The National Chicken Council permits chickens to be deprived of food no longer than 18 hours prior to their slaughter and of water no more than an hour before they’re loaded for transport. The council expects that birds will be slaughtered within 12 hours of being loaded and that companies like Pure Prairie Poultry will have an emergency plan for utility outages that slow the slaughter of animals.
Depriving thousands of chickens of food and water for five days clearly constitutes an equal number of simple misdemeanor violations of I.C.A. § 717.2—or, if your investigation finds evidence of intent, a serious misdemeanor violation for each person charged. Importantly, FSIS considers the shed where these animals suffered and slowly died—on Floyd County parcel #120630100900 between N. Grand Avenue and E Street—to be out of its jurisdiction. Accordingly, your office—and charges under state law—are these victims’ only chance at even a small measure of justice.
Please let us know what we might do to assist you. Thank you for your consideration and for the difficult work that you do.
Sincerely,
Colin Henstock
Associate Director of Project Strategy
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