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Pamela Anderson has lashed out the Loblaw
January, 30 2006
Canadian actress Pamela Anderson has lashed out the Loblaw’s grocery
store chain for selling eggs from hens that she claims live in inhumane
conditions.
In a letter Monday morning to Loblaw Companies Ltd. Senior
vice-president Geoff Wilson, Anderson wrote: “Battery caging, which is
the system used for the vast majority of hens in Canada, is inherently
cruel. Six to eight birds are crammed into cages, giving each less room
than this sheet of paper.
“They sleep, eat, defecate and lay their eggs in the same tiny space.
They never feel the sun on their backs or are able to scratch in the
earth. They cannot perform any natural behaviours, such as nesting,
dust-bathing, stretching or wing-flapping. They have their beaks cruelly
cut off. Their feathers chaffe off from rubbing against each other and
the wire walls of their cages.”
Anderson called it “egregious cruelty” and claimed it happens every day
on most egg farms in Canada.
She wrote: “If Loblaw took animal welfare seriously, you would refuse to
sell eggs from this horribly cruel system. But at the very least, there
is no reason why Loblaw cannot put up signs or label the shelves, thus
enabling consumers to decide for themselves whether or not they want to
support this cruelty.”
Anderson, a vocal animal rights activist, urged the company last
November to label eggs sold in Loblaw’s stores as coming from caged
hens.
Wilson replied with a form letter outlining the company’s livestock and
poultry handling policies.
“It is a curious animal welfare policy,” Anderson shot back in her most
recent letter, “that allows animals to be crammed into tiny cages where
not one animal can spread even a single wing, and doesn’t even require
that consumers be informed about how these animals that supply Loblaw
with eggs, dairy products and meat are treated.”
The star is supporting the efforts of the Vancouver Humane Society and
the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals – groups that recently released
video evidence of poor conditions at an egg farm in Ontario that
supplies stores like Loblaw’s.
Source :
canada.com
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