11
Jun
Way to go, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall! But What About the Fish?
- posted at 4:21 PM
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In an effort to transform Tesco’s welfare standards for chickens, TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is raising cash to get his resolution to the supermarket chain’s shareholders. In the resolution he urges for new minimum welfare standards, including lower stocking densities and more environmental stimuli for the birds. Apparently, Tesco wanted nearly £90,000 to pay for the printing and postage costs, so he went about raising the money himself, with the help of CIWF. Though I’d love it if chickens weren’t bred, slaughtered and purchased for human consumption, you gotta admit his efforts are worthy of some respect. Especially when you find out that he put in £30,000 of his own money.
But the people here at PETA aren’t exactly over the moon that in an auction to help raise the cash, a fishing trip worth over £3,000 is in the loot. Here’s an email that got sent to the TV chef - let’s hope he drops the trip. I’ll keep you posted.
“Dear Chef Hugh,
I am writing on behalf of PETA to thank you for your efforts to reform the way Tesco treats chickens and to ask that you drop the fishing expedition from your list of auction items. If you agree to drop the fishing trip, we will happily donate £2,000 toward your shareholder efforts with Tesco.
To put it graphically, imagine reaching up to pluck a tasty apple from a tree and finding your hand suddenly impaled by a metal hook that drags you—the whole weight of your body pulling on that one hand—out of the air and into an atmosphere in which you cannot breathe. This is exactly what fish experience when they are hooked for “sport.”
Many people grow up fishing without ever considering the terror and suffering that fish endure when they’re impaled and yanked from the water—although their struggling and gasping should be a tip-off. Anglers rarely realise, let alone stop to contemplate, that fish are complex individuals who communicate with each other and have likes and dislikes, friends and enemies. In fact, if anglers treated cats or dogs, or even chickens, the way they treat fish, they would be had up on charges of cruelty to animals.
We believe that you are a kind man who would never dream of hooking a dog through the mouth and dragging her behind your car. We hope therefore that you will reconsider and drop the fishing trip from this auction.
Thank you again for your consistent and outspoken opposition to factory farming and for championing chicken welfare, for they are certainly the most abused farmed animals.
We look forward to hearing back from you.”
Tesco just intimidate people because they are a multi national company.