On December 2, 2011, the Mercy For Animals club at Glen A. Wilson High School hosted a film screening to present Fowl Play, an award-winning documentary that reveals the darkest secrets of American egg industries.
In the film, investigators went into these industries only to discover that hundreds of chickens were living in horrible conditions. Factory-farmed laying hens were clustered together in filthy cages and many were dying or rotting next to eggs that are collected for human consumption. To prevent the hens from pecking each other out of frustration and stress inside the cages, a portion of their beaks are removed. The degree of the pain is compared to cutting off a human being’s fingertips. Without their beaks, these hens starve.
During the film, students seemed surprised and horrified by the looks on their faces.
The film’s message was that chickens are sophisticated mammals that have feelings like human beings. They are capable of feeling fear, joy, anticipation, and so on. For this reason, animal advocates encourage people to stop supporting farm industries and stop eating milk, meat, and eggs.
The Mercy For Animals club is part of a national non-profit organization that helps to prevent animal cruelty in farms and promote vegan diets. The club wanted to show the film to raise awareness about what people are blindly eating and encourage students to be a voice for animals. Their mission throughout the year is to educate consumers on the story behind the food on their plate and raise money to fund the investigations and campaigns launched by the organization.
Club president Fiona Xin, 16, said, “We want to show that this is a global issue and everyone should be aware of it. As a passionate advocate of factory farm animal rights, I avoid meat whenever I have the chance too. I’m eating vegetarian meat more often and soy instead of animal products. I feel that becoming vegetarian is a plan that I will carry out later in life when I’m old enough to buy my own groceries and cook my own food.”
To learn more, visit http://www.mercyforanimals.org/
