The Carnegie Science Center has been flooded with mail
from animal sanctuary directors, humane educators, Pittsburgh residents,
and citizens throughout the United States urging the Center not to
install a perpetual chick hatchery as part of a new "Exploration
Stations" program. United Poultry Concerns sent a letter to every CSC
Board Member respectfully urging that the hatchery be replaced with a
technology that will not propagate thousands of chicks, thereby teaching
children that it is neat to propagate baby animals that conveniently
disappear, out of sight, out of mind, after the "miracle of birth" is
over.
The Center intends to lie to children, and to the public
it solicits for funding, about the true fate of these birds that no one,
sadly, is asking for -- baby birds the Center will dump, week after
week, at auctions and anywhere else it can get rid of them. There will,
of course, be no accountability. The Center is going to lie to the
public by posting photos at this shameful exhibit of "happy endings."
United Poultry Concerns has respectfully urged the
Carnegie Science Center, in express-mailed letters, to replace the
proposed live bird hatchery with an "exploration station" that, while
being fun, also incorporates mature and compassionate values. The
hatchery does not meet this standard. It is not creative, it is not
compassionate, it is not about "Nature." It is an abuse of nature,
because the birds are being hatched, motherless, in a piece of
mechanical equipment, and dumped somewhere each week. The hatchery is an
exhibition of sordid politics and dishonesty. It is a betrayal of the
public which the Center solicits for funding.
The Carnegie Science Center, in doggedly going forward
with this irresponsible, inhumane chick hatchery display, despite local
and national public protest, based on incontrovertible arguments, is
saying that it not only doesn't care about the chicks (many of whom will
be born deformed and trashed alive, where the public can't see). The
Center is showing that it doesn't care about children or about public
trust either.
If we have any compassion in us for the innocent trust
of children, or for the helpless life of these baby birds, we must tell
Carnegie: "Install a computerized chicken program instead."
Source:
[email protected]
Go on to Nogales,
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