That’s the number of domestic poultry birds who have been culled (=killed) in factory farms this year because of an outbreak of the H5N1 streak of avian influenza (bird flu).
I find it impossible to picture such a huge number, so I tried to find out how long it would take me to count from 1 to 37,000,000. I found a great calculator online that measured the time it took me to count from 1 to 20, figured an average for each syllable, and then asked me how many hours per day could I count for? I chose 24 because I couldn’t imagine it would take more than a day. Yeah, right. Actually, the calculator allowed me to calculate 1 million. And guess what: it would take me 42.4 days, non-stop, to count to ONE million!!! 37 million comes to 1,568.8 days, or 4.3 YEARS. Counting without a pause. ALL THE TIME. Maybe you can count faster: give it a try. As far as I’m concerned, it helped me somewhat to picture the sheer immensity of this number.
So here is what’s going on. There has been a massive outbreak of bird flu recently, affecting 33 States1. Because the virus spreads so rapidly, if even one infected bird is discovered at an industrial chicken, turkey, or egg operation the whole flock – millions in the case of chickens, tens of thousands of turkeys – will be killed (“depopulated” in the industry’s jargon). While the current strain of the virus is deadly for almost all infected poultry, there’s only one known case of an infected human in the US2, and the person recovered after a few days of mild symptoms. However, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is concerned about the possible spread of the virus to people.
As I wrote in an earlier article, the lives of chickens and turkeys in factory farms are so dismal and horrible that it almost seems a blessing if they die earlier rather than later. They would be killed shortly anyway – so what’s the fuss? Well, it’s not so much THAT they’re being killed, but HOW. When a chicken catches the virus she can’t breathe, has serious digestive problems, and almost always dies after much suffering and pain. Because the virus spreads so fast, commercial producers see no other way than to kill ALL the birds after only ONE infection, even when there are millions of them. The method they use is called Ventilation Shutdown plus Heat (VSD+) which essentially cooks the animals alive. The barn ventilation is being shut off and heat is pumped in until the temperature rises above 104F; the birds die by suffocation and heat stroke. It’s like being trapped in a car that’s parked in the sun on a hot day. Death is excruciating and slow; for the birds it can take over two or even three hours; a few don’t completely die and will be burried alive.
When one looks at websites published by the USDA (US Department of Agriculture), APHIS (USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service), or NIFA (USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture), it’s obvious that they’re concerned with the commercial value of chickens, turkeys, and other “poultry products [that] topped $35.5 billion”3 in 2020, and hardly at all with the wellbeing of the animals. There are some minimally less cruel ways of killing infected birds, but they’re more complicated and time-consuming to execute so they won’t be used. Some researchers work on finding effective vaccines, but so far, this doesn’t look very promising; again, the logistics are too time-consuming and complicated, and VSD+ is the method of choice when huge flocks need to be depopulated.
At one of the world’s largest egg factories, Rembrandt Enterprises in Iowa, some 5.3 million chickens were roasted alive after one single case of avian flu had been discovered in March this year.4
It took workers over a month to pull the dead birds out of the battery cages which typically hold twelve chickens each. They were dumped into carts, piled high in near-by fields, and then buried in huge pits. After they finished this gruesome task, the workers were fired!
What I find particularly irritating is the fact that the USDA compensates producers, in the case of Rembrandt Enterprises billionaire business magnate Glen Taylor from Minnesota, to remove animals APHIS classifies as affected, suspect, or exposed to diseases of concern, and to eliminate dangerous viruses from the environment. This means that taxpayers, you and I, pay for the cruel way in which these creatures were killed. So far, the USDA has approved nearly $263 million to support rapid response efforts.5
I am left with the question: HOW can people accept all the suffering and misery that comes with the food they eat? The meat-eaters I know are kind people who love their pets and animals in general. They would never approve of a sentient creature being tortured or mistreated, if they’d witness it. They would not stand idly by when a poor puppy is suffocating in a car that’s parked for hours in the hot sun. But when it comes to eating, most people accept the agony and misery that had dominated the life of the chicken or pig or calf that they have for dinner. Partly, that’s because whatever you buy at a supermarket meat counter doesn’t really resemble an animal any more. No eyes, no blood, no feathers… and it’s neatly packaged in plastic. And then, of course, it’s a habit, part of the culture.
But there is more – we humans have a definitive feeling of superiority concerning animals which allows us to use, exploit, and, yes, eat them. Sure – they can’t fly airplanes, go to work from 9 to 5, or hold philosophical discourse. Neither can human babies or people with certain disabilities. But babies don’t become resources to be used by humans; instead, they’re being loved and cared for. Our (largely semi-conscious) anthropocentric views deny non-human animals the capacities that distinguish us; instead, having family ties, complex individual relationships, empathy, playfulness, and the notion of personhood are wrongly considered to be uniquely human. And I have to repeat: not EVERY human can display these capacities either! Just think of infants or people with advanced Alzheimer’s for example.
Sometimes I do a little thought-experiment. Usually I’m at the center of the universe, seeing the details of the room I’m sitting in, being aware of the house around me and the familiar landscape outside from a point of awareness inside of me. But when I imagine to experience the world through the eyes of my dog Juna who I can see through the open door, lying on my bed and watching me, I become a part of her world, nothing more. If I could really see with her eyes I’d be utterly confused; I doubt that I could recognize anything, but it’s the SAME world, just looks different! For her, it is as valuable and meaningful as my human experience.
And then imagine the world of a condor or the one of a dragonfly; each one is as whole and complete and meaningful as my human world but entirely different, and filled with components – smells, sights, sounds, colors etc. – totally unknown to me. I realize that my reality, the human reality, which seems so objectively and ultimately solid, is only a small fragment of all the possible experiences. I find this humbling. It gives weight and significance to non-human sentient beings, creates connection, puts us all on an equal playing field. “Man as the crown of creation” – what a distorted and harmful perspective.