PETA condemns 'humane washing' for egg industry

Lucknow, March 2 (IANS) The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has pointed out that the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Egg Laying Hens) Rules, 2023, shockingly states farms do not have to implement the new animal welfare guidelines until 2029.

The new rules serve only as 'humane washing' for the egg industry, creating an illusion that chicken welfare is being improved, when, in fact, it is not -- especially when the egg industry has six years to implement them.

Poorva Joshipura, director of PETA India, said in a release, that consumer should not be duped into eating eggs from battered, bruised, distressed, and eventually slaughtered hens.

India must at minimum keep pace with other countries working to improve chicken welfare, and it must do so now.

Joshipura said that this is a regressive piece of legislation that perpetuates severe cruelty to animals.

Explaining further, the PETA official said that instead of reducing the current, immense suffering of chickens on factory farms, the rules would allow Indian egg-laying hens to be kept in cages that offer them a mere 550 sq.cm -- essentially no larger than a standard piece of typing paper.

The new cage size requirements are so restrictive that these would be considered "battery cages", which have long been illegal in the European Union (EU).

This backward step comes even though the government body Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) had issued a circular to state governments advising that battery cages must be phased out by 2017, six years ago.

Battery cages are considered to violate Section 11(1)(e) of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960, which requires that animals confined to cages be provided with reasonable opportunity for movement.

The requirement under the new Rules that egg-laying hens be able to flap their wings and turn around is a farce, because hens need about 893 square centimetres to stretch their wings, 1876 square centimetres to flap their wings, and 1,272 square centimetres to turn around -- and none of these can be done in the cages allowed under the Rules.

The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Egg Laying Hens) Rules, 2023, prohibits forced moulting (starving birds to manipulate their bodies into producing eggs) and turning chickens into cannibals by feeding them dead chicken waste.

The new Rules also require that male chicks be killed "as provided in the guidelines for World Organization of Animal Health".

Yet currently, as PETA India has revealed, factory-farmed chicks are burned, drowned, crushed, fed live to fish, or killed in other cruel ways.

PETA India has been working to persuade Indian authorities to use in ovo technology, which would allow eggs to be destroyed at an early stage of development, avoiding the killing of live birds.

Now, nine EU countries are calling for a Europe-wide ban on the systematic killing of male chicks by the egg industry.

Finally, the punishment for violating the new Rules is as per section 38(3) of the PCA Act, 1960 -- there is no minimum punishment prescribed, and the maximum punishment is a mere Rs 100 fine or imprisonment for up to three months.