Karen Davis
Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs
Original airdate: May 8, 2009
There are two ways you can look at my guest. One is as a charming animal activist whose story is so powerful that it can turn cynics like Ira Glass into vegetarians. The other is how the Daily Show parodied her… not nice.
My guest, Karen Davis PhD, spends part of her life nurturing chickens. She rescues chickens that have fallen off (or jumped from) the trucks on the highways near the Tyson and Perdue chicken processing plants on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. She’s also the president of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit dedicated to the compassionate treatment of domestic fowl. Her endeavors may seem kooky to outsiders, but according to Karen, once you get to know chickens there is no other way to cross the road.
She sees chickens as living, loving sentient beings that don’t deserve the horrible methods of slaughter that they endure before joining us at the dinner table. She’s written numerous books on animal activism including “Prisoned Chicken, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry,” which we discuss today.
To be blunt, this show is intentionally foul. I left all of the sensational nuggets in the conversation and deleted the exposition about how adorable chickens can be – trimmed the fat, so to speak.
It’s just that the truth is revolting and must come first. Hopefully, in the end, you’ll side with Ira Glass and not the feather-brained caricature of her drawn by those less sentient.
Here is a link to Karen’s bio on the United Poultry Concern’s website, which includes the Ira Glass clip: http://www.upc-online.org/karenbio.htm
Thank you for tuning in.