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| Every
year Pasado’s would get calls around the end of the school year from
parents asking if we could take the chicks their - 5 & 6-year-old
children had hatched in school embryology projects. Kindergartners? Doing
"embryology"? Finally, one brave mom whose own child had been
traumatized volunteered to help us stop this inhumane
"tradition". This brave mom, explained how teachers were not
trained to care for the chicks – how many times the incubators became
unplugged when a janitor would mop the floor and bump the plug or children
inadvertently knocked a chair into the wall plug. The chicks would die,
their experiment would be over. In this mom’s case, her five-year-old
child watched as only some of the chicks hatched. The teacher opened the
eggs to discover some died in the shell. The students watched as they were
tossed in the garbage. The teacher didn’t know what to feed the
surviving chicks (since proper food wasn’t included in the so-called
kits). So they were fed bird food – something that could kill a domestic
hen. Those chicks that survived, were left up to the parents to "get
rid of". Many times, Pasado’s was called to take on the discarded
chicks; many more times, they were dumped in area parks or "in the
country", only to be killed or die once winter arrived.
Pasado’s and the mom approached the Superintendent of Schools for Western Washington. Following our meeting and our pleas to stop such an experiment we were politely told that this project was the most "popular" with the kindergarten teachers, and they would not stop the program. We were dejected but not through with our effort. We brought the mom’s chicks back to Pasado’s Safe Haven and immediately had their feces tested. The results were astounding, but not surprising: all came back with e-coli and the most virulent form (most antibiotic resistant) of salmonella. We called another meeting. We politely informed the Superintendent of Instruction, with the mom at our side once again, that if they didn’t stop the program we’d inform the press that children were allowed to participate in a program where they handled chicks and eggs, infected with e-coli and salmonella enterititis, without any hand-washing OR gloved hand protection protocols. We warned it would cause an immediate panic – and some dire public relations consequences for the school district. Two days later, we were informed by letter that the school districts pulled the plug on this archaic "fun" project – for good. Over 1000 unwanted chicks born every year, typically discarded in area parks or "in the country", only to be killed or die once winter arrived, would never be subjected to such cruelty again. |
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