031029 “Chicken Rights” Woman's Takes Cause to KFCOctober 11, 2003Garden City Telegram - Rachel Bjork rode into town with chicken on her mind. But it wasn't a two-piece extra-crispy dinner that brought the 32-year-old Seattle native to the local Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, at least not the end product. Bjork and her trusty Raleigh cross bike were traveling across the country to talk about the suffering the birds go through in order to become a KFC dish. "They are the most abused of all animals raised for food," she said. Holding a poster showing a cartoon Col. Sanders poised to stab a terrified cartoon chicken, Bjork stood near the edge of Kansas Avenue at about noon Friday handing out pamphlets from the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals detailing how tens of thousands of chickens are crowded into dirty sheds, suffer broken legs from rough handling and have their throats cut before being thrown, sometime still alive, into boiling water. A vegetarian for the last 10 years and a vegan for the last three, she said she isn't asking people to live the same way she does. "I wish, but I'm realistic," she said. "I just hope people think about what they eat. Those same animals full of medication are eaten by people, and you wonder why people have health problems." About halfway through a bicycle trip to PETA's Norfolk, Va., headquarters in a journey she began Sept. 9, Bjork said the stops in between are pretty flexible. The trip was something she said she wanted to make for a while, but with a purpose in mind. Already an active member of the Seattle-area, Northwest Animal Rights Network, she said PETA was willing to help her with the lodging and supplies as she offered up information on KFC and its parent company, YUM! Brands Inc. Asked about the PETA campaign, KFC spokesperson Bonnie Warshaurer read a statement that the company uses only the highest quality of ingredients. "We buy all our quality chicken from the same trusted brands you buy in your supermarket like Perdue, Tyson and Pilgrim's Pride," she said. Dan Shannon, campaign coordinator for PETA's international grassroots campaign department, said by phone that Bjork's interest in biking allowed her to devote more than two months of her life, even if it meant quitting her Seattle job, to getting the word out. Rita Avila, who said she doesn't eat beef or pork after seeing the animals' conditions, stopped by over her lunch hour to thank Bjork for the effort. "I've been to the slaughter yard," she said. "The way we treat animals, the human race should be ashamed."
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