I am writing in response to Alex Koles' article "Do chickens have feelings, too?," The Mac Weekly, Feb. 21, 2003.

First, I'd like to say that I normally find PETA's methods and arguments to be ridiculous and, to say the least, extreme, but Mr. Koles misinterpreted the spirit and the goals of the KFC boycott. PETA does not argue that animals have feelings in the sense that they have emotions or "intelligence," but simply that they feel pain. The current method of slaughtering chickens, slitting their throats using electric shock, PETA argues, is inhumane in itself, but that is not the group's main concern. In the meat processing plants that the fast food industry patronizes, speed is of essence in slaughtering. Animals are half-killed by hurried, sloppy workers, and are processed alive. "Humane slaughter," as legally defined for most species, requires that animals be rendered unconscious before being killed.

Although Mr. Koles states that "[T]he organization does not offer an alternative solution to make the chicken's demise more pleasurable," this is not true. From their web site: "the gas killing of poultry using a mixture of 90 percent argon in air with less than 2 percent residual oxygen, while not perfect, helps to significantly alleviate many of these animal's welfare and carcass-quality issues and should be adopted by producers." In one study PETA cites, researchers observed that 100 percent of hens tested entered a feeding chamber filled with 90 percent argon voluntarily and were killed by the gas. This is a far more humane death than the current industry standards. This mixture does not collect in the fatty tissues of chickens, and they are safe to eat. This process would also lead to more sanitary conditions, benefiting the consumer.

PETA's KFC boycott is not an exercise in preposterousness, either. In the summer of 2001, PETA carried out a similar campaign against Burger King. As a result, the fast food chain implemented many of guidelines that PETA worked for.

You ask why we should "exert an enormous effort towards assigning rights to" an unaware and dumb being. First, I would not call humane and sanitary slaughtering methods, especially those done voluntarily by the restaurant, as PETA would like, an "enormous effort". Secondly, why are chickens not allowed on the same hierarchical level as dogs and cats? Mr. Koles gives no proof for this idea, except to suggest that it is ridiculous.

And as much as I dislike the methods and approaches that PETA takes to animal rights, I can admire them for taking their belief (that cruelty to all animals is not ethical) and being consistent with it.

Finally, Illumination in the Flatwoods, a non-fiction book by turkey farmer Joe Hutton, http://www.tafkac.org, an urban legends database, and Cecil Adams, author of The Straight Dope Column, turkeys do not drown during rain storms when they look up. Rather, they have a "rain posture," with their heads up and bodies down, in order to minimize their exposed surface.