Despite dismissing an animal protection legal challenge, a judge at the UK Court of Appeal said that farming animals that suffer because of their genes was unlawful, opening the possibility that private prosecutions could be successfully initiated against producers of broiler chickens, who have been genetically modified to the extreme of suffering many animal welfare problems due to their rapid growth (reaching at least 2kg in five to six weeks).
The Humane League UK had brought legal action against former environment secretary Therese Coffey over the use of such breeds, but the High Court dismissed the challenge as a judge found Ms Coffey had not “positively authorised or approved unlawful conduct by others”. Then, the Humane League, backed by the RSPCA, took the case to the Court of Appeal in October, but it was also dismissed in a ruling on 13th December 2024. However, Appeal judge Lord Justice Males said there was contested evidence on fast-growing breeds so the court could not determine whether keeping them was unlawful. He said that according to regulations on farmed animals, farmers should not try to balance higher productivity against negative impacts on the animals’ wellbeing. He added, “If a given breed can reasonably be expected to suffer a detrimental effect on its health or welfare because of its genetic make-up, the prohibition on keeping that breed of animal applies regardless of any commercial advantages which it may have.”
Sean Gifford, managing director of the Humane League UK, said, “This historic ruling exposes the government’s failure to address the biggest animal welfare crisis of our time. Over one billion thinking, feeling chickens are leading lives of misery because of their fast-growing genes, and the court has ruled that this type of suffering should be prohibited by law. We call on Defra to now work with farmers to end the use of Frankenchickens. If the government does not seize this opportunity to uplift the lives of hundreds of millions of animals, charities like ours could be forced to bring private criminal prosecutions against farmers who are breaking the law by continuing to use fast-growing breeds of chickens.”
This organisation and the press have been describing the chickens in question as “Frankenchickens”, implying that they are one type of broiler chicken, but in reality, all broiler chickens should belong to this characterisation, not a subset of them. Each chicken currently bred for meat in factory farms in the UK and most industrialised countries has been genetically modified producing aberrant individuals who will suffer because of the way their parents, grandparents, and other recent ancestors were bred. The same should be applied to other factory-farmed animals such as pigs and cows. Hopefully, the Humane League and the RSPCA will also try to protect them, and they will begin promoting veganism as the final solution to all these problems.
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