The Washington Post ran a story in early June about an ongoing project in Virginia to use chickens as a sentinel species to provide advance warning of West Nile virus. Maryland abandoned a similar project in 2000 in large part due to protests by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals along with concerns that the program was ineffective, and PETA’s not to happy about West Virginia’s program.
The $300,000 program has chickens situated throughout the state waiting to be bitten by mosquitoes. Officials take blood samples from the animals twice a month looking for the presence of antibodies to West Nile virus. Chickens do not get sick from West Nile, but any animal that tests positive for the antibodies is euthanized.
PETA, of course, thinks this is incredibly cruel. The Post quoted PETA research associate Cem Akin as saying,
Given the caged confinement endured by sentinel chickens and the painful blood samples taken regularly and the often sub-part conditions these animals are kept in, coupled with the complete ineffectiveness of such testing in general, we think other methods should be used to monitor for West Nile virus, such as monitoring dead bird populations, dead crows specifically.
Cyrus Lesser, chief of the mosquito control section of the Maryland Department of Agriculture, told the Post that Maryland abandoned its sentinel chicken program largely to avoid protests from animal rights activists,
We didn’t want to be on the defensive against another issue. In mosquito control, we have issues of pesticides, disease. We’ve even had people who are inquiring who think mosquitoes have rights, too.
Well, do not forget that PETA thinks ants “are sentient beings” so they would probably be defend the rights of mosquitoes as well.
Source:
Fighting a disease with hidden hens. Annie Gowen, Washington Post, June 6, 2003.