Market Bans Live Birds

Following a campaign and lawsuit by LGBT Compassion, San Francisco’s Heart of the City Farmers’ Market has agreed to discontinue the sale of live fowl starting May 27, 2011. According to the LGBT Compassion site, Raymond Young Poultry, a vendor at the market, sold more than 1,000 birds each week. The organization states that it witnessed poultry workers at SF farmers’ markets “handling the live animals in violent and abusive ways: tossing them (in the bags) onto the ground from high on the truck, [and] packing them into cages so tightly they crush each other and can’t move.” The campaign has successfully stopped live bird sales in several other farmers’ markets in the area.