Sen. Grassley introduces bill to eliminate USPS protection of live chicks

Postal workers often find dead chicks in the mail. They also find dying chicks, but are forbidden by law to do anything to help them. According to Bird Shippers of America, more chicks arrived at their destination dead than alive in 2005. After animal protection groups spoke out, the U.S. Postal Service finally did something about the problem, setting a four-hour limit on ground transportation and coordinating bird shipments through central offices.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, however, has introduced a bill that would remove the U.S. Postal Service's directional authority and force it to accommodate the wishes of the baby bird and cockfighting interests. One of the requirements would be for airlines to transport birds in any temperature between 0 and 100 degrees.

Please contact your senators and representatives and ask them to vote against this bill and the House bill that will match it. And you can go here to get the address of the U.S. Postal Service. It would be helpful to ask the U.S.P.S. to stop shipping birds altogether.

Shipping birds through the mail is not the only problem. Northwest Airlines caused the death of 9,000 turkey chicks, who were then destroyed in an airline trash compactor.