Who is the Lorax that speaks for the chickens?

The Lorax speaks for the trees, but there are other voiceless groups that need a Lorax of their own. Specifically, chickens. (Crossposted from my blog.)

“Them as can do has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.” -Terry Prachett, The Wee Free Men

The Lorax is a Dr. Seuss character who speaks for the trees. Since “the trees have no tongues”, a fuzzy creature with a giant moustache has the responsibility of telling people when their actions are harming the natural world. One writer compared him to a Biblical prophet giving an inconvenient warning. Others say that the Lorax is too gloomy and misanthropic, and that he needs to learn to be more tactful if he wants his message to come across. Whatever your opinion is of the Dr. Seuss character, I would like to propose that a world where fuzzy monsters pop out of tree stumps to represent the interests of the trees would be a pretty awesome place to live.

I love this idea of someone who gives a voice to the voiceless. I think there are many voiceless groups out there who have no one to advocate for them, and I think this is a problem. It’s true that trees can’t speak for themselves (except for a couple in Australia who have the power of email), and there are plenty of other groups that don’t have a voice either. These include:

• Elderly people in institutional care, who have little say in their daily routines or medical decisions. They need a Lorax to speak out for them.
• Stateless people like the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Roma in many parts of Europe, who aren’t recognized as citizens of any country and often can’t even be enrolled in school or access public services. They need a Lorax to represent their interests.
• Prisoners, who have no say in policies affecting their living conditions, little outside visibility, and inadequate protection from abuse. They need a Lorax to show the world the problems they’re facing.
• Future generations, who can’t vote because they haven’t been born yet, but who are strongly affected by the decisions we are making now about the future we’ll leave for them. They need a Lorax to protect their future.
• Farmed animals lack the language and political structures necessary to protest, boycott, or advocate for better living conditions. They need a Lorax to give them a voice.

Today I want to focus on chickens. Why chickens? Because there are nearly ten times more chickens killed each year than there are people on Earth. And most of them live pretty terrible lives, packed together tightly in unsanitary conditions, experiencing such extreme weight gain that it creates painful leg problems that it makes it difficult for them to even walk. Other animals such as pigs and cows deserve a voice as well, but the sheer number of chickens that are living horrible lives makes me want to focus on them. Also, I just love the image of someone standing up and shouting “I am the Chicken Lorax! I speak for the chickens!”

But who is this courageous person who speaks for the chickens? There are several people who may already deserve this title. Let’s go through some options:

• Is it Jane Goodall? She is one of the world’s most influential animal advocates, both in educating people about animal welfare and in working to establish legal rights for animals. She’s most famous for her research on establishing how intelligent chimpanzees are, which has fundamentally changed how people view animal intelligence. I think she definitely deserves the title of Lorax for Chimpanzees, but she hasn’t done a lot of work specifically focused on chickens, so we’ll have to keep looking.
• Is it Peter Singer? He’s the philosopher who sparked the modern animal rights movement. In fact, it was one of his books that finally convinced me to go vegetarian. But he's also known for many other controversial ethical positions beyond animal welfare, so I don’t really feel comfortable bestowing the title of Lorax on him. I’m sure he’d understand.
• Is it Temple Grandin? She’s an animal scientist who designed more humane facilities for transporting and slaughtering livestock, and she’s also an advocate for treating animals better. I think Temple Grandin definitely deserves the title of Lorax for Cows, since she seems to understand their needs on an intuitive level. She has also advocated for chicken welfare, but since she’s so closely associated with cows, I’m hesitant to add the title of Chicken Lorax as well.
• Is it someone else? Another major problem with chicken welfare is that egg-laying hens are often raised in cages that are too small for them to stretch out their wings or even fully stand up. In the last few years there has been a movement to convince industries to switch to only using eggs produced by cage-free hens. I think this switch has likely been the most impactful improvement to the lives of chickens that has ever happened. There were many organizations who worked on this project, including The Humane Society of the United States, Mercy for Animals, Compassion in World Farming, and The Humane League, so it’s hard to point to just one person who made this happen. Maybe all of the  leaders of this movement collectively deserve the title of Lorax for Chickens.
• Is it all of the above? I may have been too strict with my Lorax criteria. Since it’s so hard to pin down any one person, it seems like the best option is to just say that anyone who advocates for chickens deserves to be called a Lorax. Goodall, Singer, Grandin, animal rights leaders, animal activists, and ordinary people who care enough to discuss chicken welfare with their friends all deserve to be called a Lorax. That means that you too can be a Chicken Lorax! All it takes is to speak up for chicken rights.

Can’t the chickens speak for themselves?

But how do we even know that chickens care about being trapped in tiny cages or not having space to move around? Chickens aren’t humans, so are all these Chicken Loraxes making a mistake by assuming that advocating for animal welfare is actually making the animals better off?

In the case of elderly people, stateless people, prisoners, and future generations, we can be pretty safe in assuming that they care about having their basic human needs met, but we still need to be careful not to let our own biases get in the way of identifying the problems that matter most to them. But animals are an entirely different species, so how do we know which problems they actually care about? Well, it turns out there’s an entire field of animal welfare science dedicated to answering that question.

Here’s a peek at what animal welfare science looks like from an interview with Temple Grandin: “You can actually, scientifically, look at what things a hen wants the most. There are objective ways to measure her motivation to get something she wants – like a private nest box. How long is she willing to not eat to get it, or how heavy a door will she push to get it? How many times will she push a switch to get it?” [Source] According to Grandin, we set up experiments where chicken behaviors will directly tell us what the chickens care about, and how intensely they care about it. And based on experiments like the ones she described, plus other behavioral indicators, we know that they really don’t like being trapped in tiny cages that they can’t even stand up in, or experiencing debilitating leg problems due to extreme weight gain. So the problems with chicken welfare I mentioned at the beginning are real problems that the chickens really do care about.

Animal welfare science tells us what the chickens need. So why do they need a Lorax? Because chickens have no political power! They don’t get to vote in elections, they can’t write to their congressional representatives or stage protests, and they can’t even vote with their wallets because they don’t have wallets. Their only hope is for someone to speak up and advocate for them. They are badly in need of a Lorax.

So what?

Anyone who seriously puts themself in the shoes of the voiceless to figure out what they need, and then speaks out to advocate for those needs, should be proud to claim the name of Lorax. So my call to action is to ask you to be the Lorax you want to see in the world.

• The first step is to learn what’s going on. You can probably do this with your googling skills pretty easily, but the resources that immediately came to my mind were Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation Now, some stuff by the data journalism group Our World in Data, and these two videos by one of my favorite YouTube channels, Kurzgesagt [1, 2]. There are probably better resources out there, if you know of any then please send them my way so I can use them in the future.
• The second step is to learn what solutions work. Eating fewer chickens is an obvious one. Buying eggs from a local farmer, or eggs with a “pasture raised” label are both good things. Writing to your congresspeople to ask for stronger protections for farm animals is probably a good idea too. But the most impactful thing you can do is donate money to the organizations who are directly working on solving animal welfare problems. I use Animal Charity Evaluators to learn which charities have strong evidence to show they’re having a positive impact. Specifically, they recommend The Humane League as a charity that is particularly effective at improving the lives of chickens.
• The third step is to do the things that work.
• The fourth step is to share it with others. Be respectful and be willing to engage in genuine conversation with people. In the Dr. Seuss book, the Lorax comes across as annoying and judgmental, and that hurts his cause. But he was also courageous and persistent in speaking up for those who couldn’t speak for themselves. The key is finding that balance of being bold enough to raise uncomfortable conversation topics while remaining approachable enough that people will actually listen.

Congratulations! Now you’re a Chicken Lorax! The chickens can’t thank you themselves, so let me thank you for them. Thank you!