Bird Flu

Perhaps the problem begins in the Book of Genesis:-

1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

The UK outbreak of the Asian strain of the H5N1 flu virus reminds us, if we need reminding, of how we use living creatures for our ends — food making machines. No doubt we have always used animals for food, but now we can do it on an industrial scale unthinkable to our ancestors. Mr Matthews lost 159,000 turkeys, gassed within hours and "rendered" (what a word). But in commenting on the cost to the £400 million UK market, Charles Bourne, chairman of the NFU's poultry board, revealed that we produce 60 million chickens a week in the UK. (Guardian on-line).

The population of the UK in chickens killed each week.