People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have targeted McDonald's after being refused hearing by KFC over the slaughtering method.

The organization is commencing a planned protest featuring rock star Chrissie Hynde at the big McDonald's in River North. PETA is largely reinstating the "McCruelty" campaign it that it had initiated against McDonald's in 2000.

The aim of PETA is to pressurize McDonald's and KFC into convincing U. S. chicken suppliers to resort to the gas method of slaughter. McDonald's has the power to "require that changes be made" by its suppliers, said Matt Prescott, PETA's director of corporate affairs.

Bob Langert, McDonald's vice president of corporate social responsibility said that McDonald's had conducted a study in the slaughter methods and also conducted its own tests on the gas method of slaughter. "It's not conclusive that it's more humane."

However activists of PETA and Humane Society of the United States feel that the gas method is less cruel. Paul Shapiro, head of the Humane Society's factory farming initiative says "It causes less suffering than the conventional method, which is archaic and inhumane."

About 30 percent of the chicken McDonald's buys in Europe comes from slaughterhouses that use the gas method. But the technology is not prevalent in the U. S.