EAGLE, IDAHO — Porterhouse Market in Eagle has been receiving copious calls and emails for the last few months regarding allegations of American Ostrich Farms out in Kuna.
- Porterhouse Market has received an overwhelming amount of spam calls and emails relating to animal cruelty allegations at a former distributor.
- The manager says it gets clogged to the point where she can't send or receive emails to and from clients.
- For more on the allegation click here.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
An annoyance. That is how the manager of this local meat market describes the backlash they are receiving from people around the world at the urging of PETA. I'm your Eagle neighborhood reporter Alexander Huddleston, talking with the owners about how it's impacting their business and the connection that stems back to products they don't even sell anymore.
"It just came out of nowhere. We started getting emails and calls to the shop," exclaimed Hailey Faulk.
Like many, Faulk, manager of Porterhouse Market starts every day by going through her email. But not for the same reason as most.
Faulk continued, "If I didn't delete my emails every day, then I would have tens of thousands of emails. I don't know if they are on a repeat, that they just keep sending them, but I get hundreds a day."
Tens of thousands of emails with the exact same message. A prompt on PETA's website, filled out by more than 53 thousand people so far. Those messages telling Faulk to reconsider selling meat from a local ostrich farm that was under fire from PETA due to allegations that the birds were kept in unfit living environments.
Allegations our Kuna neighborhood reporter Brady Caskey investigated earlier this week.
RELATED: Kuna ostrich farm responds to allegations of animal mistreatment
Faulk told me they did at one point sell some meat products from American Ostrich Farms, but it wasn't a long-lasting business relationship.
Faulk said, "We only got one or two orders from them, but it just didn't sell as well as we wanted it to. We kept selling it until it sold out and we never replenished."
A short-term connection, creating chaos for the local store that Falk's late father opened in 2000 still priding themselves on selling meat from local farms here in the Treasure Valley.
"He started it with the customer in mind. Whatever you wanted he would try and do. This is a small market where people are used to getting ahold of me easily, so it's just frustrating that I have to tell them not to email me and to call the store because my email is being harassed. I think PETA completely blew this out of proportion," finished Faulk.
Faulk says the consistent online harassment has yet to slow down, but is thankful the good reviews outweigh the bad.
Idaho News 6 reached out to PETA for comment, who sent a statement saying they reached out to Porterhouse Market on April 16, 23, and 25 asking them to explain their relationship with the ostrich meat supplier, but received no response. The statement goes on to say, "If Porterhouse Market has indeed cut ties with American Ostrich Farms, where a whistleblower reported that chicks went blind due to reeking ammonia and that frostbite split a bird’s foot to the bone, it’s welcome to return any of our messages, and we’ll happily update our supporters with the good news."
