The Internet Is Delighted at This Video of 17 Birds Eating Meat in a Walmart

Rhonda J. Kitchen was wandering through her local Walmart in Chicopee, Mass., when something alarming caught her eye. A group of small birds was enjoying the offerings on the meat shelf, pecking away at the packaging to their little hearts' desires.

So what did she do? She took a video and posted it on Facebook.

Ms. Kitchen added the following comment below her post: "This is a video I took of birds eating meat in the Chicopee Walmart. This is disgusting! I will never buy food from there ever again. I feel like the Board of Health should be notified. After the employee who came to collect the meat they were eating walked away, the birds came right back. The employees did nothing."

Almost 80,000 shares later, the video has gone viral.

In the video, as the birds happily peck away at the meat—like so many of Snow White's cheerful little friends—a voice can be heard saying: "All that is bad. That whole top shelf."

Needless to say, the Internet had an opinion or two regarding this posting.

Joyce Kelly said what many were thinking: "Disgusting."

But Cheryl Marshman took the opportunity to share her feelings about eating meat in general: "If you think this is disgusting? Maybe ya'll [sic] should view the life and death of that raw meat … then you will know what disgusting is."

Lady Jessica Lynn was a bit more forgiving: "The birds have to eat too!"

According to local WWLP 22 News, Walmart provided the following statement: "As soon as we learned of this issue the impacted product was immediately removed from the shelves and disposed of. In addition, licensed professionals were brought in to successfully remove the birds from the store. We require the highest of food safety standards and have procedures in place to ensure customers have access to safe and affordable foods."

A Chicopee health inspector said that a pest control service was called in and they used a net to trap and catch a total of 17 birds. Seventeen! The inspector promised that the birds were later released elsewhere.

The now-famous Walmart birds have been identified as sparrows. And are sparrows carnivorous? A website for grade-school children (who probably know more about sparrows than we do) says: "Sparrows are carnivores … by nature, but they have changed their eating habits when they learned to live close to people. Sparrows primarily eat moths and other small insects, but they can also eat seed, berries, and fruit."

Yes, sparrows have indeed changed their eating habits of late. Evidently, they enjoy a beef buffet at their local Walmart.

But for 17 hungry sparrows in Massachusetts, the meat party is over.