Thanksgiving brings our family and friends together to give thanks for and celebrate the good fortune of our lives. It should be a celebration without the brutal creation and destruction of 45 million helpless turkeys.
Breeding birds are confined in warehouses. Every week they are grabbed and turned upside down while the semen is extracted by vacuum from the males and injected by compressed air into the females.
After the chicks hatch the specially-bred young birds grow too fast and too large for their hearts and skeletons, so many have fractures and heart failure. The ends of their beaks and toes are mutilated to prevent the pecking and fighting that occurs when they are crowded in warehouses with only 2.5 to 3.5 square feet of space per bird. Those who survive for 5 months are roughly transported and slaughtered as though they were unfeeling inanimate objects.
Turkeys are naturally intelligent, gentle, and highly social creatures. Compassion demands that we look for ways to modify our traditions to be less violent and less wasteful of life.
