Letter to the editor: Turkeys are not thankful this season

Posted on November 29, 2007

This is a response to the article “Talking turkey” that was printed in the Nov. 19 issue of The Breeze.

It is nice to see students working to reduce animal suffering by discovering the origin of widespread bacteria in commercially-grown turkeys. However, to say that these animals have anything to be thankful for is to ignore the immense amount of cruelty that they already face on their way down the slaughter line.

Because birds, including both chickens and turkeys, are exempt from the only law that regulates how animals killed for food should be slaughtered, they regularly face levels of abuse that would warrant felony cruelty charges if they were inflicted upon dogs or cats.

These gentle animals routinely have their wings and legs broken, their throats slit while still fully conscious, and many are even scalded alive in feather removal tanks.

While it is nice to hear that these animals will not be under the weather with a disease when they’re slaughtered, this hardly suggests that their lives are anything less than miserable from start to finish. 

If we really want to give the birds something to be thankful for, choose one of the many vegetarian and vegan alternatives to turkey this holiday season.

If readers are interested in finding more information on the industrial turkey industry, and to check out free vegetarian recipes, they can visit www.peta2.com.

Ryan Huling
PETA College Campaign Coordinator