A PETA INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

When you walk into one of the four enormous steel sheds at the Crestview Farm in New London, Minnesota, all you see at first is a sea of white. Then the sea moves, and you begin to understand that it’s alive. Twelve thousand lives, crammed together for 22 weeks, just long enough for these gentle birds to grow into the unnaturally huge turkeys who are slaughtered by the millions for holiday dining. It is almost more than a normal person can comprehend. There is no sunshine or fresh air. Just a few bulbs swinging from the high ceiling and the acrid, dust-filled ammonia stench that comes from the piles of uncollected excrement. A PETA investigator outfitted with a hidden video camera documented something even worse, something that happens, perhaps, at all such concentration camps for turkeys, where the animals are hidden from public view: a Crestview employee’s vicious beating of injured and diseased turkeys.

When the killing stick wasn’t handy, the employee bashed a turkey’s head with a pair of pliers.

Filthy, crowded conditions cause illness, and turkey producers accept the fact that a percentage of their birds won’t live long enough to be slaughtered. But at Crestview, as on most other farms, there is no quick or humane death. Our investigator saw:

• birds too weak to walk, who dragged themselves through the muck with their wings

• birds with gaping wounds

• birds gasping their last breaths, racked with such pain that they could not even lift their heads from the dirt—these were the animals beaten with an iron pipe called the “killing stick.”

The killing stick didn’t cause a quick death. Sometimes the worker caught the head, sometimes the wing or leg or back. In every case, the beaten bird flapped, cried out, and tried to escape. When the killing stick wasn’t handy, the employee bashed a turkey’s head with a pair of pliers. Several times, he grabbed a turkey by the neck, then wrenched the bird’s head and bent it over backwards. But the birds did not die quickly. Dying birds were tossed into a pile. Our investigator saw many fully conscious turkeys suffer for hours.

After documenting all this, we took our evidence to the county attorney. Appallingly, the prosecutor has refused to file charges, saying that the killing methods on this farm are standard on farms everyw

An employee uses a “killing stick,” swinging at the birds wildly as they try to escape. Click on the image to see video footage. (RealPlayer required).

here. The Minnesota Turkey Growers Association responded by pledging $25,000 to find better killing methods but so far has refused to say exactly how they will do this. We continue to press for justice for these animals and work to prevent future abuse. Now, these curious, personable beings, whose needs are so simple—fresh air, sunshine, a bit of space to peck and bathe in the dust—need your help, too.

Providence star Mike Farrell joined PETA in urging Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura to stop the cruelty at Crestview and all turkey farms.

“I am totally horrified at the level of cruelty being shown to these birds .... [These] birds were in severe pain and suffered enormously ...”

—Ian J.H. Duncan, B.Sc., Ph.D.
Professor of Poultry Ethology, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

• Minnesota is the second-largest turkey-producing state in the U.S. Urge Governor Jesse Ventura to condemn turkey-farm cruelty and demand more humane killing methods for sick and injured birds. The Honorable Jesse Ventura, Governor of Minnesota 130 State Capitol 75 Constitution Ave. St. Paul, MN 55155 • U.S. residents, please call or write your congressperson and ask him or her to include turkeys in the Humane Slaughter Act. • Grace YOUR holiday table with a delicious soy-based Tofurky, Unturkey or Tofu Turkey roast. See our Web site at www.GoVeg.com, or call 888-VEG-FOOD for ordering information. In the U.K., call the PETA office at 020 8870 3966.