Last year, PETA and other animal advocates successfully defeated "ag gag" bills in Florida, New York, Minnesota, and Iowa. Now, another "ag gag" bill that would make it illegal to shoot video on a factory farm has just passed in the House of Representatives in Utah. And once again, we're fighting back against this unconstitutional measure.

Flush from her success in her home state of Iowa, Raising Hope star and longtime animal advocate Cloris Leachman penned a letter to Utah lawmakers on PETA's behalf urging them not to block people from gathering the evidence needed to prosecute animal abusers

Every PETA undercover investigation of factory farms has yielded evidence that workers were abusing animals. We recorded workers who sexually assaulted a pig with a cane, stomped on a turkey's head until her skull exploded, and spit tobacco into chickens' eyes and mouth. This indisputable proof of abuse is key to securing historic charges against and convictions of such abusers on cruelty-to-animals charges.

How You Can Help

Utah residents, please ask your senators to vote against this bill and to continue to allow people to expose blatant cruelty to animals.

North Carolina law-enforcement officials raided a Butterball turkey factory farm after viewing disturbing video footage of workers who abused turkeys. The video, shot during an undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals, shows workers who kick and stomp on birds, smash them into the ground, and bash in their heads with metal rods.

Mercy For Animals' findings mirror those uncovered during PETA's 2006 undercover investigation of a Butterball slaughterhouse in Arkansas. We documented that one employee stomped on a bird's head until it exploded, that another smashed a turkey into a metal handrail so hard that her spine burst through her skin, and that another worker sexually assaulted a female turkey. One worker told the investigator, "If you jump on their stomachs right, they'll pop ... or their insides will come out of their [rectums]." The findings are also strikingly similar to the horrific abuses documented by PETA's 2008 investigation of Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., which led to the first-ever indictments for felony cruelty to animals for the abuse of birds and the first-ever cruelty convictions of turkey factory-farm workers.

The abuse documented is apparently business as usual for Butterball and the turkey industry. Click here to urge the company to adopt "controlled-atmosphere killing" (CAK), in which birds are killed by inert gas while still in their transport crates, eliminating much of the opportunity for abuse at the slaughterhouse. And to help end the abuse that these intelligent, sensitive animals suffer before they make it to slaughter, refuse to eat turkeys and choose fowl-friendly faux turkey instead.

Ask anyone on the PETA staff and they can tell you about lots of people—even hard-nosed, stalwart, meat-eating relatives—who've seen one little video clip and changed their minds about turkeys. Help everyone opt for that delicious Tofurky instead of a slice of contaminated dead turkey by cuing up one of our funny little PETA Thanksgiving public service announcements (PSAs) to provide helpful insight into why a cruelty-free feast is the way to go.

Philadelphia and Baltimore may be a little safer after PETA members worked tirelessly to get baby-killers off the streets—the killers of baby turkeys, that is.

A baby doll bedecked with frills served as the centerpiece for this eerie Thanksgiving dinner, making the point that farmers drug and breed turkeys to grow so fast that most are only months old when they are slammed upside down into metal shackles, only to have their throats slit. (What kind of job is that? But who pays someone to do it? The consumer!)

But as we hear out there, ever more people are turning to a meal that celebrates life and spares a turkey, not "pardons" one. After all, what crime could a baby have committed?

Some years ago, when I interned at a sanctuary for farmed animals, I'd sit in the barn, and a turkey named Fern would back up into my lap and demand to be petted. When I'd stop, she'd look over her shoulder imploringly as if to say, "More, please." I always think of Fern at this time of year, when supermarket bins are filled with the frozen bodies of her relatives. If people got a chance to know these interesting and personable birds, I believe they'd balk at baking and eating their wings, legs, and breasts.

Turkeys on farmed-animal sanctuaries quickly prove themselves to be intelligent and industrious as well as outgoing at times and shy at other times, much like human children. Sitting in the barn, the birds' distinct personalities were immediately clear. Some, bold and hilarious, would walk right up and look me square in the eye as if to challenge my right to invade their space. Others, like a coy debutante, would peer over their shoulders, aloof but not wanting to miss anything exciting. Many, like Fern, would purr when petted.

This Thanksgiving, please take a moment to reflect: Can the fleeting pleasure of a meal justify the immeasurable pain and suffering of a bird who didn't want to die? Give turkeys like Fern a reason to purr. Stuff yourself with mashed potatoes, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and other vegan goodies and leave the birds alone.

Via Newsday

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Everyone who tuned in to PBS last night for the premiere of My Life as a Turkey was treated to a fascinating glimpse into the lives of animals who are often seen as little more than Thanksgiving centerpieces. The film follows Joe Hutto as he raises 16 turkeys, left on his porch as eggs, from hatchlings to adulthood.

Watching the turkeys form an intense bond with their "mother," Joe, and seeing them grow, learn, and interact would make the staunchest carnivore think twice about calling these sensitive, intelligent birds "dinner."

Watch My Life as a Turkey and click here to enter to win the DVD and the book that inspired it. And check out PETA's recipes for a turkey-friendly Thanksgiving smorgasbord on our Living page.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Keen to try some roasted puppy leg or a freshly carved puppy breast? A new billboard PETA is trying to place outside public schools across the country ahead of Thanksgiving should certainly give children and their parents not only the shivers but also some important food for thought:

Turkey: © iStockphoto.com/James Steidl • Dog: © iStockphoto.com/Eric Isselée

Turkeys are gentle, inquisitive animals who enjoy music and like to have their feathers stroked, but turkeys raised for food are kept in crowded, dark sheds where the ammonia from their accumulated waste burns their skin. At slaughterhouses, turkeys are slammed upside down into shackles and dragged through electrified water. Many birds have their throats slit while they're still conscious and able to feel pain.

Stuffing kids (or anyone) with turkey is also bad for their health: In addition to artery-clogging fat and cholesterol, they also could be gobbling up arsenic, which is used to combat disease on filthy factory farms. Other dangers of eating turkey include contracting listeria, salmonella, or campylobacter bacteria, which cause millions of cases of food-borne illness each year.

Kids can learn more about how to "love animals, not eat them" at the PETA Kids or peta2 websites. Adults who want to quit cruelty cold turkey this Thanksgiving can check out Gardein's delicious vegan holiday recipes and enter to win a free vegan Gardein Savory Stuffed Turk'y on our Living page.

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan

For the past 65 years during Yellville, Arkansas' annual "Turkey Trot Festival," residents have hurled live turkeys out of airplanes at high altitudes for the "pleasure" of watching the wild birds—who naturally only fly short distances at low altitudes—drop to the Earth. Many are badly injured or killed, and others are tackled and taken home to be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. But this year, not only were no turkeys tossed, two lucky birds were also rescued and are now living in a loving home!

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) swarmed the area, promising that any pilot caught throwing turkeys would risk losing his or her license. Apparently, the would-be turkey-tossers decided it wasn't worth the risk—not one turkey was dropped! PETA is also offering a $5,000 reward (which still stands) for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone caught throwing turkeys out of airplanes.

To "get back at PETA" for objecting to this cruel tradition, one woman tried to buy two flightless, domesticated turkeys so that she could hurl them from the roof of the town courthouse! A PETA activist quickly intervened, warning the sellers that they would be aiding and abetting in a crime by selling the birds for this purpose, and she convinced them to give the birds to her instead. After getting veterinary care for one of the birds, who had suffered injuries to her face and neck, likely from abuse, PETA found the birds a wonderful home. Now named Lori and Walfredo, the turkeys are living the good life on a spacious farm with a loving family.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

The meat industry thrives on the abuse of animals, so it comes as no surprise that former pig factory-farm workers are alleging that the management of Murphy-Brown—a subsidiary of the world's largest pig producer, Smithfield Foods—turned a blind eye to sexual harassment of female employees.

In a case that went before a federal jury this week, one woman claims that female staff were groped by male coworkers, were spied on in the shower via peepholes, and had their underwear stolen from their lockers. The harassment allegedly went on for years despite complaints to supervisors. It is worth noting that the men accused of the harassment—said to include putting what is suspected to be semen on women's underwear—worked at a breeding farm where sows were artificially inseminated, which is typically done by men armed with bags of boar semen and tubes that they shove into pigs' reproductive tracts.

Unfortunately, PETA investigations show that failure to discipline workers for sexual abuse seems to be standard policy at many factory farms, particularly when the victims are animals.

To encourage Canadians to celebrate a cruelty-free Thanksgiving, sexy PETA "pilgrims" landed at Toronto's Old City Hall for a festive Tofurky giveaway. Thankful Torontonians gobbled up the demonstration—literally. The pilgrims handed out 50 delicious, meat-free Tofurky roasts in less than five minutes!

Turkeys are intelligent, affectionate animals, so please have the "grace" to leave them off the table. Remember: If you wouldn't eat your dog, don't eat a turkey.

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan