From ‘Turkey Trot’ to ‘Tofurky Trot’: Will Coos Bay Race Organizers ‘Gobble’ Up PETA’s Thanksgiving Name Change Request?

For Immediate Release:
November 11, 2025

Contact:
Hannah Nelson 202-483-7382

Winner, winner, Tofurky dinner! In time for Thanksgiving, PETA sent a letter to South Coast Running Club President, Amarissa Wooden, this afternoon with a pro-turkey proposal: Change the event’s name to a Tofurky Trot to encourage runners and race fans to revamp their holiday feasts and give turkeys and other animals a break. If Wooden agrees to the tofurrific switch, PETA will award each of the top 50 finishers with a delicious Tofurky Roast. 

“Turkeys are thinking, feeling beings who can race at speeds up to 55mph, but those raised for Thanksgiving dinner spend their short lives confined to dark, cramped, filthy sheds before they’re violently killed,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “PETA encourages race officials to embrace a bird-friendly ‘Tofurky Trot’ and help promote healthy and humane eating for all this Thanksgiving and beyond.”

In nature, turkeys spend their days caring for their young, building nests, foraging for food, taking dust baths, and roosting in trees—but approximately 46 million are killed each year for Thanksgiving alone. Workers hang the young birds upside down, drag them through an electrified bath, slit their throats, and dump them into scalding-hot water in defeathering tanks—often while they’re still conscious.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. PETA also offers a free vegan starter kit on its website for anyone ready to make the switch. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to Wooden follows.

November 11, 2025

Amarissa Wooden

President

South Coast Running Club

Dear Ms. Wooden,

Greetings! I’m writing on behalf of PETA and our more than 10.4 million members and supporters worldwide to request your consideration in renaming Coos Bay’s annual Turkey Trot to the “Tofurky Trot.” We’d be happy to donate 50 Tofurky roasts for participants if you upgrade the name.

Vegan foods—like savory, protein-packed Tofurky—are a winning choice for everyone. They spare animals immense suffering, nourish our bodies without cholesterol or cruelty, and help heal the planet by reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Choosing vegan meals is a powerful and delicious step towards a kinder world.

Coos Bay’s Turkey Trot is already a charitable, family-friendly event, encouraging participants to bring food donations for those in need. By renaming the event to Tofurky Trot, you could inspire even more generosity toward fellow animals. Turkeys, after all, treasure their lives and families just as humans do. Anyone who spends time with turkeys knows that they are curious, intelligent beings who love affection, and they even enjoy music, often chiming in with gobbles of their own.

Races are beautiful opportunities for the community to spend time together outside, under the sun, enjoying fresh air, but turkeys reduced to a holiday centerpiece are crammed by the thousands inside dark, filthy sheds, where they can’t enjoy anything important or natural to them. These turkeys never get to breathe fresh air or feel the warmth of the sun until the day they’re forced onto trucks headed for slaughter. Workers hang those who survive the grueling trip upside down by their fragile legs in the slaughterhouse. Some birds remain fully conscious as their throats are cut and plunged into scalding water.

That’s why we’re urging you to change your name to Tofurky Trot: What better way to honor the season of giving than racing towards kindness?

Thank you for considering our request.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman 

President