Thanksgiving Turkey Makes Plea in Windsor: ‘I’m ME, Not MEAT’

New Billboard in Top Turkey-Producing Province Urges People to Opt for Animal-Free Holiday Feast

For Immediate Release:
October 3, 2018

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

Ahead of Thanksgiving on October 8, PETA has placed a new billboard in Windsor—where the city’s council approved grants for a multimillion-dollar turkey-packaging plant on Mercer Street earlier this year—showing a turkey’s bright face alongside the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan.“

The billboard is located on Huron Church Road between Kenora Street and Malden Road (facing north), near Fred’s Farm Fresh International Market, Applebee’s, and several fast-food restaurants.

“This billboard will inspire people to consider who that bite of Thanksgiving turkey really is—and that’s a gentle young bird who was strung upside down and slaughtered,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is calling on all compassionate people to gobble up hearty and delicious vegan roasts, stews, and veggies this Thanksgiving instead of the mutilated corpse of a bird who wanted to live.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that Canadians purchased 2.2 million turkeys for Thanksgiving last year alone, equal to 31 percent of all the turkeys sold in the country throughout the entire year. In nature, these sensitive birds are protective and loving parents as well as spirited explorers who can climb trees and run as fast as 40 kilometres per hour. In the wild, turkeys can live up to 10 years, but those raised for food are normally slaughtered when they’re between 12 and 26 weeks old. The young birds are hung by their feet from metal shackles and dragged through an electrified bath that can cause them to have full-body tremors. They’re often still conscious when their throats are slit and they’re dumped into a bath of scalding-hot water to remove their feathers.

PETA encourages everyone to celebrate Thanksgiving by taking its “Vegan Persuasion Pledge“—and for every 100 people who do so, PETA pledges in turn to donate a delicious vegan dinner to a charity working with underserved families.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.