For Immediate Release:
May 3, 2021
Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382
Billings, Mo. – In honor of the turkeys who were killed last Thursday when a truck carrying 500 birds crashed on US-60, PETA plans to place a billboard near the crash site urging people to “see the individual” and go vegan.
“Even the surviving turkeys in this wreck were shown no mercy—they were crammed into another truck, likely to be killed at a slaughterhouse,” says PETA Director of Campaigns Danielle Katz. “PETA’s ad should be a reminder that gentle turkeys don’t want their legs shackled and their throats slashed any more than they want to die on the side of the road.”
An estimated 245 million turkeys are killed in the U.S. every year, despite being caring parents, good flyers, and clever explorers who can live up to 10 years in nature. Killed between 12 and 26 weeks old, the young birds are hung by their feet and dragged through an electrified bath—and are often still conscious when their throats are slit and they’re dumped into scalding-hot defeathering tanks.
PETA notes that there have been at least 23 crashes involving trucks carrying animals used for food so far this year.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
