Turkey’s Desperate Plea to Kind Kids: ‘I’m ME, Not MEAT’
New PETA Billboard Will Encourage Youngsters to Talk to Their Parents About Not Eating Animals
For Immediate Release:
November 6, 2017
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Ahead of Thanksgiving on November 23—and because Missouri is the nation’s fourth top turkey-producing state—PETA is placing a new billboard this week near several local elementary schools and St. Louis Children’s Hospital showing a turkey’s face alongside the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. Kids: Ask Your Parents About Going Vegan.” The goal? To spark a family dialog about going vegan by letting children know that animals are individuals who shouldn’t be carved up and eaten on Thanksgiving or any other day of the year.
The billboard will be located at 1717 Ohio Ave., not far from St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Hogden, Shenandoah, and Peabody elementary schools.
“Children have a natural empathy for animals, so they’d be horrified to learn that gentle turkeys are babies themselves when they’re strung upside down and slaughtered,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “This Thanksgiving, PETA is calling on children and their parents to keep cruelty off the table.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that more than 45 million turkeys are killed in the U.S. each year for Thanksgiving. In nature, turkeys are protective and loving parents as well as spirited explorers who can climb trees and run as fast as 25 mph. Turkeys in the wild 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 offers a free vegan starter kit (available here) full of recipes, tips, and more. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
