Turkeys Dish Up Timely Food for Thought Near Local Slaughterhouses

For Immediate Release:
November 9, 2021

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Now that 47% of Americans want to incorporate more vegan foods into their meals—and after PETA caught workers kicking, stomping on, and beating turkeys sold by companies with “humanely raised” labels—this Thanksgiving is poised to be the most vegan one yet, so PETA is raising sky-high messages near the local slaughterhouses of two major meat producers, Cargill and Tyson, blaring the arrival of ThanksVegan.

“When people get the message that turkeys love their families, feel pain and fear, and value their lives, they’re interested in putting a Tofurky on the table,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is happy to help usher in a new ThanksVegan holiday to reflect the many Americans who will gobble up a vegan feast this year.”

Turkeys can live up to 10 years, but those raised for food are normally slaughtered when they’re between 12 and 26 weeks old—and more than 45 million turkeys are killed each year for Thanksgiving alone. In slaughterhouses, the young birds are hung by their feet from metal shackles and dragged through an electrified bath, and they’re often still conscious when their throats are slit and they’re dumped into scalding-hot defeathering tanks.

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.

The billboards are located on I-81 at Junction 808 and Junction 724.