It is time to discuss turkey. As we put together for Thanksgiving, our nationwide day of gratitude, we must always know that hundreds of thousands of those birds endure unspeakable cruelty, confined to manufacturing unit farms.
Every year, roughly 46 million turkeys are slaughtered for the Thanksgiving vacation, and this yr the struggling of those sensible and socially refined animals is compounded by the returns from hen flu to the nation’s turkey business. Like COVID-19, this airborne illness is spreading quickly, and the variety of American farmed birds which have died or been euthanized resulting from hen flu since 2022 has handed 60 million.
Whereas business and officers argue that hen flu doesn’t threaten public well being, it has contaminated people, and human instances reported since 2003 have proven a 52% mortality fee. Animal illness outbreaks, exacerbated by stress, overcrowding and the irresponsible overuse of antibiotics in manufacturing unit farming, pose a threat to people and different animals. This Thanksgiving, take a minute to think about a more healthy and kinder vacation.
The horrific cruelty to which turkeys and different animals are subjected on industrial farms is an affront to our humanity. A nationwide survey commissioned by the Animal Welfare Institute in 2021, discovered that 70% of poultry shoppers opposed denying birds free vary and 63% opposed slicing off turkeys’ beaks and toes with out ache reduction, a typical follow used to maximise profitability .
Manufacturing unit-raised turkeys, which, in accordance with an estimate, account for greater than 99% of American domesticated turkeys, can’t interact in pure habits and have been bred to develop so quick and huge that mating is bodily inconceivable. The business now depends on synthetic insemination for replica, which incorporates the disturbing and violent follow of “milking” toms and inseminating hens.
The hen flu outbreaks which have plagued industrial poultry operations since 2020 have made issues worse, together with its resurgence this fall. In Iowa alone, greater than 127,000 turkeys have been killed due to the illness since October 20.
Culling refers to killing animals earlier than they might have been slaughtered for human consumption, and since hen flu is very contagious and normally deadly, farms with the illness must cull their whole flocks. Manufacturing unit farms home hundreds of birds in warehouses, and killing them en masse is often the best and most cost-effective approach, with out regard for animal struggling.
Tens of millions of birds have been introduced down via air flow stoppage, which is akin to intentionally leaving a canine in a automobile to die on a sizzling day. Animals die slowly over the course of hours when the air flow to the secure is turned off and the warmth is turned up. Their ache has been documented in pigs and birds by undercover investigators.
We are able to decide out of supporting such pointless struggling by placing compassion for animals, folks and the planet on the heart of our vacation celebrations. At Farm Sanctuary, we flip the highlight on the Thanksgiving season and encourage folks to undertake a turkey as a substitute of consuming one. We honor and acknowledge these much-maligned people every year with our Celebration for the Turkeys, the place rescued turkeys in our reserves close to Los Angeles and New York are visitors of honor, not the principle course, at a vacation feast.
In fact, not all of us welcome turkeys to our desk – however we will simply depart them off our plates. By selecting one plant-based Thanksgiving mealcan we combat cruelty and embrace a greater vacation.
Gene Baur is president and co-founder of the farm sanctuary and advocacy group Farm Sanctuary.