A moment of silence for the turkeys on November 28

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Please spend a few moments in silence on Thursday, November 28th to remember the billions and billions of sentient individuals "housed" and slaughtered in brutal conditions. As a tool for your reflection, please visit Karen Davis' website at: www.upc-online.org Out of respect for these lost lives, you might want to read and forward these facts which Karen compiled from her book, "More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality."------------------© 2002 Information about Turkeys Compiled from More Than a Meal: TheTurkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality by Karen Davis, PhD(Lantern Books, 2001).1. The name "turkey" is believed to reflect the fact that turkeyswere first imported into Europe from Turkey during the Middle Ages.2. From the 18th century (or earlier in England and France) to the1930s, thousands of turkeys were forced to walk from 50 to severalhundred miles to slaughter in England and the US.3. Turkeys will swim if need be. (p. 61)4. Turkeys can fly 50 mph.5. Turkeys are flock birds who walk more than fly in their dailyexcursions.6. Turkeys have been described wading across streams in single fileand flying over lakes and rivers up to a mile wide. (p. 62)7. Like the passenger pigeons in the sky before they wereexterminated, wild turkeys in Ok and TX covered the prairies formiles.8. Before they are killed (for consumption), turkeys were, and stillare, starved for about 12 hours. (p. 63)9. Of 8,718,704,000 birds slaughtered in USDA facilities in 2000,268,069,000 were turkeys. (p. 71)10. In the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, canvas saddles were strapped on thebacks of female turkeys used for breeding to reduce injuries fromcrowded overweight males.11. Saddles were abandoned during the 1950s and replaced withartificial insemination and masturbation by "milkers." (p. 75)12. The wild turkey first encountered by the Europeans and colonistswere friendly towards people: "Wild turkeys, as the first settlersfound them, were as trusting and unwary as they were plentiful"(Schorger, The Wild Turkey: Its History and Domestication, p. 54).(MTAM, p. 76)13. There is no such thing today as a "pure wild turkey." Turkeystoday reflect human multiple violations, manipulations, and randommatings. (p. 79).14. Turkey hunters brag about the pornographic pleasure they get frommimicking turkey courtship behavior, luring them, and murdering themat point blank. (p. 83)15. Both turkey hunting and artificial insemination/masturbation of"production" turkeys are pornographic and obscene in a directphysical way and in the attitudes surrounding these human activities.Thanksgiving is grounded in murder and sexual obscenity. (p. 84-85)16. The "thanksgiving" turkey is a sacrificial victim and ascapegoat: a bearer of impious sentiments deflected from their truecauses. (p. 90)17. The modern bird's swollen body, distorted physical shape, andinability to mate naturally remind us no only of the cruelarbitrariness of fate, but of the sinister power of humanity. (p. 92)18. Turkeys are knowingly tortured with agonizing paralytic electricshocks prior to partial neck-cutting in US slaughterhouses. Everypiece of flesh consumed was riddled with agony. (p. 94)19. Many of the same antibiotics used to fight food poisoning fromhandling and eating turkeys are used to fight the bird diseases thatmake people sick who eat the birds. (p. 96)20. Deep pectoral myopathy, a condition in which the chest muscletissues die leading to strangulation of the blood vessels within themuscles, is due in part to the birds' "struggling and wing beatingassociated with catching for artificial insemination" (Pattison, pp.19, 229). (MTAM, p. 97).21. Contrary to what the National Turkey Federation says, HarryTruman never "pardoned" a turkey. (p. 114)22. Turkeys (all birds-98% of animals slaughtered for food in the US)are excluded from coverage under the federal Humane Methods ofSlaughter Act (1958; regs. 1978). (p. 115)23. Ronald Reagan and George Bush (President Bush "officially" in1989) initiated the turkey pardoning ceremony idea as a off shoot ofthe Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan administration. (pp. 116-117)24. By "pardoning" one turkey we are reminded that all those othermillions of turkeys were not. (p. 120)25. The American Thanksgiving is a sacrificial blood ritual and theturkey is the communal sacrifice to "unify society, a role played bywar." (p. 120)26. Young turkeys thrown into the filthy pathogen-infested turkeyhouses frequently starve to death, unable to locate food and water,in part because young turkeys need their mothers, of whom they aredeprived by the commercial industry. (p. 125)27. Turkey mothers are among the most protective mothers in theworld. (pp. 126-127)28. Modern turkeys raised for the meat industry are inclined tolameness, respiratory congestion, mating infirmities, and heartdisease. (p. 129)29. Turkeys and chickens are reared motherless on factory farms, inbuildings in which the dimensions of time and space are reduced tomonotonous extensions of toxic waste devoid of comfort, colors, andnovelty, and which are filled with thousands of sick, dead, and dyingbirds. (p. 131)30. Modern "production" turkeys are doubly imprisoned: in alienbodies that frustrate their natural impulses and in filthypathogen-infested buildings from which they cannot escape.31. Turkey hens normally sit on a clutch of about 12 eggs. (135)32. Turkeys inside the egg communicate with the mother hen longbefore they are born.33. The average hatching time for a clutch of eggs is 24 hours.34. Turkeys have excellent full-color vision and make directeye-contact as soon as they are born (hatch). (p. 136)35. Turkeys do not stand and drown in the rain. Young turkeysdeprived of the opportunity to dive under their mother's wings maydie of chill when it rains, because they are covered with down. Orthey may look up to see what is falling on them, and in doing sotheir noses can quickly clog with water if no one is there to shelterthem fast enough, as in nature the mother bird would do. (pp.137-138)36. Turkey World (US industry trade magazine, 1995): At the hatchery,poults (newborn and young turkeys) are "squeezed, thrown a slide ontoa treadmill, someone picks them up and pulls the snood of theirheads, clips three toes off each foot, debeaks them, puts them onanother conveyer belt that delivers them to another carousel wherethey get a power injection, usually of an antibiotic, that whacksthem in the back of their necks. Essentially, they have been throughmajor surgery. They have been traumatized. They don't look very good"(p. 27). (MTAM, p. 138)37. In nature, young turkeys stay with, and learn from, their motherfor as long as five months. (p. 138)38. Turkeys dust bathe to keep clean, maintain good plumage, andeliminate parasites. A dust bathe is their method of practicingbodily hygiene the same as a water bath is for humans. (p. 140)39. Turkeys "transplant" sound from one bird to another within aflock at a moment's danger. "It is impossible for the human ear todetect an interval" or to determine which bird launched the chorus orcaused it to cease (Schorger, p. 152). (MTAM, pp. 150-151).40. Turkeys dance and frolic. "They were just having a twilightfrolic before going to roost. They kept dashing at one another inmock anger, stridently calling all the while, almost playing leapfrogin their antics. Their notes were bold and clear" (quoted inSchorger, p. 153). (MTAM, p. 151) "On cold winter mornings,"Frequently as many as eight or ten will participate in a sort ofchase during which they will run at each other, then dodge suddenly.. . . Sometimes they will duck through or around a patch of brush toput their companions off guard" (quoted in Schorger, p. 152). (MTAM,pp. 151-152)41. A turkey mother will fight fiercely to protect her young, showinghow her individual intelligence, ancestral memories, and maternalinstincts come together at just the right moment. (p. 152)42. Avian specialist Dr. Lesley J. Rogers: "There has been atradition of treating birds as cognitively inferior to mammalianspecies. . . . Recent findings challenge assumptions that have beenmade about brain size and the superiority of the mammalian line ofevolution" (The Development of Brain and Behavior in the Chicken,1995, p. 214). (MTAM, pp. 155-156)43. The cruelty of turkey production and positive views of turkeysappear in an overriding media context that makes light and fun ofboth the suffering and intelligence of these birds. More thananything else, it is the attitude toward the information presentedthat constitutes the "dominance" that ensures that society'scollective amnesia and willful forgetting will remain intact atThanksgiving, ironically the holiday when memories are supposed to bein the ascendant. (p. 168)© 2002 Karen Davis, PhDPresident, United Poultry Concerns, Inc.PO Box 150Machipongo, VA 23405 Tel:757-678-7875 * Fax:757-678-5070 * http://www.UPC-online.org This information compilation is the property of United PoultryConcerns, Credit must be acknowledged as such in any publicationformat in which it appears. Thank you.___________________ United Poultry Concerns is a national nonprofit organization thatpromotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl.For more information, go to http://www.UPC-online.org "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world...indeed, it is the only thing that ever has!" -- Margaret Mead "Live in peace with the animals. Animals bring love to our hearts, and warmth to our souls."

Colleen Klaum

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." Immanuel Kant

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