PETA AU Global 2021 Issue 4

One Glimpse Inside This Shed and You’ll Plan a What the PETA Investigator Saw

I’m Some one , Not Some thing

ThanksVegan

Film strip: © iStock.com/Simon Herrmann • Turkey portrait: © Susan Ocean • Billboard frame: © iStock.com/kickstand

Our loading crewmet each evening outside the slaughterhouse. Most days, we started just as the slaughter was ending. The thousands of birds we had loaded the night before were already dead. Time to go and round up some more. When our crew reached a farm, the barn door would slide open to reveal a sea of living, feeling beings all packed together. There was no empty space. We saw the floor of the barn only in the radius around us that the turkeys vacated as they scrambled to get away from us. Workers picked up and threw those who couldn’t walk, making way for the mobile conveyor belt and the chute that fed it. Hundreds of birds in each barn were lame, their frail frames unable to support their unnaturally heavy weight – a result of genetic engineering. Cages were stacked six high on the trailer. Workers slung and stuffed turkeys inside, often upside down. The birds could be trapped that way for hours. Legs and wings got caught under the shifting conveyor belt until it moved back the other way, and when it did, limbs were bent and broken, bones gleaming white in the fluorescent light. Fighting for Their Lives Workers often dragged turkeys away from the flock to abuse them. Other toms would approach, puffing up and bravely trying to defend their companions, despite being beaten and kicked away, as well as making themselves targets. I heard the same expressions used consistently at all levels of the Plainville Farms hierarchy: “Turkeys are dumb.” “The toms are mean.” “Get them before they get you.” Management said these things to catchers, who then repeated them to each other to justify their cruelty. The turkeys were neither “dumb” nor “mean” – they were simply trying to protect themselves and each other, in the only way they knew how, from those of us who held all the power.

The ‘Kick’ I recorded countless horrific images, because abuse took place on every farm we worked at. The workers kicked and stomped on the turkeys as hard as they could. They threw them through the air by the wing, neck, head, or snood

Lame Birds Kicked, Turkeys Used as Sex Toys, Horror in the Sheds

and tossed them back and forth for fun. They tied toms’ snoods together, and laughed as the wide-eyed birds were jostled in the packed confines of the chute. They struck the turkeys with an iron bar and stood on their heads. They choked and throttled these sensitive individuals and wrung and broke their necks. They mimicked sex acts with them, holding turkeys between their legs and moving the birds’ necks up and down in lewd gestures, among other things. And when the birds were too injured to move, the workers kicked or threw them. Dead or dying turkeys were tossed aside. One of the crew positions was called the “kick,” because the role involved kicking the lame turkeys forward. At one of the barns, the farmer said he requested our crew because he liked how we operated. He said the other Plainville crew turned the turkeys into “hamburger” on the way to the truck. It was hard to imagine how much worse the other crew could be, given the vicious treatment I continually witnessed among my own coworkers.

PARDON ME The Grim Fate of Last Year’s White House Turkeys Ever wondered what becomes of the turkeys “pardoned” by the

memory. But what I was able to record will prove this vitally important fact: There is no such thing as “humane” meat. The farmer “said the other Plainville crew turned the turkeys into ‘hamburger’ on the way to the truck.”

US president after Thanksgiving? PETA visited “Gobbler’s Rest” on the Virginia Tech campus and found four turkeys “pardoned” by President Trump living in squalor. Even though turkeys are highly social birds, two of the four are penned up alone. None of them can dustbathe or roost, and they are so frustrated by the barren conditions that they’re pulling out their own – and each other’s – feathers. Please visit PETA.org/GobblersRest to urge Virginia Tech to send these birds to a reputable sanctuary. Because they’ve been bred, fed, and drugged to grow much larger and far more quickly than they ever would have in nature, no pardoned turkey has lived past the age of 2. The only way to ensure that turkeys have a “happy ending” is to stop eating them.

Take Action Now Plainville Farms was certified “humane” by the Global Animal Partnership (GAP),

and its products were sold at Whole Foods before the supermarket suspended purchasing from the company. You can see the shocking video footage at PETA.org/Turkeys . Please share it with everyone you know, and urge Kroger, Wegmans, Publix, and GAP to stop propping up factory farming. For animal-friendly Thanksgiving recipes that all species can be thankful for, visit PETA.org.au/ThanksVegan .

Abuse often took place on the periphery of the camera’s field of vision and now exists only in my

Global 21

20 LABELS LIE