by Brenda Shoss

Poultry Pardon 2001

On November 22, Americans will assemble around tables to embrace Thanksgiving 2001, even as loss still resounds from the broken lives buried beneath hate's wreckage.

Abraham Lincoln created Thanksgiving as a respite from Civil War strife. In the wake of terrorist attacks that unified humankind, Thanksgiving 2001 will transcend racial, religious and social borders for a more meaningful holiday. And how will we commemorate our gratitude? With the carcass of a genetically mutilated and tortured bird.

This Thanksgiving I propose a day of empathy that extends beyond our species. I ask Americans to consider the 290,000,000 turkeys who are annually heaved through "stunning tanks" to emerge alert as automated blades slice through their necks. Sure, President Bush will release one turkey to a sanctuary in a symbolic gesture of mercy. But this yearly ritual rings false when the rest of us roast, bake, broil and baste a fellow earthling.

Most people don't want to replace their dead bird with a soy replica. It's too "radical" and defies tradition. It's radical that modern farms breed turkeys with growth hormones to concoct a breast-heavy mutation with swollen joints, crippled feet and heart disease. It's radical to cram animals into sunless warehouses with 3 square feet of space per bird. It is extreme to pile animals atop their own waste in overcrowded sheds where ammonia fumes sear through eyes and lungs. It is extreme to carve off the beaks and toes of confined birds.

Today's poultry factories are a drastic departure from the picturesque family farm. With turkey exports up 1,200% or 348 million pounds per year and chicken exports up over 600% to 4 billion pounds—USDA-sanctioned geneticists devise extreme measures to harvest living inventory. White turkeys barely resemble their colorful wild relatives who can soar 55 miles per hour and live up to 15 years. Forced to grow twice as fast and large as wild turkeys, anatomically altered birds cannot support their own weight.

"If a seven pound [human] baby grew at the same rate that today's turkey grows, when the baby reaches 18 weeks of age, it would weigh 1,500 pounds," Lancaster Farming asserts. In the race to fatten chickens for slaughter by 6-weeks-old and turkeys within 20 weeks, the birds endure "chronic pain for the last 20% of their lives," claims veterinary professor John Webster. In a PETA undercover investigation, broiler birds were found dehydrated and plagued with respiratory diseases, heat prostration, bacterial infections and cancer. Rather than humanely euthanize ill birds, workers fatally battered them with pipes or nails affixed to crude handles. Other crippled birds, unable to reach food or water, simply died.

Turkeys and chickens manufactured for meat spend their brief lives in grower houses without enough room to flutter a wing or extend a leg. They cannot express instinctual traits such as nest building, dust bathing, perching, or ground scratching. To curtail fighting and cannibalism, workers amputate the bottom third of each bird's beak. With no anesthesia or veterinary care, mangled beaks often grow infected or too painful for the birds to eat.

Though chickens and turkeys constitute 90% of the 9 billion animals farmed for food in the U.S., they are omitted from the Humane Slaughter Act. The poultry slaughterhouse is staffed with mostly immigrant laborers who suffer stress, repetitive strain injuries, and limb wounds that far exceed the national average. The breakneck production line begins with shackled birds slung upside down from a revolving rail. Their heads are plunged into electrified water baths that merely paralyze them. Still cognizant, the birds proceed to mechanized throat-slashers that are notoriously imprecise. Many fall from the racks to wander dazed over blood-washed floors. Some birds remain fully conscious when they are pitched into feather-extracting tanks of scalding water. Workers call the the boiled-alive birds "redsk"

Some contend that the institutionalized suffering of farmed animals is a petty concern that diminishes human anguish. In fact, the way a society treats animals reflects its attitude toward all life. In recent years, public sentiment has shifted from indifference to a call for enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act and the Humane Slaughter Act. In an unprecedented speech before the Senate on July 9, 2001, Senator Robert Byrd stated: "These creatures feel. They suffer pain just as we humans suffer pain. Federal law is being ignored. Animal cruelty abounds. Barbaric treatment of helpless, defenseless creatures must not be tolerated even if these animals are being raised for food-and even more so. Such insensitivity is insidious and can spread and is dangerous. Life must be respected and dealt with humanely in a civilized soci"

Health-wise, the prudent choice is to delete poultry meat entirely. Turkey and chicken have no fiber or carbohydrates. A turkey leg, with 72 milligrams of cholesterol and 47% saturated fat, flaunts more "bad stuff" than many cuts of beef. In "Chicken Is Not a Health Food" the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine reveals that chicken and beef share the same 25 mg. per ounce of cholesterol. Salmonella bacteria and some antibiotic-resistant strains of campylobacter poisoning contaminate 90% of federally examined poultry. The USDA blame these two pathogens for an estimated 4 million illnesses and 3,000 deaths per year in the U.S.

Chicken and turkey flesh come from distressed animals with compromised immune systems. In Diet for a New America, author John Robbins claims 90% of factory-farmed chickens are infected with leukosis, or chicken cancer. Chicken meat exceeds red meat in levels of heterocyclic amines, the compounds shown to raise cancer risk in humans.

Chicken and turkey processing plants also wreak environmental havoc. With 20 million tons of poultry poop annually dumped into waterways, poultry farms are chief contributors to surplus toxic microbes in coastal waters. In 1997, the Priesteria piscida microbe killed 450,000 fish in North Carolina and 30,000 fish in the Chesapeake Bay. In humans Pfiesteria exposure has caused amnesia, respiratory difficulties and dermal allergies.

Livestock production usurps 80% of U.S. water resources. A Washington Post article about the poultry slaughter industry in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia reported: "Every working day, a dozen slaughterhouses use more than 12 million gallons of water to flush away more than 1,600 tons of guts, chicken heads, fat globules, feathers and blood."

I happen to know a few chickens and turkeys. Like dogs and cats, they slip into critter nirvana when their bellies are rubbed. Their rhapsody vibrates in softly murmured babble. In the spirit of Thanksgiving creator Abraham Lincoln—who once said "I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights"—I suggest a permanent pardon for poultry. Anyone can purchase delicious mock meats at the supermarket. Universal compassion, on the other hand, is priceless.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1. November is Adopt-a-Turkey Month at Farm Sanctuary, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending farm animal abuse through rescue and shelter efforts. To help fund lifelong haven for rescued victims of the food industry and to join Farm Sanctuary's Sentient Beings Campaign, contact toll-free: 1-888-SPONSOR
http://www.farmsanctuary.org
campaign@farmsanctuary.org
New York shelter: 607-583-2225
California shelter: 530-865-4617

2. This holiday season, give thanks to animals rather than eat them. Check out the multitude of meat-free "turkeys" available in most health food stores or from the manufacturers:
Tofurky: 800-508-8100; www.tofurky.com UnTurkey: 800-335-1959
Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey by Karen Davis, available in paperback from Barnes and Noble. barnesandnoble.com Free vegetarian starter packs: 1-888-VEG-Food

3. Write to your U.S. Senators to oppose government subsidies for factory farms. Tell them you disagree with the Proposed Environmental Quality Incentives Program Measure for Agribusiness—which would hand over your tax dollars to large agribusiness operations that waste resources, water and land.
The Honorable _________________________________
The U.S. Senate
U.S. Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

4. Write to House Agriculture Appropriation Chairman Henry Bonilla and Ranking Democrat Marcy Kaptur to request that chickens and turkeys gain protection under the Humane Slaughter Act. Ask them to also support increased funding for USDA inspectors to enforce regulations under the Animal Welfare Act and the Humane Slaughter Act.
The Honorable Henry Bonilla, House Agriculture Appropriations Chairman
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
ph: 202-225-4511; fax: 202-225-2237

The Honorable Marcy Kaptur, Ranking Democrat
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
ph: 202-225-4146; fax: 202-225-7711

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