PETA Uncovers More Animal Abuse
US - A new investigation at a leading turkey farms has revealed continuing abuse, reports People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The organisation is encouraging members of the public to express their concerns to the turkey company.
9 February 2009
3 minute read
The latest press release from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) reads:
Following our investigation inside Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., 19 indictments for cruelty to animals have been filed against former employees. This is the first time in US history that factory farm employees have faced felony cruelty-to-animals charges for abusing birds. Learn more on our blog, and please take a moment to renew your call to Aviagen using the form below.
More than 72 million of the nearly 270 million turkeys killed for food every year in the US are slaughtered for holiday meals. This year, just prior to the flesh-focused Thanksgiving holiday, PETA conducted an undercover investigation lasting more than two months at the factory farms of Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., the self-proclaimed "world's leading poultry breeding company."
While working at a series of Aviagen factory farms in West Virginia, PETA's investigator documented that workers tortured, mutilated, and maliciously killed turkeys.
PETA's investigator repeatedly brought abuses to a supervisor's attention. The supervisor responded, "Every once in a while, everybody gets agitated and has to kill a bird." PETA also brought the abuse to the attention of Aviagen, and although the company made assurances and instituted some new rules, the cruelty did not stop.
The suffering typically found on factory farms was also routine in Aviagen's sheds: hens' beaks were cut with pliers, massive birds collapsed and died of exhaustion or heart attacks, and turkeys were thrown into transport cages.
Please write to Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., and demand that it implement PETA's seven-point animal welfare plan. Also demand that the company pledge to immediately terminate employees caught abusing or neglecting animals in the future (the company claims to have terminated some such workers), and ask the company to cooperate with state and local law enforcement to criminally prosecute all such employees.
PETA offers a standard e-mail for people concerned to register their objections to the turkey company mentioned.
