Published Letters and Op-Eds from
COK’s Writers Group

Long Distance Thanks

Thank you for your article emphasizing the many qualities of turkeys ("For the Birds;" IT; 11-16-05).

Unfortunately, 45 million turkeys will be eaten this Thanksgiving. And their deaths are only the final cruelty they endure in modern factory farms.

Hatched in an incubator, mass-produced turkeys know nothing of a caring mother. While the birds are young, workers amputate the turkeys' toes and use a hot blade to cut the tips of their beaks - both without painkiller - causing such physical disabilities that eating, walking and standing are often painful.

When they've reached market weight, the turkeys are grabbed by catchers, packed into crates, and loaded onto trucks. They travel for hours without food, water or protection from the elements to the slaughter plant, where they are shackled upside down to a moving rail and meet their horrible end.

Butchered, plucked, cleaned and wrapped, the frozen turkey carcasses you see in the market have been stripped of all that made them individuals. Not exactly something to give thanks for.

The good news is that more and more people are becoming aware of the abuses involved in today's confinement-oriented animal agriculture and will be celebrating a turkey-free Thanksgiving.

Mark Hawthorne
Rohnert Park, CA