Dear carmen,

Thanksgiving provides us with an opportunity to consider the things that make each of us grateful. I am grateful for all that you do to help end the suffering of animals.

Today, I am asking you to do a little more. As you prepare to sit down with friends and family this Thursday, I’d like to ask you to please take a moment to make a tax-deductible gift to help the more than 72 million individual turkeys who will be slaughtered for America’s holiday dinners in the coming days and weeks.

Last week, I told you about PETA’s new undercover investigation into the turkey industry. The cruelty that our investigator found during his two months at a series of Aviagen turkey farms in West Virginia was heartbreaking. Our investigator documented the following:

• Workers admitted to killing turkeys with 2-by-4s and pipes, and workers attempted to kill birds by twisting and bending the animals’ necks, sometimes repeatedly.
• Turkeys were routinely kicked and thrown, and employees even stomped on birds’ heads.
• The decomposing remains of roughly 70 hens were left to rot among live birds—who had to climb over the dead—for more than 24 hours.

No animal should suffer like this for a holiday.

The public outcry over what this investigation uncovered has been massive. Major media outlets, including The New York Times, USA Today, and the Associated Press, have helped to expose the shocking cruelty that dominates the short, miserable lives of the turkeys who will be killed this holiday season.

While the media attention that this case has generated is important, it falls to you and me, as caring and compassionate individuals, to help ensure that turkeys, chickens, and countless other animals are no longer condemned to the abusive conditions that PETA’s investigator has exposed to the world. We need to have the resources to take advantage of this momentum and to make sure that real change takes place on turkey and chicken factory farms.

By making a special holiday gift today, you will help us to ensure that those responsible for the horrific abuses witnessed inside these factory farms are held accountable, and you’ll make our efforts to achieve lasting reform throughout the industry possible. No bird should ever have to suffer like the turkeys abused at Aviagen.

We still have a lot of work to do for animals. I hope that you will give whatever you can to help end their suffering. Even in this difficult economic climate, each of us has much to be grateful for.

For all that you do for animals this holiday season and beyond, thank you.

Kind regards,

Ingrid E. Newkirk
President

P.S. Eating turkeys or other animals supports the horrific abuse that this investigation has uncovered. By planning a cruelty-free holiday dinner this week, you’ll be showing your friends and loved ones that delicious food doesn’t have to come at the expense of animals.