Speciesism

Unhappy Christmas for Millions of Turkeys

Turkey FarmCredit: Aussie Farms

For humans, Christmas can be a time of joy, but for other species, the scale of the carnage and cruelty is monstrous.

Around the world today, millions of turkeys and other sentient beings will be served at dinner tables in celebration of Christmas.

The most devastating country for turkeys is the U.S. where close to three hundred million turkeys are killed each year. Thirty million turkeys will be slaughtered for Christmas alone, in the US, UK and Canada.

Their life starts in an incubator where they are hatched, never seeing their mothers. After just a few weeks, they are then moved to large, crowded, windowless sheds where they will spend the rest of their short lives.

Before being sent to the slaughterhouse at just 5 to 6 months old, most will have lived a life of misery on a factory farm, genetically manipulated to grow as large as possible as quickly as possible, whereas in the wild, they can live to be 10 years old.

There is no animal rights law that protect these turkeys and many are abused and treated with cruelty, like having their beaks cut off without painkillers.

Animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) staged a funeral vigil in a supermarket meat aisle this holiday season to highlight the "violence of a traditional Christmas meal".

"We use the method of disruption to draw immediate attention to the beings who were killed for their bodies to be on a shelf," a DxE spokesperson said.

"We are targeting the system of speciesism and aiming for systematic change rather than targeting individuals."

With so much death and suffering going on, it is surprising anyone can have a holly jolly Christmas or a happy new year.