Giant Turkey to Local Diners: Let’s Pardon All Toms for ‘ThanksVegan’
For Immediate Release:
November 11, 2022
Contact:
Lauren Kent 202-483-7382
On the heels of Gov. Kay Ivey’s turkey “pardon” yesterday, PETA is encouraging everyone to follow suit in a can’t-be-missed message that just went up near turkey-serving restaurants on Atlanta Highway.
Part of PETA’s nationwide campaign urging people to celebrate “ThanksVegan” by leaving turkeys in peace, the billboard follows the news that 12 former workers at Plainville Farms, a self-described “humane” turkey supplier, were recently charged with more than 140 counts of cruelty to animals after a PETA undercover investigation, making cruelty to animals one of the many reasons, along with health and the environment, why people are going for tasty, animal-free fare this year.
“Pardons should be for everyone who once ate but has decided to stop eating these gentle individuals, who feel pain and fear and deserve to enjoy their turkey lives,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is encouraging everyone to take personal responsibility to ‘pardon a Tom,’ and we have free recipes to help folks get started.”
Turkeys raised for food are normally slaughtered when they’re between 14 and 18 weeks old, and more than 45 million turkeys are killed each year for Thanksgiving alone. Workers hang the young birds upside down, drag them through an electrified bath, slit their throats, and dump them into scalding-hot water in defeathering tanks—often while they’re still conscious. In addition to preventing nearly 200 animals a year from enduring daily suffering and a terrifying death, everyone who goes vegan shrinks their carbon footprint and slashes their risk of suffering from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other ailments.
PETA’s ThanksVegan guide is packed with recipes, cooking tips, lists of the best hearty meat-free roasts, and everything else needed to enjoy a delicious turkey-friendly holiday.
PETA’s billboard is located at 6050 Atlanta Hwy., just down the road from Jim ’N Nick’s, Wishbone Cafe, Martha’s Place Buffet and Catering, and a slew of other turkey-selling restaurants and grocery stores.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
