PETA Member Comes to North Dakota for Naked Protest of Turkey Consumption

What were PETA members recently protesting in North Dakota?

Some members of PETA recently got to experience brutally cold North Dakota weather when they arrived here to demonstrate. Last week, Inforum interviewed PETA members who traveled from California and Georgia to protest people eating turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. One guy even spent some time nearly naked and folded up like a raw turkey for the cause before the bitter cold was too much to handle.

Why would someone protest for the life of a turkey?

I will start off by saying that I am a lifelong carnivore, so I am not saying anything against meat-eaters. But I do think PETA's protest can at least get a conversation started about severe mistreatment of animals before they make it to our tables. And, from what I have found, commercially born and raised turkeys live a life of torture before being slaughtered.

A Chicago-based non-profit organization called  Free from Harm compiled a disturbing list of information about how factory farm-raised turkeys are inhumanely treated. WARNING: This is disturbing information. Some of the treatment that factory farm turkeys receive from day one include:

• Newborn turkeys call for their mothers that they will never see
• Turkeys are violently handled for forced, invasive reproduction
• Some young turkeys suffer mutilation of beaks and/ or toes
• They can die for a number of reasons just while being transported to be slaughtered

I have seen first-hand the horrible way poultry is transported in masses. One time, I was driving on the highway when I saw a semi-truck transporting countless amounts of chickens in the trailer. I could see the chickens all smashed together as their stuck beaks and toes poked through the cage holes. It was heartbreaking.

Again, I am not anti-meat but I am pro-humane treatment of all animals. Even if they will eventually end up on plates does not mean they deserve to be tortured while they are alive.

How do you feel about how factory farm animals are treated?