http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/dining/19peta.html

November 19, 2008

Group Documents Cruelty to Turkeys

By DONALD G. MCNEIL
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/donald_g_j
r_mcneil/index.html?inline=nyt-per>  JR

IN what is becoming an annual Thanksgiving
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/thanksgi
ving_day/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  rite, an animal rights group
on Tuesday released undercover videotapes taken at the nation's premier
poultry-breeding operation, showing turkeys being stomped to death and
punched by workers.

The group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/peo
ple_for_the_ethical_treatment_of_animals/index.html?inline=nyt-org> ,
known as PETA, is asking for prosecution of workers at the Aviagen
Turkeys plant in Lewisburg, W.Va., in a complaint filed with the local
sheriff's office under state laws regarding cruelty to animals.

Aviagen, which has its headquarters in Germany and describes itself as
"the world's leading poultry-breeding company," supplies most of the
turkey breeding stock in the United States. After seeing the video
Tuesday, company representatives said they "condemn the abuse of any of
the animals in our care and will take swift action to address these
issues." They promised an investigation that could lead to the employees
being fired.

Although PETA has had little luck in the past getting prosecutors to
file charges against meatpacking workers, it has successfully taken
undercover videotapes in many slaughterhouses. The resulting bad
publicity has pushed some companies to change killing methods, retrain
employees and promise to treat animals better before slaughter.

In 2004, PETA tapes of workers tearing the windpipes out of live cattle
drew national attention to the Postville, Iowa, slaughterhouse of the
nation's largest kosher meatpacker, Agriprocessors
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/agriprocessors_in
c/index.html?inline=nyt-org> . The plant was raided last May and its
owners charged with hiring hundreds of illegal workers. A kosher meat
shortage ensued; Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy this month.

Each November, PETA tries to persuade Americans not to eat turkey.

Sometimes it uses publicity stunts, such as young women in bikinis
handing out tofu
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tofu/ind
ex.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  turkeys or a presidential imitator
"pardoning" the nation's flocks. Sometimes it highlights the grim
conditions in industrial poultry operations.

The Aviagen video can be seen at www.peta.org. The scenes show
stomach-turning brutality. Workers are seen smashing birds into loading
cages like basketballs, stomping heads and breaking necks, apparently
for fun, even pretending to rape one.

On the tape, one worker describes losing his temper at a tom who pecked
him, marking its head with a pen so he could find it again, fetching a
broomstick, ramming it down the bird's gullet and holding it up in the
air while shouting "Let this be a lesson to y'all" at the rest of the
flock.

His supervisor later excuses such behavior by saying, "Every once and a
while, everybody gets agitated and has to kill a bird." Noting that only
two of his crew "really like to do it," he says they are otherwise
steady workers and adds: "As long as they don't do it a lot, I don't
really say too much about it."

PETA's undercover investigator, speaking in a telephone interview on
Monday after he had quit his job on the plant vaccination team and moved
away from the area, said he thought his co-workers did it out of
boredom, for fun and because they lost their tempers.

Lesley J. Rogers, founder of the neuroscience and animal behavior center
at the University of New England in Australia, was one of four
zoologists shown the tapes last week. She found them "very disturbing"
and full of behavior that was "totally inconsistent with accepted
standards of treating poultry and looks to me like malicious infliction
of pain and suffering."

Bernard E. Rollin, a professor of animal sciences at Colorado State
University
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/col
orado_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org> , said the workers'
actions were "totally unacceptable" and suggested that they be removed
from working with animals and prosecuted.