Rejected: PETA’S ‘Turkey Terror’ Ad Won’T Save Real Turkeys
For Immediate Release:
23 December 2002
Contact:
Dawn Carr 020 7357 9229, ext. 224
London — ‘Making fun of the way the meat industry treats turkeys should be fair game’, says PETA’s Dawn Carr, faced with the news that PETA’s new holiday TV advertisement has been rejected by the Broadcast Ad Clearance Centre for ‘having a go at the meat industry’. The advert begins with a shaky voice coming over a supermarket intercom saying, ‘Do exactly as we say and nobody gets hurt’, then talks of beatings, dismemberment, slit throats and ‘deadly bacteria’, finally cutting to the manager’s office, where a quizzical-looking turkey puppet explains his demand: ‘Go vegetarian’. PETA’s goal was to make consumers consider that before people eat turkeys, the birds are terrified, mutilated and butchered and to get people to consider the similarities between the fear and terror experienced by turkeys and other animals in abattoirs and the terror that people feel when they find their fate in the hands of those with violent intentions.
Turkeys on factory farms endure de-beaking and de-clawing without anaesthetics. They are bred and drugged to put on weight at such a fast rate that in the end, most waddle rather than walk, and many cannot stand up at all. Tens of thousands of turkeys are crammed into indoor sheds, where disease, smothering and heart attacks are common. Millions of turkeys die every year from heat exhaustion, freezing or accidents during transport. ‘Turkey terror’ doesn’t end when the birds die: Eating turkey and other meats is linked to heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, cancer and meat-borne illnesses from such deadly bacteria as salmonella, listeria and E. coli.
‘The fake scare in our ad is to draw attention to the real terror of the slaughterhouse’, says PETA Europe Director Dawn Carr. ‘With all the delicious vegetarian options available, anyone can get violence off the dinner table by adopting a vegan diet, but apparently we’re not allowed to say that.’
The ad can be seen in its entirety on PETA’s Web site PETAUK.org.
Free veggie holiday recipes can be obtained by contacting PETA on freephone 0800 328 9621, or via e-mail at [email protected].