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Farm Sanctuary Celebrates 20 Years of the Adopt-A-Turkey Project

Humane Project Recognizes November as National Adopt-a-Turkey Month

Watkins Glen, NY - November 2, 2005 - This Thanksgiving, Farm Sanctuary, the nation's leading farm animal shelter and advocacy organization, marks its 20th year of the Adopt-A-Turkey Project. Started in 1986 as a progressive way to educate people about compassionate holiday alternatives, the Adopt-A-Turkey Project provides encouragement and the necessary tools to rethink traditional holiday menus through rescue, education and outreach activities. Since the Project's inception, nearly 1,000 turkeys have been rescued and thousands of families have enjoyed a cruelty-free Thanksgiving.

By adopting a turkey instead of eating one, participants save an animal by providing lifelong love and care for a turkey that lives at a Farm Sanctuary shelter. Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-A-Turkey Project offers two ways for people to save turkeys:

(1) Sponsor "adopt" a turkey living at Farm Sanctuary's Watkins Glen, New York, or Orland, California, shelters. For a one-time adoption fee of $20, sponsors receive a color photograph of their turkey as well as an adoption certificate. This sponsorship provides funds for feed, bedding and veterinary care for the turkeys.

(2) Home adopt and provide a safe, loving and permanent home for two or more turkeys. Individuals interested in adopting turkeys as companions must complete an adoption application. If approved, adopters may be placed on Farm Sanctuary's Turkey Express schedule.

Four of this year's featured turkeys for the Adopt-A Turkey Project and all of the turkeys available for adoption through the Turkey Express were rescued in July 2005 from an online sales scheme gone awry. Rescuers in Binghamton, New York saved over eighty turkey peeps (baby turkeys) from a holiday dinner table destiny, after convincing the seller to surrender the peeps and allow them safe shelter.

Every year, more than 300 million turkeys are bred for slaughter in the United States. If allowed to live beyond five months, when they are normally sent to slaughter, turkeys find it difficult to walk after only a few years. Their fragile skeletons have not adapted to the weight they have been bred to gain. To meet consumer demand for white meat, commercial turkeys have been anatomically manipulated to have abnormally large breasts. As a result, the birds cannot mount and reproduce naturally, and the industry now relies on artificial insemination as the sole means of reproduction. In addition, most factory farmed turkeys, comprising the vast majority of turkeys raised for holiday dinners, have their beaks and toes amputated, because they are given only three square feet in which to live.

"Today's domesticated turkeys look nothing like their wild brethren," said Tricia Ritterbusch, communications director at Farm Sanctuary. "Through all of this physical manipulation, the industry has yet to grow an animal that does not feel pain and is not curious, social or friendly. At Farm Sanctuary, people can see these birds for the sentient creatures they are."

More information on Farm Sanctuary's National Adopt-A-Turkey Project can be found at www.adoptaturkey.org which includes the 2005 "Turkey Adoption List", adoption applications and a number of helpful Thanksgiving resources, such as new compassionate holiday recipes, videos and literature.

About Farm Sanctuary
Farm Sanctuary is the nation's leading farm animal protection organization. Since incorporating in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has worked to expose and stop cruel practices of the "food animal" industry through research and investigations, legal and institutional reforms, public awareness projects, youth education, and direct rescue and refuge efforts. Farm Sanctuary shelters in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Orland, Calif., provide lifelong care for hundreds of rescued animals, who have become ambassadors for farm animals everywhere by educating visitors about the realities of factory farming. Additional information can be found at www.farmsanctuary.org or by calling 607-583-2225.