Turkey Abusers Convicted: One Jailed!Late last year, some factory-farm
employees got their pink slips from Aviagen Turkeys, Inc. in response to PETA's undercover investigation, which
documented that workers were breaking turkeys' necks, stomping on their heads, and shoving feces and feed into turkeys' mouths.
Then, in February, a grand jury handed down 19 indictments, including 11 felony charges, against three former Aviagen workers,
marking the first time in U.S. history that factory-farm employees have faced felony cruelty-to-animals charges for abusing birds.
Fast forward: Two of the three ex-employees, Scott Alvin White and Edward Eric Gwinn, recently pleaded guilty to cruelty charges. On June 8, White was sentenced to serve one year in jail—the maximum period permitted by law! Today, Gwinn was sentenced to serve six months' home confinement—the maximum period permitted by law—on each count, concurrently, and is banned from living with, owning, and working with animals for five years. The case against the third ex-employee, Walter Lee Hambrick, is pending.
Can't get enough? In September, a grand jury in neighboring Monroe County, West Virginia, may well issue further felony indictments against White and Hambrick.
These historic victories by no means even the score for the turkeys who were punched and thrown or the many other birds who suffered when they were forced to watch as other turkeys were abused at Aviagen. After watching our
undercover video, animal behavior expert Dr. Lesley J. Rogers stated, "It is now known that when social animals, like turkeys, see and hear other members of their species under stress or suffering physical injury, their levels of stress become elevated. Hence, the
behavioural stress is widespread in the birds in the vicinity of those that have been injured and/or handled roughly."
Still, these convictions will remind workers on other factory farms that if they don't clean up their acts, PETA investigators (and the whistleblowers who tip us off) will have their eyes on them.
Update: Following our investigation inside Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., 19 indictments for cruelty to animals were filed against former employees. Now, for the first time in U.S. history, two ex-employees have been convicted of abusing factory-farmed turkeys, and one has been jailed.
Learn more on our blog. More than 72 million of the nearly 270 million turkeys killed for food every year in the U.S. are slaughtered for holiday meals. In 2008, just prior to the flesh-focused Thanksgiving holiday, PETA conducted an undercover investigation lasting more than two months at the factory farms of Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., the self-proclaimed "world's leading poultry breeding company."
While working at a series of Aviagen factory farms in West Virginia, PETA's investigator documented that workers tortured, mutilated, and maliciously killed turkeys. The following are just a few of the documented offenses:
Employees stomped on turkeys' heads, punched turkeys, hit them on the head with a can of spray paint and pliers, and struck turkeys' heads against metal scaffolding.
Men shoved feces and feed into turkeys' mouths and held turkeys' heads under water. Another bragged about jamming a broom stick 2 feet down a turkey's throat.
A supervisor said he saw workers kill 450 turkeys with 2-by-4s.
One man said he saw a coworker fatally inject turkey semen and sulfuric acid into turkeys' heads.
To learn more, please read the
investigator's log notes, view our
photo gallery, and visit our
blog.
PETA's investigator repeatedly brought abuses to a supervisor's attention. The supervisor responded, "Every once in a while, everybody gets agitated and has to kill a bird." PETA also brought the abuse to the attention of Aviagen, and although the company made assurances and instituted some new rules, the cruelty did not stop.
The suffering typically found on factory farms was also routine in Aviagen's sheds: Hens' beaks were cut with pliers, massive birds collapsed and died of exhaustion or heart attacks, and turkeys were thrown into transport cages.
Please write to Aviagen Turkeys, Inc., and demand that it implement
PETA's seven-point animal welfare plan. Also demand that the company pledge to immediately terminate employees caught abusing or neglecting animals in the future (the company claims to have terminated some such workers), and ask the company to cooperate with state and local law enforcement to criminally prosecute all such employees.
To send a complaint to Aviagen Turkeys, Inc. please go here:
https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1692It is easy and will prevent this terrible thing from happening again!
Posted by Karin Bennett
