Michelle P.
Pittsburgh, PA

Dear Farm Sanctuary,

Since it is Thanksgiving, I am writing to say, "Thank You"! Two years ago, I read an article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette titled "Farm Sanctuary Saves Turkeys From The Table". The article was really not much different from all the other animal welfare stories that I have read over the years. It was simply about your efforts to save animals in need of help. I always considered myself to be an "animal lover", so it was not unusual that I stopped to read this story.

Yet, for some reason, I was angry after I was done reading. It seemed to insinuate that I was the problem and not the solution. Suddenly, it became obvious. I was no better than the people I was against! I hated hunting, but I had no problem eating meat. I am very proud to say that I stopped eating meat on Thanksgiving two years ago today. I have finally done something that I truly believe in, and I will never eat meat again. I would like to thank the two turkeys in the article, Cosmos and Marianne. They really did make a difference.

Thank You,

Michelle P.

VISIT WITH THE REPRIEVED
The writer communes with Farm Sanctuary's feathered residents

Article by Laura A. Moretti

Farm Sanctuary has nothing to hide. It's in the business of life. Like turkey farms, however, one finds the refuge off some lone country road in seemingly the middle of nowhere. In California, one finds Farm Sanctuary on the outskirts of cattle-heavy Orland. But there's no guessing involved. Some of the Sanctuary's outbuildings are painted in cow hide colors-big, black-and-white patches. In this open countryside, littered with dairy farms and beef cattle, there's no missing the Sanctuary's whereabouts.

It was a hot summer day, nearing the century mark, when I arrived there. A Sunday. And very quiet at the Sanctuary-as one would expect at any place so-called a haven. A few interns were busy with animal care. I was busy redeeming my soul by visiting the Sanctuary's feathered friends. How does one go about finding the turkeys amidst all the bunnies, chickens, cows, goats, pigs and cattle? No worry. The turkeys find you.

Upon my arrival, as I walked the last few yards up the hill to the barns, a very vocal turkey came out to greet me. Shuffling across the hot dirt driveway on her cowboy-like legs, Miss Turkey had a few choice words to share. I expected turkeys to just, well, gobble, but she had more to say than what was expected. Her sharp, shrill chirps stopped me in my tracks-but hers kept advancing. A turkey, you see, is a very large bird and so, therefore, is a bit intimidating to a turkey newcomer like me.
"What is she saying?" I called out to a passing intern as Miss Turkey approached within feet of me. "Is she going to bite me?"

He laughed. "She's just letting you know that she lives here."
I saw other turkeys emerge from the barn doorway into the sunlight. Her chirps had been a calling, and the others came to investigate her newly found treasure.
The intern came over. "If you get closer," he said, "she'll tell you what it is she expects from you now that you're in her territory."

I carefully crept toward the now quieting bird. She suddenly dropped to the ground and began talking in low, murmured tones. But still, being only human, I didn't get it. The intern knelt beside us. He began scratching her breast-and the big, white, now-not-so-intimidating bird closed her eyes and drifted into turkey heaven.
I crouched before him and reached over to touch her. Through her feathers, I could feel her skin, and it was there she wanted it rubbed. I have scratched dog ears and cow backs and a host of other animal hard-to-reach spots-but I never dreamed a bird, let alone a domestic turkey, would ask for a belly rub.

A flock of a dozen other turkeys gathered around. They spoke to me in a variety of other tones and inflections, and laid to rest any chance I'd get to hear that stereotypical "gobble-gobble." Some pecked at my camera lens, others checked out my clothing, and a few simply seemed to size me up. As I relaxed around them, I began taking pictures.

In comparison to its body, a turkey's head is rather small. Smaller still, the eye. But through the lens of a camera, the light and life of that eye is magnified, and it reaches right into your soul and grabs your heart. There is no mistaking that there is a somebody in there.

Although I haven't eaten a turkey in nearly two decades, I have known very little about them. I suspect most Americans know very little about them. We associate them with Christopher Columbus and lots of jokes at their expense. We call them stupid bird-brains.

Whatever they are, we have made them that way. They have absolutely nothing in common with their wild cousin. They don't look like them, they can't fly like they can, and they don't live freely. But although we've mutated and mutilated these beasties, we have been unable to take away the essence of what makes them living beings: WHO they are.

I sat in the barn with several dozen turkeys later that afternoon, staving off the heat of the day. We shared conversation and companionship, checked out the grain feeders and the waterers, enjoyed the spray from overhead cooling sprinklers, and examined the interesting things around us: My cameras, the barn cat, a piece of straw.

It struck me at that moment how different this experience was from the first many experiences I've had with turkeys. Most of my experience-like is most people's-has been that I ate them. And I followed them, unknowingly, in a livestock truck for several miles, smelling the death that had devoured them. Now, here, on a sunny, hot summer day, I am bathing in the presence of 30-plus birds who only a short while ago I found intimidating. In fact, they were just the opposite: The domestic turkey is a friendly, inquisitive, quiet-except when demanding a belly rub-bird of high distinction.

I thank God for the experience of knowing one outside of my dinner plate. And I thank God for Farm Sanctuary for giving me-and them-such a peaceful place in which to have done so.