24 November 2017

The fate of presidentially-pardoned turkeys

I'm sure most readers know this, but just for the record...
[I]t's kind of a hoax. I went to the farm where birds pardoned by presidents go, and I learned that this is not a story with a happy ending...

I visited Kidwell Farm to see how the turkeys pardoned in previous years were doing. I looked for some of the birds pardoned by Clinton, but couldn't find them. I couldn't find the Bush Sr. birds, or the Reagan turkeys, or Carter's, or any of the pardoned birds. 

There is a sign saying Turkey Pen, and farmer Marlo Acock took me to it. But the pen was empty. Why? Well, the birds do come here, explained Acock, but they don't last

"We usually just find 'em and they're dead," he said. 

Most of the pardoned turkeys only last a few months, Acock said. One died within days. 
For more details on why they die so quickly, PETA offers a less nuanced view.

1 comment:

  1. Presumably the turkeys Trump pardons over the coming months will experience a kinder fate. Pretty sick stuff, though. I always thought this barbaric White House ritual was a vile burlesque of compassion.

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