Bethesda, Md - For the fourth year in a row, United Poultry Concerns activists will gather near the Giant Food store on Arlington Road in Bethesda, Maryland and urge people with our colorful signs, banners, and leaflets to skip the turkey this Thanksgiving and "Give Peace a Chance-Go Vegan."

Killing 45 million turkeys for Thanksgiving and 268,069,000 turkeys every year in the United States is not peaceful, and the milking of semen and artificial insemination process by which turkeys are produced is incredibly violent and obscene. It causes so much distress that many turkeys die from lack of oxygen due to the birds' struggling, wing beating, and desperate efforts to escape. A former "milker" describes "dodging their panic-blown excrement and breathing the dust stirred up by the terrified birds."

Instead of hatching under a mother's protective wings, the newborn birds are immediately confronted with human violence. According to the trade magazine "Turkey World," "Very few animals go through the stresses of turkey poults in the first three hours of life. They are squeezed for sexing, their toes are removed, they are whacked on the back of the neck with antibiotic injections, and debeaked. Essentially they have been through major surgery; they've been traumatized"-and all this pain without anesthetic.

Please join us on November 16th and light a candle for turkeys, world peace, and gentler, more compassionate traditions. We hope to see you there.

United Poultry Concerns is a national nonprofit organization promoting the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. For more information visit www.UPC-online.org.