by D. Milligrock
I love the days when the snow melts and everything comes to life. When all of the cold white stuff is completely gone, food is plentiful and life is filled with meaning. But then comes the cold, long, dark days. Those are the days that I am most afraid of. It’s not the cold, long, or dark part that makes me scared: it’s the days when mankind—your kind—comes to retrieve our kind, turkey’s, and eat us. Over the past few autumns, I’ve seen at least six of my cousins get caught and taken away. They never came back. Of course, it’s only necessary of me to think that they were eaten. So, when the dark days come, I am aware and cautious to protect myself from getting caught by your kind. I most certainly do not want to die in such a horrible manner.
There is many things your species can do to help us turkeys live in the wilderness—or sadly, captivity—without paranoia. One way is to become a vegetarian. In doing so, every other animal that you plan to kill and eat can go on living their lives—that‘s assuming you do kill other animals to eat then. Well, why wouldn’t you? You kill turkeys, so why not kill cows, pigs, and even marine mammals? I am aware that meat has proteins. You can substitute those proteins. I mean, we, turkeys, are herbivores and we get along pretty well.
My aunties brother-in-laws cousin twice removed once told us that you humans celebrate “Thanksgiving” and “Christmas” and “holidays”. He also said that it’s just a big gathering of people who eat one big meal. I don’t understand your ways. You just gather around, eat one meal—which consists of my cousin as the main course and who know what else—then just…do it over and over again without any real reason. It’s just pointless. We do it almost every other day. It’s like a cliché. When you guys are done, you store the leftovers away and eat them another day. Why gather so much food when you know you are not going to finish it in one day? Without your frivolous holidays, my six cousins would’ve been here with me and we would’ve been having a great time. They weren’t even elderly yet.
There are other substitutes for us, turkeys. I mean, I understand that we would mix together great with mashed potatoes and gravy with a little bit of corn on the side, but we have lives to live. Geese, duck, even my close relative—the hen—could make the part. The closer the relative, the closer they taste like us. I’m sure they taste just about as good and they’re probably more abundant since they lay eggs and all that. Instead of using them for one thing—laying eggs—they could be useful for “Thanksgiving, Christmas, or holidays”.
We may be delicious and a tradition but we have lives that we want to live. I cannot stress that enough. Being killed and eaten is not the way we want to end our lives. Would you want to end your life that way? It’s a pretty graphic, disturbing image if I say so myself. I mean I picture it every day of my life. There are better, healthier options like becoming a vegetarian so you won’t kill any living animal, or—for my sake as well as other turkey’s—as another option, switch over to hen. Leave it up to nature to balance out the ecosystem, since it’s only in their—specifically carnivores—instinct to hunt and kill to survive. What I an trying to say on behalf of my fellow species, don’t kill me!