Mercy For Animals at it again ruining our Thanksgiving.

There's no excuse for ruining our one solid, simple, family-friendly national holiday.


With Thanksgiving right around the corner and turkey the main event at most dinner tables, an animal rights group is alleging that Butterball workers at five North Carolina farms in Lenoir, Duplin, Onslow and Sampson Counties have been engaged in a pattern of ”shocking abuse and neglect.”

A hidden-camera video released on Wednesday by Mercy For Animals shows workers in October 2012, apparently kicking and stomping turkeys, dragging them by their wings and necks, and slamming them onto the ground, on top of other birds or on transport crates. The group said on its website that the birds suffered from “serious untreated illnesses and injuries, including open sores, infections, and broken bones.”

Between November and December of 2011, the group, which advocates a vegan lifestyle, videotaped nearly identical abuses at a Butterball turkey farm in Shannon, N.C., which resulted in two employees pleading guilty to cruelty to animals.

Matt Rice, director for investigations for Mercy for Animals, reported the new transgressions to law enforcement officials. “So far no arrests have been made, but they are identical abuses,” he told ABC News.


[link to www.kmbz.com]