A Meat and Dairy Article used with permission from All-Creatures.org

United Poultry Concerns discusses the sacrificial role we force turkeys to play in our culture, shares resources to deepen our knowledge and compassion for these creatures, and provides ideas for how to advocate for turkeys and nudge our culture towards a more compassionate future.

Rethinking the Thanksgiving Turkey
From United Poultry Concerns, UPC-Online.org
November 2025

A mother turkey sheltering her poults, courtesy of United Poultry Concerns

During November, the turkey takes center stage as a symbol of American tradition. Beneath gratitude lies a paradox, as Karen Davis wrote: “Thanksgiving has other functions, but one thing it does is to formalize a desire to kill someone we hate and make a meal out of that someone.” The turkey is both sentimentalized and scorned, celebrated and sacrificed.

This tension reflects a deeper ritual function. The Thanksgiving turkey serves as a ritual scapegoat—a symbolic victim through which we channel collective guilt and unease. Through the ceremonial slaughter and consumption of the bird, we engage in a form of ritualized violence that simultaneously reaffirms our moral identity and strengthens social unity. Similar patterns appear in other cultural practices, such as Kaporos, in which a chicken is swung and sacrificed to symbolically absorb human transgressions. In both instances, the animal becomes a surrogate, bearing what the community prefers not to confront directly.

Industrial agriculture amplifies this tension. Today’s turkeys, bred for unnatural size and docility, bear little resemblance to their wild ancestors—agile birds who once roamed freely. But as Karen Davis reminds us, “What their behavior actually reveals is an empathetic sensibility that should awaken us to how terribly we treat them and make us stop.” However altered by human hands, they remain sentient beings—feeling, perceptive, and no less deserving of compassion than their wild kin. Their very visibility at Thanksgiving prevents them from vanishing completely into the anonymity of meat. Their presence as the centerpiece forces us, however briefly, to confront the life behind the meal.

However, change is possible. More and more people are celebrating a compassionate all-vegan Thanksgiving. Across the country, sanctuaries now host Thanksgiving gatherings where turkeys are honored as guests rather than served as food. Though modest, these celebrations point toward the vision of a Thanksgiving that celebrates life rather than death. They remind us that compassion and abundance can coexist, inviting us to imagine rituals that reflect empathy as well as tradition.

– Liqin Cao & Franklin Wade, United Poultry Concerns

What Can We Do to Help Turkeys?

We Can Get to Know Turkeys By Reading More Than a Meal

More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality –This scholarly and authoritative book examines the cultural and literal history, as well as the natural history and biological needs and concerns of turkeys. And much more!

Image from UPC-Online.org
Order today!
Also available as a Free PDF

We Can Advocate for Turkeys

Organize or attend an outreach event using UPC’s Turkeys brochures and posters.

UPC 2025 White House Leafleting for Turkeys. Photo from UPC-Online.org
(See more photos here and here.)

We Can Pioneer New Traditions

Share delicious vegan dishes like Mrs. Gobble-Good's Golden Brown Pie with friends and family this holiday season.

Photo from UPC-Online.org

References:

1. Karen Davis, “The ‘Thanksgiving’ Turkey: Object of Sentimentality, Sarcasm, & Sacrifice,” United Poultry Concerns, Nov. 27, 2022.


2. Karen Davis, “The Thanksgiving Turkey as Ritual Scapegoat in the Carnivalesque Tradition,” United Poultry Concerns, Nov. 17, 2018.


3. Karen Davis, “Turkeys: Sympathy, Sensibility, and Sentience,” United Poultry Concerns, Nov. 19, 2019.

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Posted on All-Creatures: November 17, 2025
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