A group of animal rights activists called the Des Moines Animal Allies has been all over the local news for its pre-Thanksgiving Day protest of West Liberty Foods in West Liberty, IA. About 20 people gathered outside of the business in order to discourage others from eating turkeys and to promote plant-based alternatives.Ben Ahlrichs told KCRG why he was protesting outside of the business:
Everyone single one of those turkeys, it's just that I want them to know that they are an individual, that they are loved even if society doesn't say that. That they have value. And that at the end of the day, I will love them and they will never be forgotten.Des Moines Animal Allies promoted the Holiday Vigil for Turkey with the following message:
An estimated 46 million turkeys are needlessly killed for “Thanksgiving” in the US each year... and that number is probably higher now. West Liberty Foods kills approximately 22k turkeys every DAY! Help us bring awareness to this atrocity, happening right here in Iowa and around the world.It's easy to laugh off the vigil -- and there's certainly been a lot of people doing that. But the image of the turkeys piled on top of each other just in that one truck and and the thought that roughly 22,000 are killed just in that one processing plant every day. Well, it can be unsettling if one thinks about it too much.