<http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/oct/17/find-a-better-way-20171017/?f=opinion>

*”We’ve always done it this way. Just because it’s always*
* been done that way doesn’t mean a tradition should continue.” *
– Arkansas Online

Posted: 10/17/2017
<http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/oct/17/find-a-better-way-20171017/?f=opinion#comments>

Dear Friends of UPC,

Thank you all for writing and phoning Yellville, Arkansas public officials
for
months in advance this year and in previous years, in response to our Alerts
(Tell Yellville to Stop Dropping Turkeys from Airplanes
<http://www.upc-online.org/turkeys/170727_tell_yellville_to_stop_dropping_turkeys_from_airplanes.html>),
urging the town to
eliminate the sadistic “turkey drop” from its annual festival, now in its
50th
year. Today’s Editorial in Arkansas Online (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
fortunately opposes what it calls the “turkey toss” as “cruel,” while
unfortunately suggesting setting caged turkeys around town and opening them
for
the turkeys to come out and be chased down by townspeople as “more humane,
and
sporting” before slaughtering them. (The ritual foreplay of throwing turkeys
from airplanes, buildings and stages is supposed to culminate in a
“wholesome”
family slaughtering of the birds who manage to live through these
preliminaries.
See for example the article linked to in Yellville, Arkansas: A Sad, Bad
Place
<http://www.upc-online.org/turkeys/171016_yellville_arkansas-a_sad_bad_place.html>
Oct. 16, 2017).

While the *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette* and its online version, Arkansas
Online, do
not publish Letters to the Editor from out-of-state writers, they do post
comments from people outside of Arkansas, so today I posted this comment
following the newspaper’s “Editorial: Find a better way”:
___________

*Karen Davis says . . .*

Thank you for speaking out against dropping turkeys from moving aircraft
from a
height to which even wild turkeys never ascend. Nor did turkeys evolve in
Nature
to be dropped from any height but, rather, they evolved to take off from the
ground or a branch, which is totally different, biologically, from being
dropped, whether from an airplane or the top of a building. In addition to
the
height from which the turkeys are being forced out of the plane, they
experience
terrific wind pressure produced by the plane. There is nothing in these
birds’
natural behavior, genetics, or evolution enabling them to comprehend or cope
with this situation. Nor is chasing terrified turkeys around town “humane.”
Imagine grown-ups teaching their children to enjoy terrorizing, injuring and
killing turkeys (or any fellow creature) for the pleasure of making them
suffer.
Most of the comments posted following your recent article about the “turkey
drop” exhibit a very ugly, mean-spirited attitude of ignorance and
viciousness
toward the birds. The “turkey drop” speaks poorly for Yellville. The very
word
“Yellville” connotes cruelty and pitiless pathology.

Thank you again for taking a stand.

Sincerely,
Karen Davis, President of United Poultry Concerns,
author of More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and
Reality.
___________

*More Than a Meal*

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!

Now available as a Free PDF
<http://www.upc-online.org/turkeys/more_than_a_meal.pdf