Walle’s Shadow
I wrote this for the Animal Place sanctuary blog, but I really wanted to re-share it here.
Somewhere there is a farm. It is called a free-range farm, a euphemistic term meant to assuage guilt over consuming the flesh of another. On this farm live turkeys, white and big and perfect. Though they have some open space to enjoy, mostly they are confined by the thousands in sheds. Their toes have been cut off at the first digit to make picking them up for slaughterhouse transport easier. A portion of their upper beak has been seared off to make confining too many social animals together safer.
In a couple weeks, they will all be dead, victims of a holiday that , at its core, is about gratitude and compassion. These turkeys will be a part of the Thanksgiving dinner in the most horrific way – as the main course.
All but one.
One turkey “saved herself”. This should not imply the other turkeys want death. They do not. Like all creatures on this earth, they too want to live, breath, exist. It’s such a basic thing.
Walle wandered off the farm, forgotten by the turkey farmer. She walked and walked, placing one mangled foot in front of the other until finally, finally!, she was picked up. We are all grateful it was someone who saw a needy animal, not a turkey dinner.
When Walle arrived, she was sick with a respiratory illness, probably brought on by both the unsanitary and unnatural living conditions as much as wandering alone in the world. Through it all, her drive to be part of something inspired us all. Each morning, she greeted us with the innocent calls of a young turkey, calling us over to her for attention. She would gobble up her food and then nestle down next to our laps, always after climbing up on us and inspecting our faces. Her world was such a brutal, uncaring place, and yet through all that, she gave us reason to be thankful.
After treating her respiratory sickness, she entered her own special flock. White-breasted turkeys are bred to gain a gross amount of weight in a short period of time. They are bred to be obese so they can be killed younger. All turkeys killed in this country are babies – 4-6 months of age, a mere 5-7% of their normal lifespan (for wild turkeys in captivity, it would be longer). So Walle lives with “broilers”, chickens raised for meat consumption, and one other female production turkey, Marjorie.
Normally when a young turkey meets an adult, it is they who follow the grown-up, watching and learning. Our expectation was for Marjorie to become a teacher to Walle, show her the ropes, help her find all the good eating and sleeping spots.
We were wrong.
Walle is a leader. Where she goes, Marjorie follows.
This Thanksgiving, Walle would like nothing more than to crawl in your lap and sing to you. She would regale you with turkey tales, tell you stories of her kind in her own words. Everything in her world, she would want to share with you. That is her nature, that is who she is. We are grateful for this simple love of life, for her existence. She has enriched our world, and we hope to have enriched hers.
Have a Happy Vegan Thanksgiving! If this is not possible, if you are amidst people who do not understand, Walle does. Come back to these pictures and know you are, in her eyes, perfect and amazing and the purveyor of chest scratches, food, and good company. She exists because you care. Thank you.
Stephanie Ernst
Marji
Kelly G.
Deb
Mary Martin
Thank you so much for this beautiful story. It brought me to tears.
Ironically I saw this just after contacting my local health food store (ha!) which is encouraging consumers to donate money for holiday turkeys for needy families. If only I had seen this first, I would have loved to include this in my email.
But I am definitely sharing this story.
Marji, thank you again for sharing this (I read the blog already via FB). It still brings up heartfelt emotions for those that the human race seems compelled to exploit. Some day I want to visit the big farm and volunteer. In the mean time I will offer Reiki to all of the critters there from here on the east side of the Sierras.
So sad. Thank you for taking Walle in, and enlightening people to this horror.
Marji, I just got back from talking with a neighbor about your lovingly told tale of Walle and Marjorie. His dad was a federal penitentiary guard in OK; they raised all their own food, including animals, and he remembers, with sadness, the pitiful sounds the chickens and pigs and cows made as they were slaughtered. The memory hasn’t stopped him from eating sanitized flesh bought at grocery stores. And yet he is halfway there: He has stopped hunting because, he said, he can no longer bear to kill deer and other expressions of life. As of today, he knows what a vegan is. As of today, he knows about sanctuaries for rescued farmed animals. He will share our conversation with his girlfriend tonight over a grilled hamburger. His journey toward compassion for all animals will continue. There’s no stopping the power of love.
I am the lone vegan in my family. But… the compassion that I try to carry with me in my ire carries over to compassion for those people i love regardless of their choices. They are curious about my veganism, my reasons my lifestyle. Proving that they truly love me is the fact that they do not judge – and it is a testament to my desire to not judge them that they return that favor.
This thanksgiving i will sit at a table where a turkey is served. But other than the turkey, all the other food will be Vegan. It is a loving compromise that i am perfectly fine with. My family is not a group of people i want to alienate especially at the holidays. What better way to live ahimsa than to put it into practice for loved ones to see?
I am the lone vegan in my family. But… the compassion that I try to carry with me in my life carries over to compassion for those people i love regardless of their choices. They are curious about my veganism, my reasons for my lifestyle. Proving that they truly love me is the fact that they do not judge – and it is a testament to my desire to not judge them that they return that favor.
This thanksgiving i will sit at a table where a turkey is served. But other than the turkey, all the other food will be Vegan. It is a loving compromise that i am perfectly fine with. My family is not a group of people i want to alienate especially at the holidays. What better way to live ahimsa than to put it into practice for loved ones to see?
This story underscores the very reason that, not only can I NEVER eat the dead, tortured flesh of a turkey or any other non-human animal being, I can’t even stand the thought of sitting at a table with one of these poor murdered creatures laying in the middle of it. Vegan Thanksgiving feasts are the BEST (the Triangle Vegetarian Society in Raleigh, NC completely sold out every one their places for the annual Vegan Thanksgiving feast at Cafe Parizad in Durham as of November 10th! That’s gotta be a new record). If I can’t celebrate the holiday at a feast like that, I’d rather stay home, or celebrate without food.
Thank you for sharing Walle’s story. Next weekend I will celebrate Thanksgiving with the Turkeys at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary–it is the best day of the year for me, and the animals (especially the turkeys) seem to love it too! They are such wonderful creatures, and the more people who learn about them, the better.
Awesome story! I am attending THREE thanksvegans this month. I am a lucky person.
“In a couple weeks, they will all be dead, victims of a holiday that , at its core, is about gratitude and compassion. These turkeys will be a part of the Thanksgiving dinner in the most horrific way – as the main course.”
This holiday at its core is about colonization and the eradication of Indigenous people. Maybe we rethink thanksgiving and save some turkeys in the process. Anti-oppression includes solidarity with anti-settler colonialism work.
Fair enough. Thanksgiving has always meant, to me, a “holiday” of immense suffering inflicted upon the 45 million turkeys who die for it. It’s historical roots are also of suffering. I don’t think most people are familiar with that. I wish for it to be about compassion and respect – that is what it would mean for me, at its core.
I am open to rephrasing what I wrote, as my intent was not to alienate the efforts of people who seek to rectify or at least get others to openly acknowledge the wrongs of the past (and present). Nor was it to diminish the oppression of indigenous americans.
What a lovely post! Walle – I shall fondly remember this fine bird!
And to add to Olivia’s comment about the progress that can be made here’s a mixed bag of good/bad news…
Regrettably US turkey production has doubled since 1970. BUT the good news is: Tofurky production has increased more than 600-fold since 1995, the year Seth Tibbott created the vegan alternative to turkey and sold 500 Tofurky roasts.
Many stores in my area are carrying more vegan meats everyday… Baby Cakes vegan bakery is now in Disney World — There is so much to change but we have a start. Especially with such wonderful ambassadors as Walle!
Thank you, these caring words some of us are able to use to characterise the uniqueness and grace of the non-human persons always lifts my spirit. These words and sentences are those that make people realise the personalities and wishes in every single living being; and the horror of what we inflict on them.
Thank you!