Animal Rights Group Says It ‘Liberated’ 127 Turkeys

An underground animal rights group claimed Monday to have “liberated” from two ranches near Sacramento an estimated 127 turkeys destined for the Thanksgiving dinner table and said the birds will instead spend the holidays in “safe homes” elsewhere in the state.

Sacramento sheriff’s deputies confirmed that two ranches about 15 miles southeast of the state capital were vandalized in early morning raids but said they could not confirm that any turkeys were actually taken.

“We don’t have any missing turkeys at this point,” Sacramento County sheriff’s spokeswoman Sharon Telles said. “But when you have 20,000 turkeys, how would you know?”

The incident came to light in a “freedom communique” left at the Sacramento offices of Associated Press and signed by the Animal Liberation Front, a national animal rights group that has previously claimed responsibility for raiding animal research laboratories.

The statement labeled the ranches “death camps” and condemned the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner as a “perverse tradition.” The group also alleged that it found evidence that the birds were being fed hormones, antibiotics and other substances that can be dangerous to humans.

“In our raid we liberated 127 turkeys,” the statement said. “Within hours they were placed in safe homes. . . . The Animal Liberation Front has just begun its campaign to stop the slaughter perpetrated by corporate-run factory farms. We will return here and anywhere these atrocities occur.”

Sheriff’s deputies said turkey coops at one of the ranches were defaced by graffiti proclaiming “meat is murder” and “animal concentration camp.” Elsewhere, machines that circulate air in the turkey coops and automatically feed the birds were disabled when a thick glue was poured into the mechanisms and rubber hoses that provide drinking water to the birds were cut.

“If the Animal Liberation Front was so worried about the turkeys they wouldn’t be cutting the hoses,” Telles said. “But evidently they were trying to make a statement.”

The Animal Liberation Front is a small, secret organization dedicated to ending vivisection and other forms of experimentation on animals. Until now, however, the group has been linked mainly to raids on research facilities and has not spoken out against the raising of animals for food.

One spokeswoman for the organization reached in Florida said she could not confirm that the ALF had participated in the Sacramento raids but said a splinter group of the ALF had raided a chicken ranch earlier this year in Delaware where 25 hens were taken.

Valaria Neal of the Omega Ranch, one of two hit by the raids Monday, said she could not estimate the total amount of damage, but insisted that it would not slow operations in the critical days before Thanksgiving.

“We haven’t lost any turkeys that we know of,” Neal said, adding that there was no evidence that the raiders actually entered any of the coops where the turkeys are kept. There are an estimated 50,000 turkeys on the ranch.

“We have no idea why they would do this. We’ve never even heard of these people.”

Also raided was the HMS Ranch. A spokesman for that ranch could not be reached for comment.