Activists' Protest May Sell More Thanksgiving Turkeys

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The animal rights group DetroitCowSave returned for a second straight year to picket Roperti’s Turkey Farm at Livonia Saturday and protest the slaughter of the birds in the name of a Thanksgiving tradition.

Courtney Jacobs, an Oakland University graduate in health sciences who heads the activist group, told Hometownlife.com that turkeys are sentient beings that shouldn’t be killed “just for tradition.”

“We just want to raise awareness there are other ways to celebrate Thanksgiving,” said Jacobs, who was joined by about a dozen other protesters on 5 Mile Road on a snowy Saturday. They held signs reading “murder happens here,” “mercy” and other messages they hoped would steer people toward another Thanksgiving main dish.

Christine Roperti, whose family has operated the turkey farm in Livonia for nearly 50 years and expects to sell 4,500 freshly dressed, organic, corn-fed turkeys this holiday season, isn’t too worried.

“I like it when (protesters) come,” Roperti told the newspaper. “(Customers) come running through the door when they’re here.”

DetroitCowSave was founded by a Livonia native Laurice Bray, now of Farmington Hills, who wants to see Americans jettison the Thanksgiving turkey tradition altogether and adopt vegetarian or vegan lifestyles.

“We’re out here because we feel these turkeys are not unlike any other animal ... Turkeys are very intelligent,” Bray said. “We know we’re not going to change a lot of minds. Roperti’s is a Livonia institution. (But) People are going to (eventually) embrace a kinder, gentler lifestyle that doesn’t include killing animals.”

Roperti takes it all in stride, though she questioned why her family’s farm is being targeted by the group and some others in the area aren’t.

“They’re not going to change the world,” Roperti said. “If they want to be out there for an hour ... whatever. It doesn’t matter to me.”

» Photo by Marji Beach via Flickr / Creative Commons