Animal Rights Activist Karen Dawn Has Her Own Thanksgiving Tradition

Nov. 25, 2010 — -- While most Americans will sit down to eat turkey at the Thanksgiving dinner table today, animal rights activist Karen Dawn has tweaked the Turkey Day tradition in her home. She's adopted two live turkeys to join her at her vegan Thanksgiving feast.

This is the third year that Dawn has brought live turkeys into her home for Thanksgiving. She purchases the birds at a local slaughterhouse and keeps them as pets during the holidays before donating them to an animal sanctuary.

"The first time, it was kind of a promotional stunt, I thought it would be fun," Dawn said. "The problem was, the next year when Thanksgiving was coming around, I so missed having the live turkeys, so that's how it became a tradition."

This year's birds, named Portia and Ellen, were treated to a bath and blow-dry when they arrived at Dawn's home. Dawn says her neighbors love to come over to see the animals while they're staying with her.

"There's no reason that they should be less likely to be pets than any other bird," Dawn said.

While Dawn realizes that adopting live turkeys might seem odd to most Americans, she does it to make a point. As the author of the book "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals," Dawn says she adopts the birds to remind people about the conditions most turkeys live in before they end up on dinner tables.

Video on her website shows live birds hung upside down by their feet on a conveyor belt, writhing around.

"Something that I think very few people would be aware of is that turkeys are not covered under federal humane slaughter law," Dawn says. "That's the ironic thing about slaughter laws in this country -- they actually exempt 95 percent of the animals that are slaughtered."

Dawn says she always wants turkeys to be a part of Thanksgiving, just in a different way.

"I'm not telling anybody else what do, but I'm certainly letting them know that there are other options."

Karen Dawn spoke with ABC's Dan Harris for a one-of-a-kind Thanksgiving Conversation. We hope you'll watch to learn more.

Watch more "Conversation" videos here.

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