When the President Pardons the National Thanksgiving Turkey, What Really Happens to Her?
Every year since 1947, the president has pardoned the National Thanksgiving Turkey and the alternate turkey in a well publicized ceremony at the White House. The concept is that these lucky two turkeys are spared from becoming dinner, and instead are sent to a farm or other location to live out their lives. For the past three years, the turkeys have been sent to live at a Disney Park and are annually exhibited in Disney’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We rarely hear more about these turkeys after the pardoning ceremony, but, in 2007, a Philadelphia Daily News columnist decided to check on the 2005 National Thanksgiving Turkey and alternate, Marshmallow and Yam, and he learned that both turkeys had died within only one year of arriving at their Disneyland “retirement” home. Disneyland spokesman, John McClintock, explained that the turkeys “were raised as Thanksgiving turkeys,” who are “not meant to live a long time.” He said that their diet “literally makes the turkeys so fat it’s difficult
