Animal rights protesters hold funeral for turkeys killed for Christmas dinner

Black-clad mourners aim to highlight 'violence' of traditional festive meal

Recent research has found at least 10 per cent of households will opt for a vegetarian Christmas dinner this year (Getty Images)

Animal rights campaigners have held a funeral for all the turkeys killed at Christmas in a supermarket meat aisle.

Customers at a branch of Sainsbury’s in Brighton, East Sussex, were confronted with an unusually sombre scene of black-clad mourners lining the aisle on Wednesday.

Protesters stood silently bearing signs with phrases such as “10 million turkey are killed at Christmas in the UK” to highlight the “violence of a traditional Christmas meal”.

The demonstration was organised by animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), who previously staged a protest involving activists in a cage to highlight animal testing.

On a Facebook page for the event, DxE wrote: “Christmas, for humans can be a time of joy, but for other species, it can be a period of horror.”

A spokesperson for Sainsbury's confirmed that a small group visited their Brighton store for a brief time and moved on peacefully.

“We use the method of disruption to draw immediate attention to the beings who were killed for their bodies to be on a shelf,” a DxE spokesperson said.

“We are targeting the system of speciesism and aiming for systematic change rather than targeting individuals.”

“Speciesism” is a form of discrimination which involves treating members of one species, such as humans, as morally more important than others.

In September, a DxE activist was punched in the face by a Pizza Express customer when the group stormed the chain restaurant for a protest.

A separate group of activists, not affiliated with DxE, held a candlelit vigil outside St Werburgh's City Farm in Bristol on Wednesday to mourn the death of nine turkeys killed for Christmas dinners.

“There’s a lot of anger that the turkeys are dead, but we just want people to have a peaceful outlet for their grief,” Sarah Nicol, an organiser of the vigil, told BristolLive.

The farm had been pressured into cancelling a Turkey auction event last week after protests and angry messages from activists.

Additional reporting by PA