The Turkey Wars

[livius drusus]

Wild turkeys divide town.

Ah, the contradictions

So, the noble American turkey story - the bird of pilgrims' pride and kindergarten paste-and-construction paper - has come down to this: a suburban whine of conflicting values (development vs. nature vs. the desire not to have peeping toms on your deck).

It's perhaps not surprising. The comeback of the wild turkey is a major conservation success, from a low of 30,000 nationwide at the turn of the century to an estimated 7 million today. But while the pilgrims of Puritan times would smile gratefully and pull out a musket, the pilgrims of Peg Perego suburbia pull out a hockey stick (the weapon of choice to ward off feathered intruders for 3 out of 4 stroller-pushing moms) and call police.

My parents have wild turkeys living on the property, but then again, unlike almost everyone in their small Connecticut town, my parents aren't on a postage-stamp sized lot, so the turkeys have 30 or so acres of wetlands as well the parts around the house to populate.

I think they're wonderful animals and I'm delighted at their resurgence. I didn't realize until I read the article how few of them we had left at the turn of the last century.

Gotta roll my eyes a little at this one

"There's a point where nature and people can't live in harmony," says one Centre Street mother of a 3 1/2 year old who stands wattle-high to a four-foot tom. "I was calling the police every day [in the Big Daddy era]. It's scary, because if I'm carrying a baby and a bag of groceries and they run right at me, there'd be nothing I could do," says the woman, who like every other antiturkey Dover resident requested anonymity (some fear "retaliation").

Riiiight...

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

"[...] It's scary, because if I'm carrying a baby and a bag of groceries and they run right at me, there'd be nothing I could do."

I really really believe she has a Wild Turkey problem.

[livius drusus]

Which a simple beer hat would resolve to the satisfaction of all parties.

[Megatron]

[Corona688]

I can sort of understand the situation. Every summer by the lakeside at the legislature here, it's an angry morass of hissing, flapping, pooping things. They're stupid, sometimes aggressive, haven't an ounce of traffic sense, and you can't kill them -- they're so inviolable you'd think they were an endangered species or something.

And beyond the legislators, we've also got all these damn canada geese.

[livius drusus]

* livius drusus laughs out loud.

I totally fell for it, Corona688, you'll doubtless be glad to hear.

[Megatron]

[Corona688]

Good, good. Humor aside, I don't think the situation's too dissimilar -- stupid, large, vaguely antisocial birds wandering loose. Except these turkeys don't stay in the vicinity of any kinda lake, and are freaking huge.

I had to find an image with wild turkeys and humans to understand how big they were. People being intimidated by them doesn't seem quite so silly now... Intellectually you know they've got no terribly effective anti-leg weaponry, but when something large-dog-sized heads your way your lizard-brain notices.

[ms_ann_thrope]

Wild turkeys run amok around my parents' house near Mt. Diablo, big hordes of them! They definitely scare me because they're always in packs, gobble-gobbling... They climb up in my mom's cherryblossom trees, snap the branches, and drop mega-poops on the cars and walkway below. Yeeeuch.

Actually they are not as scary as the feral pigs. They squeal at night and dig up mom's flowers. I fear their tusks.

I wonder what wild turkeys taste like...? Probably fairly gamy, but probably also a lot more like what the Pilgrims ate.

[livius drusus]

I would imagine their meat is tougher and leaner than their bred-for-consumption brethren. For one thing, they get a lot more excercise climbing up your mom's cherryblossom trees.

[Zehava]

Originally Posted by ms_ann_thrope

Actually they are not as scary as the feral pigs. They squeal at night and dig up mom's flowers. I fear their tusks.

And damn well you should, especially a sow with piglets.

When I was growing up we had a neighbor who allowed his pigs to roam free, most of them were not a problem but there was one sow in particular who was viscious.

This sow would chase us kids around and most certainly would have done serious damage at the very least if it had caught us. The neighbor would not keep his pigs penned so my dad eventually got fed up and shot the pig. He offered to give the meat to the neighbor but he didn't want it so it got passed out to friends and family. The neighbors pigs though never got out again.

[Megatron]

Damn. Yeah, turkeys are annoying, but wild pigs are fucking dangerous!

When I was a kid, I remember one came around and went nuts, that thing had some severe bloodlust. It also kicked the shit out of my uncle's car. If you can't shoot them, find some way to drive them off or keep them out... otherwise, they could really fuck something up, especially a kid.

[Carnivale Ed]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

(some fear "retaliation")

Why? Are the turkeys organising a militia?