As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Monday, 25 November 2013

Feathered Menace: Wild Turkeys Threatening Suburbia


They chase and frighten people, block roads and cause motorcyclists and bicyclists to crash--sometimes fatally. Then, adding insult to injury, they poop on your lawn.

They are wild turkeys—the birds Ben Franklin so admired that he wanted them to be America's national symbol, rather than the eagle. Oh, if Ben could only see them now.

Wildlife officials in virtually every state tell the same tale: Decades ago, wild turkeys were an endangered novelty. Then, partly due to the efforts of state wildlife departments to save them, they got a leg up. Now, by one estimate, there are in excess of 6 million of them nationally.

Boston Magazine reports that in the city's suburbs turkeys "strut around in gangs." In recent years, says the magazine, "ill-tempered turkeys have attacked cars, cops and plate-glass windows with disastrous results."

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