Security Alert: Staten Island Terrorized By Wild Turkeys

While the Department of Homeland Security is busy groping Americans to make sure they are not terrorists, real terrorists making life difficult in one area of Staten Island.

This new terrorist threat has adapted to its environment and learned to poke at the weakness of New Yorkers in the area. They are disguised as wild turkeys!

The birds have reportedly stopped traffic by standing in the middle of roads. They have even been seen playing chicken with drivers, knowing that New Yorkers are usually the first ones to blink. In one case a woman claimed to have been trapped in her car while these violent wild turkeys stood on her hood. It isn’t clear if they made any demands before they retreated from their attack.

It is important to note that 2nd Amendment loving states like Texas do not have this type of problem. Birds that do not get out of the road quick enough become roadkill. Sometimes the driver will stop and take their prize, while others will leave it for the buzzards to clean up. Should a turkey or any wild animal threaten a Texan, they had better hope it isn’t someone who has a concealed handgun license or a shotgun nearby. If so, that Texan will have the bold gobbler fried and served for dinner.

We have about three herds (gaggles?) of about 10-15 wild turkeys on my hill. They come together about once a year. There are also a few loners - females with younguns and a group of all males that strut around white faced and puffed out. Anyway, one group comes over when I am outside and bugs me for a few handfulls of wild bird seed. I can also call them by saying “pweet.” I try and save the feed for winter time when we have snow and its hard for them to find food. They don’t terrorize us at all. They scurry out of the way if we come buy in a vehicle and don’t stay long near humans.

Right... same here. We used to have flocks of wild turkeys that wandered the neighborhood for years, bothering no one, although the males like to admire their reflections in window glass and chrome truck bumpers. The worst thing they ever did was one once got up on some neighbor's pool cage screen and the old screen got torn by the klutzy one who was too heavy to support. They were all friendly and during breeding season they were so focused on fighting each other they didn't have time to bother anyone even for feed.

Some unsportsmenlike poachers and a neighbor's dog [the latter finally got caught in the act of killing domestic turkeys and is no longer a problem... nice rug, though] killed off most of them and from an original big flock of 32 there is now but one male and two adult females and two rescued female poults I raised almost to maturity who are now free and on their own.

The only aggressive turkeys I've ever seen are domesticated males who were overly imprinted on people from being handled too much as chicks. If they aren't hand raised like pets they aren't interested in people for the most part, unlike geese who are quite territorial. But if they are raised like pets they can be annoying when they come of age to breed. Not that it matters for domestic breeds - they are too fat by then to effectively hurt a person and all they can do is follow you around in full strut making funny wanna-fight noises.

Gorgeous birds. I love to watch them skim just overhead into the pines to roost every evening, where they call out insults to the barred owls and any other intruders after dark.

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