Posted on 10/05/2016 8:56:11 PM PDT by Rebelbase
Bill Bowden reported in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this morning that they'll be dropping live turkeys out of an airplane over Yellville again this Friday and Saturday at Yellville's Turkey Trot Festival.
The FAA said it doesn't get into animal cruelty issues (and you can be sure the local prosecutor has been bullied to silence by the locals on the issue). As long as the pilot, Mountain View pharmacist Dana Woods, doesn't drop turkeys over a crowd, the regulators say there's nothing they can do. Woods has been smirking about this cruel practice for years as the Phantom Pilot. There was a drop last year despite the previous hiatus, wildly cheered by those who see sport in abusing dumb animals.
It's inhumane, of course. Also, if a drop of live birds draws a bigger crowd, it is no commentary on the practice but on those who turn out. They could probably get a good crowd in Yellville for a drawing and quartering, too. Here's an idea for sport: A drop of frozen Butterball turkeys from 500 feet over the cheering crowd.
The Yellville yahoos trotted out the usual defense that turkeys can fly, including expert testimony from the state Game and Fish Commission. The Game and Fish man was talking about WILD turkeys, I'd note. These are not wild turkeys and they'll be confined to a noisy plane before a drop from 500 feet, a good bit higher than the tree roosts from which a wild turkey might take off. I found more persuasive the comment from Yvonne Thaxton, a professor of poultry science at the University of Arkansas:
(Excerpt) Read more at arktimes.com ...
If they’re actually doing this, it’s just wrong. Really wrong. WTF wrong.
I cannot conceive of a justification of this inane, juvenile, inhumane, and overall STOOPID behavior.
Take the guy who thought this up, and drop HIM from a plane at 500 feet, with the same kind of parachute the turkeys have: NONE.
Egregious...yet no one cares if snakes are routinely tortured in “round ups”.
One animal feels fear and pain just as acutely as another.
It’s ALL evil.
Let's just throw them off rootops, instead.
I hate people.
And yeah, they actually do it.
There are videos, if you can stomach it.
Yellville has a problem. It wants people to come to its annual Turkey Trot festival -- and yet the most spectacular event in the festival is something that the town can't talk about.
That something is the "Turkey Drop," where live wild turkeys are dropped out of a low-flying airplane that circles the two-day festival.
Turkey Trot has been celebrated on the second Friday and Saturday of October every year since 1946. It was conceived as a way to call attention to the region's abundant wild turkeys. A highlight of the festival was the "Turkey Toss," in which live wild turkeys were tossed off of the roof of the County Courthouse. In the 1960s this was replaced by the Turkey Drop.
The thinking behind the toss/drop was that most of the turkeys would escape into the wild and thereby increase the local population. The problem is that wild turkeys can't fly very well. **Some of the birds would splat on the pavement. Some that landed safely ended up being chased around town.**
The splattering and the chasing drew unwelcome national media attention in the 1970s and 1980s, and animal rights groups threatened legal action. Since 1990, Yellville has officially divorced itself of the Turkey Drop -- it isn't mentioned in any Turkey Trot literature -- and yet it still happens every year. The town's position is that mysterious planes just show up over the festival every October and drop turkeys (although the drop point has been moved to the south edge of town so that the pilots don't violate FAA altitude regulations). Four or five drops take place each day, with one to three turkeys per trip.
Another memorable event at the Turkey Trot is the Miss Drumsticks beauty contest, in which the winners are chosen while their faces and upper bodies are hidden.
Yellville resident Ralph B. reported in March 2014: "PETA finally got our harmless (unless you are a turkey) turkey drop stopped. I think they threatened to take the pilot's license if he or she threw turkeys out of a plane. I don't go to town during the festival anymore because the turkeys were the reason for going."
More at link.
Miss that show.
This is one of the greatest threads ever.
I prefer my turkey with cornbread stuffing and plenty of gravy. But I don’t see the fun or sport in refusing to give food animals a quick clean, death and tormenting them needlessly - people who do so are just a hop, skip and a jump away from wondering how much fun it would be to do it to people. The guy doing this thing and the people cheering him on need to take a good long look at themselves.
Dang. Not even turkeys can escape ARKANCIDE.
“The problem is that wild turkeys can’t fly very well.”
Well, just last Sunday, on a hike on the edge of the Cuyahoga Vally Park. I watched the biggest tom turkey I’ve ever seen, jump off a stump on the edge of a very deep gully, and fly and glide down to his girls who were feeding at the bottom of the gully. It was quite a sight! He was huge! A trophy bird for sure!
I see truckloads of turkeys in open cages stacked up behind 18 wheelers being driven to Tyson almost weekly. Year round, doesn’t matter if it’s 95° or way below freezing. Can’t be pleasant. But I don’t know how much self awareness is left in today’s commercial breeds, compared to a wild bird. They’re more like big meaty goldfish I’d imagine.
What a horribly cruel thing to do. I hope this ____ gets locked up for animal cruelty. Domestic turkeys are breast heavy and have quite insufficient development of their wing muscles to suddenly fly when dumped from a plane. Likely they will hit the ground in wet splotches, the poor things. I hope this ___ gets locked up and that his event is a total failure.
I agree sick , cruel, and evil.
The idea for that show came from a promotional stunt by a Los Angeles radio station involving doves. While waiting for the signal to release the doves from the roof, a couple of employees indulged in quite a bit of herb while waiting in a stairwell.....with the caged birds. When it came time to open the cages, the birds were whacked and refused to leave. So the spaced employees tossed them out...off the roof...they did not fly.
(FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio) Richard Neer
Correction.
It was San Francisco, KSAN was the station
Here’s the story. I didn’t want to cut and paste....copywrites etc.
My all time favorite!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.