Tough turkey terrorizing New Jersey township. Blame the government for birds' comeback
By the middle of the 1900s, wild turkeys in the U.S. were nearing extinction. They were almost never seen along the highway, and if you heard one gobbling in the woods, the event was so rare the whole family went outside to listen.
Well, at least that’s one problem we can scratch off the list.
Reforestation and government action had turned the tide, and then some. Government may not be able to stop war or climate change or disease, but if you need to restore a turkey population there’s none better. So it has that going for it. Which is nice.
It used to take a particularly skilled hunter to bag a turkey. Now, you can basically walk out on your back deck blindfolded and squeeze off a random shot and, voila, instant Thanksgiving.
So, like anything else, a government handout has resulted in an entire population going soft. The once-crafty turkeys that were impossible to find are now impossible to avoid. They will stand in the road gazing at you as wide-eyed as a toddler, not realizing that a 2-ton vehicle poses any kind of threat.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they seem to be losing their child-like innocence and are becoming aggressive; they seem to realize that we almost destroyed them entirely, and now they want justice.
Most notorious of these lawless birds is a turkey in West Orange, N.J., 25 miles south of Manhattan, where a particularly bold and dissatisfied member of the species has been chasing joggers and charging into rush-hour traffic, disrupting the drive for thousands of commuters.
Not everyone is upset about this, and the creature has been given a name based on the heroic Hercules — Turkules — and, inevitably, a social media presence.
“The biggest story in my town right now is about a turkey who is terrorizing traffic and runners outside the big health center in town and one of the main streets for weeks now,” wrote a Facebook user. “Animal control has tried to get him and failed and people are posting memes daily.”
The perpetually irritated bird refuses to budge for drivers trying to make a right turn, and charges anyone impertinent enough to try to get close enough for a picture. As Jason Aldean might say, a turkey should not try this in a small town, because it would be one order of turkey soup coming up. But of course in a snowflake-filled metropolitan area, animal control officers can’t just kill it because their lives wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel.
They did shoot it with a tranquilizer dart, but that just seemed to make Turkules madder. Indeed, the dart still hangs from its chest as it chases pedestrians like some sort of feathered Chuckie.
Finally, out of other options, the town government of West Orange was moved to take extreme action; it issued a statement:
“Please be advised the Township of West Orange is aware of the wild turkey present on Pleasant Valley Way, in the area of Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation and Daughters of Israel. West Orange Animal Control has been working with New Jersey Fish & Wildlife for the past two weeks to capture and relocate this turkey.”
And people wonder why the public relations profession has such a high rate of alcoholism. Wild turkey dispatches aren’t what you signed up for when you took the job. As you are sitting there in PR school all full of idealism and hope for making a difference, you never dream you will one day be required to write this actual sentence: “Feeding the turkey or attempting to remove tranquilizing darts is strongly discouraged.”
The news release said that animal control has done its best, but has “encountered some challenges,” challenges we can only pray someone caught on video.
How will it end? Probably not well, unless Joe Biden gives a presidential pardon to the one turkey that really needs it.
Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Turkules menacing New Jersey township; reforestation to blame
