Never Turn Your Back on A Turkey (and Other Bird Woes)

The Chicago Tribune has an amazing list of stories of tom turkeys defending the roost.

Among the complaints are that gangs of turkeys attacked a letter carrier in Cranford, NJ, and attacked a child on a tricycle in Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County.

Biologists warn you never to turn your back on a turkey and not to feed wild turkeys because it encourages aggressive behavior.

Lovett Williams, a Florida biologist, recalls that when he raised wild turkeys, he sometimes had to establish dominance by grabbing an obnoxious bird around the neck and holding it on the ground so it couldn’t scratch with its spurs. “I’d slap him like they do on the Three Stooges,” he says. “Then they’d wobble around and run off.”
http://americasroof.com/wp/archives/2005/11/23/never-turn-your-back-on-a-turkey-and-other-bird-woes/