With Thanksgiving fast
approaching and a population explosion of wild turkeys dotting the American countryside
(translation: suburbs) in the past few years, I love to reflect how the world
and all its inhabitants are jockeying for space: “The wild turkey is hardly the
only creature who has learned to get along with us. Greg Butcher of the
National Audubon Society says, “it’s a strange era where every species is
either too common or too rare.” The differential, he adds, seems to be the
creatures’ “willingness to put up with the human lifestyle.” It turns out that
wild turkeys prefer to live on the “edge,” botanically speaking … “
Our Thanksgiving prep began in
one of those markets where, for a premium, you get a story with your food.
Every vegetable, every creature and every jar of jam comes with its own
pedigree and memoir.
The best of these tell how the
farmer and his pigs, chickens or calves live in a sylvan idyll until the day
when … well, they skip that part. These romantic tales of the farm are directed
at consumers like me, a slightly uneasy carnivore and committed free-range
turkey buyer who prefers to imagine her Thanksgiving dinner roaming happily
over the landscape under a clear blue sky.
Of course, I am aware that the definition
of “free-range” means that the turkey only has to be “allowed access to the
outside,” even if it’s too institutionalized to actually waddle through a door.
Nevertheless, for plenty of bucks a pound, I deserve a story. Maybe even a DVD.
But yesterday, Angela and I with order slip in
purse and ready to shop, we were confronted by Charles and Felix with these facts-
Now those of you who never lived
in the Bay Colony where the first Thanksgiving was held, the home of Plymouth
Rock and Red Sox Nation, may be surprised to learn that in the past few years, they
have had either (1) a population explosion or (2) a plague of wild turkeys.
Nationally, the restoration of
the wild turkey has been a wild success story, up from 350,000 in 1950 to
somewhere more than 3 million today. Massachusetts was fresh out of this game
until 1972, when 37 turkeys were trucked over the border, released in the
wilderness and promptly began to beget. There are now 20,000 more turkeys.
But who knew that these birds
would take to urban and suburban life? Who knew that these 4-foot-tall, 20-pounders would be found gobbling around backyards,
hanging out near Starbucks, and roosting—look, a flying mattress!—in the trees.
Who knew they would make routine appearances on the police blotter for behaving
like, well, turkeys?
It has been reported that they
are especially aggressive near Fenway Park and attribute their behavior to the
fact that the toms were originally from New York. I attribute their easy life
to the fact that you can’t wield a 10-gauge shotgun within range of a
streetcar. Their only natural enemies, if you don’t count the postman, are
automobiles and the shiny bumpers that reflect back their own worst nightmare.
My tale of two turkeys—the
free-range bird on my order pad and the wild turkeys near Fenway Park—is an
example of the odd evolving relationship between human and other nature. On the
one hand, there is a growing premium on domestic animals who live more
naturally. On the other hand, there is an explosion of wild animals living more,
well, unnaturally.
Consider a third turkey, the one
at the White House. No, really. There is an annual ceremony for a turkey. The
creature, raised “using normal feeding and other production techniques”—say
what?—will become the ??th of the breed to receive a presidential pardon,
although it is unclear what crime he committed.
When the ceremony is over, what
is the fate of the liberated poultry? It’s something that would make Jon
Stewart’s writers long to cross the picket line. This turkey will be flown.
First class. To Disney World. There, he will live out his, um, natural days as
an exhibit in the backyard of Mickey’s Country House in Magic Kingdom Park.
Meanwhile, the president will undoubtedly be dining on another free-range
turkey.
When it comes to figuring out our
place in nature, I have begun to think that we’re all living on the edge. Maybe
Ben Franklin was right when he said that the wild turkey—not the bald
eagle—should be America’s national bird.
After all, the eagle, in all of
its restored glory, soars majestically above the fray. But the turkey is down
here, gobbling, squabbling and flourishing, while we try to figure out our
place in the pecking order.
Happy Thanksgiving.
