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Final winter, a mail provider was making deliveries within the Arden-Arcade neighborhood of Sacramento when he was attacked by a “notably aggressive” and “huge” male turkey.
The provider, who was armed with some type of stick, hit the turkey, killing it, California Division of Fish and Wildlife officers stated.
There was cause to suspect that somebody was feeding the neighborhood’s wild turkeys, which started attacking drivers and disrupting deliveries from the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, Amazon, UPS and different carriers.
“I’ve been round about 25 years, so I type of know turkeys,” Capt. Patrick Foy, a spokesman for the division’s Legislation Enforcement Division, stated in an interview with The Occasions. “And I simply checked out it, and I’m like, ‘Oh, that is the largest turkey I’ve ever seen.’”
The incident in late February was the end result of a battle that had been effervescent for months between the turkeys and supply drivers. Inner paperwork and movies obtained by the Sacramento Bee present that wildlife officers tried to intervene for months previous to the incident however had been unsuccessful.
The U.S. Division of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Well being Inspection Service was known as to seize the wild birds. An agent “looked for the birds on at the least 2 events in early January however couldn’t find the offenders,” the Fish and Wildlife Division stated in inside paperwork.
Because the incident with the mail provider, wildlife officers have decided {that a} neighbor had been offering the turkeys with “copious portions” of meals, Foy advised The Occasions.
“It in all probability contributed to the huge measurement of the turkey in query, as a result of it was consuming simply an infinite quantity of meals daily from this specific family,” Foy stated shortly after the incident. “We’re addressing that challenge as a significant contributing issue to this general drawback.”
The resident was advised to “stop feeding these birds,” the Bee reported. It was unclear if the individual would face fines.
The California Division of Fish and Wildlife reportedly started receiving calls about turkey assaults on mail carriers in October 2021. Officers suggested towards feeding the birds and steered utilizing instruments akin to an open umbrella to chase them away, the Bee reported.
“By mid-October, it was evident that the birds weren’t responding to regular ‘shooing away’ and one of many mail carriers was injured on his hand,” the company stated in a report obtained by the Bee.
The company despatched members of its Human-Wildlife Battle staff to the neighborhood to research.
Investigators, seen in movies shot by Foy, may stroll proper as much as the turkeys, inflicting them to maneuver away, however the birds had been seen chasing a mail truck down the road, the Bee reported. One video obtained by the Bee reveals two turkeys pecking and gobbling at a USPS truck whereas ignoring legislation enforcement and passersby.
The Human-Wildlife Contact staff then acquired permission to conduct an operation: kill as much as 4 of the birds. However the wily birds escaped wildlife personnel.
Two “seize operations in late October and early December had been unsuccessful because the birds ran away from employees,” the report stated.
Thus far, no turkeys have been captured or killed.
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