Photo by John Kuhner
After 23-year-old Staten Island dental assistant Gina had a run-in with the borough's wild turkeys, something needed to be done. Last November Gina recalled her horrifying encounter, saying, "It was straight out of Cujo. I'm sitting in my car Facebooking on my phone when turkeys jumped on my windshield. They just kept looking at me like it was their car." This is the last thing you want when you are Facebooking on your phone, so clearly there were steps to be taken. Since Gina was one of many residents feeling threatened by the birds, a survey was created where residents could vote on the fate of their feathered frenemies. The survey has only just now reached the homes of the 700 Ocean Breeze residents playing God.
SI Live got their hands one one, and says "questions range from whether residents consider the 150 or so turkeys soothing to watch and photograph or if they find their loud cries and deposits of guano a nuisance." The options given are to ignore the birds, educate residents on how to coexist with them, harvesting some of them for a local food bank, or slaughtering them all and donating the meat. Having them relocated is no longer an option because, as CBS reports, they "aren’t quite wild, nor are they quite domesticated, making keeping them in a sanctuary problematic." Another issue: cooking them may be a health risk, since they sometimes feed on fertilizer, insecticide, and motor oil!
Turkey protector Greg Ruggiero says the survey "is not acceptable. I am thinking of taking legal action against the DEC [Department of Environmental Conservation]. They have been messing this up from the start. They can't do this." City Councilman James Oddo is still criticizing the survey as well, and says, "This has been so badly managed it's farcical. This is why people don't trust government. I say we do this, why don't we send out a survey about how Region 2 have handled this and figure out what to do with them."
