Turkeys have been given the short end of the stick when it comes to judging their intelligence, but this is because most people have never seen a turkey in the wild. Actually, looking at a wild turkey, they might not even recognize it for what it really is.
The turkeys that grace our Thanksgiving tables every year have been altered to suit consumers needs. They no more resemble their wild counterparts than do the fat, stocky cattle in feed lots. Using selective breeding to get increased meatiness and a larger size, we have given turkeys an awkward wobbling gait and a feeble-minded appearance. Just don’t blame this on the turkey.
Too dumb to come in out of the rain
All this manipulation of turkeys by the food industry has resulted in the public believing a turkey is as dumb as the proverbial post. One such story says a turkey will stare, transfixed, looking up at the sky with its beak open during a rain storm and drown. Well, that is just not true, folks.
First of all, in the early 1990s, Tom Savage, a poultry scientist and animal science professor at Oregon State University and his colleagues discovered that some turkeys had an inherited genetic condition called tetanic torticollar spasms. This condition causes the birds to act unnaturally, sometimes cocking their heads and starting at the sky for 30 seconds or more.
In defense of the turkey’s smartness, Savage said in a press release in 2003 that, “It’s an example of how a misunderstood animal behavior becomes identified as proof that the animal is extremely lacking in intelligence.”
Then there is the misconception about the way turkeys will look at their surroundings, tilting their heads to the side to get a better look at something. They do this because they have monocular vision. The eyes are located on either side of the head so they can see two different things at once. Trouble is, the two eyes can’t focus on the same thing at once.
While having monocular vision helps a turkey in avoiding predators, it doesn’t give them any depth of vision. Come to think of it, if turkeys were to tilt their heads back toward the sky to look at the rain, they would not be able to focus on the rain drops coming down, would they?
Turkeys are amazing birds
Let’s forget about the 25-pound dressed turkey purchased from the grocery store for a bit. The wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, is an amazing creature, and very intelligent. The turkey is native to parts of Mexico and North America, and with the Muscovy duck are the only two native birds to be domesticated.
Turkeys were first introduced into Europe in the 1500s by Spanish explorers who brought them back from Mexico. When Europeans landed on the coast of America, they actually brought with them domesticated turkeys. Settlers thought the wild turkeys they encountered were a type of guinea fowl and gave them the name “turkey fowl.”
The wild turkey is a sleek bird, capable of running up to 25 mph. They also fly very well, with a top speed of 50 mph. Of course, the domestic turkey bred for meatiness, can’t get his rump off the ground. While domestic turkeys are fed grains and meal laced with antibiotics and sometimes growth hormones, the wild turkey is omnivorous, eating nuts, berries, seeds, grasses and even insects, and small reptiles.
While a domestic turkey has a lifespan of a few months, wild turkeys have been known to live for 12 years. And while a wild turkey keeps a slim figure at five to as much as 20 pounds, their domestic cousins top the scale at twice the weight. A female wild turkey builds her nest on the ground, well hidden in shrubs beneath a tree. At night, wild turkeys fly up into the branches of trees to roost.
With their keen eyesight, protectiveness, and proud demeanor, the wild turkey was Benjamin Franklin’s choice for the national bird. Franklin didn’t like the bald eagle because it was more of a scavenger, robbing from other birds and animals.
