Wild Turkey Seeks Up-town Metrosexual Lifestyle

Yesterday’s Minneapolis StarTribune contained a story of how a wild turkey has taken to city life in downtown Minneapolis.   To most, it was a curious sight watching a turkey check out life in one of our nation’s more populated cities.   Still, it made me wonder how a turkey seemingly gone astray could get ink in a big city newspaper by only mentioning the unusual sighting.

Instead, the StarTribune missed the opportunity to have at least dedicated a few lines of copy explaining to a largely urban populous how the wild turkey is truly a conservation success story.   Fifty years ago such a sighting would have been unusual and reportable in any woodlot within the borders of Minnesota.   But not today.   No, today wild turkeys are so commonplace that in some areas a sighting of a pheasant rooster is probably more rare than seeing a flock of turkeys.

Next week begins the first of Minnesota’s several turkey hunting seasons where permits are available only on a lottery system.   If permits go unclaimed, as many permits apparently do in some areas, then in some instances permits can be obtained over the counter.

Could it be that the turkey in this story has an unusual sense of self-preservation and that it came to downtown Minneapolis to seek refuge for next week’s hunting season?   Who knows, I doubt that is the case, but when wild turkeys are expanding their range so aggressively that they are now appearing in heart of Minnesota’s largest city…it can only mean good things are happening all over our state with this species…and such seems to be the case.

I only wish that sportsmen would get more credit for these sightings and other good deeds where non-hunters, alike, receive some satisfaction through their viewing.   Indeed, a wild turkey causing a commotion through downtown Minneapolis can be directly linked to the sportsman and our conservation practices…but don’t expect a liberal newspaper such as the S’Trib to ever give us any credit.   To do so would break a long-standing tradition of only reporting the negative when it relates to our state’s unheralded conservationists.

© 2005 Jim Braaten.  All Rights Reserved.   No Reproduction without Prior Permission.