Terror Turkey Stalks D.C.

A wild turkey is terrorizing Washington, DC. The three-and-a half foot tall tom, with shiny black and fluorescent breast feathers, a blue head and neck, and pink chin flaps that turn red when he struts, has accosted more than a dozen joggers, bikers, and walkers along the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail.

“There is an element of humor to it,” Dan Rauch, a DC Department of Energy & Environment wildlife biologist told the Wall Street Journal. “There is a terror turkey stalking a river trail. If I hadn’t seen the videos myself, I would have thought it was an urban myth.”

Rauch is part of a team that has been trying, and failing, to catch the perpetrator. The tom has been able to elude captors so far, largely because he takes wing when he sees their nets.

The big bird nested in the 446-acre National Arboretum federal park for most of last year, fattening up on the many Brood X cicadas that emerged in the summer. He fled the park in the fall, possibly to evade the coyotes and bald eagles that surely liked the looks of those bulging drumsticks.

Even though the tom has been an unrepentant assailant, with some victims requiring urgent medical care and tetanus shots, the plan is to safely capture the big guy and relocate him to a more secluded area.

Witness the terror here: youtube.com/watch?v=M23wm-u-8oM.

Photo credit: Joe Cashman