Even the turkeys are worried

Coming home from work the other morning, I noticed the leaders of the Nashville chapter of the Wild Turkey Association were meeting. Although I don’t speak “Gobble-de-gook,” (sounds like an appropriate name to label the gobbling of the turkey) I could only assume the topic that they were discussing.

Per the examiner.com,  there have been 13 events so far of birds falling out of the sky and fish washing up on beaches.

Although birds and fish dying are not new events, the fact that all of this seems to be happening in large quantities in a small period of time around the world has caught my attention. Is it because the news travels faster than we can blink an eye… or perhaps something a little more alarming is occurring?

The underlying fear of a terrorist attack nags me occasionally. It sits on one of my gyrus on the left side of my brain.. kicking its scrawny little feet and poking the tissue of the cerebral cortex with its white gloved finger tips. (For some reason I have a picture of a cartoon tooth… associating the dentist with terrorists… probably not a good thing, and I am not making this one up.)

I have been able to rationalize this fear before. We don’t live near one of the United States’ benchmark cities that serve to the outside world as a representation of our free nation. (Unless you think of the United States as a whole bunch of people wearing cowboy hats and boots singing with a guitar…) If Nashville was attacked, we live outside the city, so we’d be safe… right?

I am by no means saying that these wild life events are the work of terrorists, but the groupings are oddly coincidental. To be honest, I didn’t even take too much head into the situation until we got news of the 150 dead birds found on the side of a road outside of Nashville. Initial reports feel that they (the 150 of them) had an unfortunate run in with the powerlines. Really?

So we’ll say the 5,000 birds in Arkansas died from fireworks, the 500 birds in Louisiana from powerlines, but what about the “several hundred” birds in Murray Kentucky (just a week after several dozen were found dead in Gilbertsville, Kentucky), 200 birds on a bridge in Tyler, Texas, 100 crows in Falkoeping, West Sweden, thousands of turtle doves in Italy... and I am not going to even start with the incidences of dead fish and crabs.

Also, fireworks and powerlines are not new inventions… so are the birds just following suit of the leeping lemmings?  Looks like NBC will be covering it on Monday... so we'll see what they have to say.


Back to my wild turkey friends hanging outside my house...  I don’t think they are in too much trouble. Turkeys don’t fly, so they should be able to stay clear of these "air borne" problems. Come to think of it… I might go out there and tell them right now.

Story Update: Wild turkeys do fly… oops.




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Dear Turkeys that hang outside our house,

Please stay away from fireworks, power lines, trucks, hunters, dogs, too cold weather, storms, animals that might eat you, disease, terrorist attacks… (yikes, there are a lot of things that you can die from!) I do not want to be responsible for 30 poor little turkeys meeting their ultimate demise because I scared them away from their little turkey meeting.

Thanks,

Jenny