A Wild Tale
I’ve never met him, but I’m kind of in awe of Gerald. For the past few months, the crotchety, fiercely territorial turkey has apparently been terrorizing people visiting a place he has long called home — an eight-acre municipal rose garden in the City of Oakland, California. So much so that on May 31, the city closed the park for a while. The state Fish and Wildlife Department deemed Gerald a danger to visitors and decided to shoot him.
Following huge outcry from animal- and local Gerald-lovers, and a petition with more than 13,000 signatures, wildlife officials backed off. The plan now is to relocate Gerald, but our feathered friend (terror?) has suddenly become remarkably good at hiding. Oakland's animal control officers haven’t managed to track him down for weeks. Meanwhile, there seems to be some heartburn over a feral peacock in Oakland as well.
This whole fracas has me pondering again about how we tend to think wild animals don’t belong in human-built environments. My sympathies for those who have fallen victim to Gerald’s beak and claw. I’ve borne many an attack from my rescue chickens, and can only imagine how scary it must be to be on the wrong side of a 25-pound turkey. But as Beth Pratt points out in this excellent article, “When the number-one threat to wildlife worldwide is loss of habitat, we can no longer think of our cities or towns or neighborhoods, or even our backyards, as exempt from the natural world — or as off-limits to wildlife.”
Many wild things, great and small, have long adapted to living in our cities. It is now on us to get better at living with them.
Maureen Nandini Mitra
Editor, Earth Island Journal
P.S. While on the subject of wild things: A federal court just rejected the Trump administration's efforts to weaken the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Yay!
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