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Among the kids playing basketball, the folks bringing food, the gardeners, the chess players and the homeless people who all fill some sort of niche in their lives in People’s Park, there’s been another creature hanging out there—a wild turkey. 

I first saw her when I stopped by the park almost two weeks ago. (It was determined by someone who seemed knowledgeable about turkeys that it was a female.) Alan, a homeless man who often rests there during the day, pointed her out to me. 

“We have to do something,” he said urgently, worrying that some hungry predator—human or otherwise—would hurt her. My first thought, admittedly not a very compassionate one, was that if turkeys are supposed to be so smart, what possessed this one to wander into town just two weeks before Thanksgiving. Then I went for my camera.  

The turkey hung around the park until some time on Saturday when crowds, noise and specifically one uncouth individual scared her off. The regular park denizens were sad that she was gone. Wednesday she was back and as I write this she’s still there. 

To many of the park regulars she is just another lonely soul finding temporary sustenance from the nearness of other creatures. Jessica declared that she “liked having a turkey in the Park.” She had grown up in the country where her family raised turkeys and other livestock. She gave the turkey some crusts of bread and observed that other people had also seen to it that the bird got food.  

Jerry, not to be accused of being sentimental, quipped, “Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of turkeys in People’s Park but this is the first one with feathers.” 

Deborah was inspired to weave all sorts of stories around its appearance. “Maybe it’s telling us all to be vegetarians for Thanksgiving,” she said. Deborah herself isn’t a vegetarian now but that could change, she said. 

“Or,” she declared, “this could be the reincarnation of somebody important to the park, maybe Mario Savio.” Or since it’s a female, “how about Rosebud,” she suggested tentatively.  

Even Devin Woolridge, long-time park supervisor who has seen just about everything that could go on in the park, was surprised and delighted to see the bird. At Alan’s urging to do something to protect her, he phoned Berkeley animal control. 

Well, it seems that wild turkeys periodically show up in areas of north Berkeley , and there’s no reason to try to capture them unless they’re threatened. There’s a “gaggle of them up near the Greek theater,” an animal control officer told me in a subsequent conversation. 

“If he’s being fed and cared for, then he’s smart,” she said. “He’s just hanging out where the pickings are good.” She assured me that “we’ve never picked up a diseased turkey in the city of Berkeley.” 

My research took me to the website of the NWTF, the National Wild Turkey Federation. There are 7 million wild turkeys in the United States and 3 million turkey hunters. I hope none of them are in Berkeley. 

Julie Burkhart at the Lindsey Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek turned out to be a font of information. She has studied them intensely and was happy to give me a detailed description of their habits and lifestyle. 

In the spring, during mating season, large numbers of the birds will gather, but for most of the year the males go off together into the hills and the females stay around for a while after the babies are hatched, then they tend to disperse. So it’s not very surprising to find a lone female and, Julie says, as long as she’s getting food and water she’s likely to stay. 

She shouldn’t be fed bread, she warns. As a matter of fact, Julie says, it’s probably best not to feed her at all. Grain and small insects are the turkeys’ normal diet. 

Julie talked about some interesting research that has been done on the behavior of the wild turkeys. They have been found to have “an incredible social structure.” Turkeys might be found together in large or small groups and then go off in different directions for a time. When they get together again, according to the studies done on them, they all remember each other. 

And she described how hens will adopt orphan chicks and raise them. She emphasized that wild turkeys are “a totally different animal than the turkeys we put on our thanksgiving table. . . . They’re smart. They’re very good at being turkeys.” 

As for the little turkey in People’s Park, it’s pretty clear she isn’t going to end up on anybody’s dinner table. Besides the fact that she’s small and she’s smart, most of the park folks like having her around. 

“More power to her,” says Daniel, and others agree that it’s only right that she is free to roam. Park supervisor Devin observes that “sometimes we get so far removed from nature, it’s good to have a bit of it here.”Ü