Comments on: Wild turkeys: Guess what’s eating them?

By: Pam

Pam — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:40:35 +0000

Hi Gary,

I live in the Keys in Walnut Creek and was out walking my dog Saturday morning and this morning around 7:45 and saw about 8 – 10 wild turkeys walking from Civic Drive towards our garage. They were not the least bit phased by my barking Golden Retriever/English Springer mix. Is there any organization (animal control??) who deals with these guys or do we just let them be and hope they find other stomping grounds???

By: bhf

bhf — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:05:10 +0000

Hello Ray,
You may not understand ecological systems or the problems that cats bring to wildlife areas, so I recommend that you take some time to visit the Lindsay Museum and learn more about the destruction that cats can do to the wildlife. They also have a Hospital where birds are frequently brought in with cat teeth puctures. The volunteers work hard to keep these injured birds alive and then release them back into the wild. I volunteered there for several months. I always wondered what would happen to a bird that I helped take care of. Would it be lunch for a selfish overfed cat? I hope not. Besides, there are plenty of dangers for your cat as well.
You should read the many blogs on this site about cats. Just click on cats on the list just to the right of this blog.
Please volunteer some time at the Lindsay Museum so you to can become more sensitive to the issues of cat predation in your neighborhood. It may not be something that you feel too guilty of, but maybe you should feel a lot of shame.

By: Ray West

Ray West — Sat, 10 May 2008 03:36:17 +0000

Hi Gary,

I went looking for your website because I’ve got an odd story/question, and, well, your ‘mountain lion eating turkeys’ post seems to be as good a starting point as any, as you’ll see.

We live in El Cerrito, with hardly any ‘wild’ areas within several blocks. My housecat, Calvin, has been bringing a steady stream of dead fowl home. I’m not sure what kind, because Calvin has beheaded almost all of them.

They’re smaller than chickens (my neighbor across the street has a coop with a few chickens, so my first thought was that Calvin was getting into it there, but their head count was full) but have brownish coloring and VERY chicken-ish legs. Not sure if these were full grown. The few heads that Calvin was kind enough to leave on were small and round, and didn’t have any ‘comb’ around the facial area.

I’d like to know what we’re dealing with here, simply because if it’s some kind of chicken that Calvin is raiding some poor neighbor’s coop for, then I’ll have to canvass the neighborhood for a few blocks in every direction. As of yet, I’ve turned up no one apart from my neighbor across the street who has a chicken coop.

If there are wild birds in the El Cerrito area that match that description, then maybe I’d feel at least a little less guilty for Calvin’s carnivorous ways.

Many thanks!

Ray West
El Cerrito

By: Karen

Karen — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:50:46 +0000

I’ve never seen a mountain lion, but several years ago I remember hiking a dirt trail in Joseph Grant County Park (east of San Jose) and seeing wild turkey tracks that seemed to go every which way. And on top of them were widely-spaced, really big pawprints — much too big for a coyote.

I’ll be sad if the crows in my neighborhood die. My husband hates them, but I admire them.