TURKEY CIRCLE
Sinister gobblers perform occult ritual to raise a dead cat?
A flock of 20 turkeys was observed performing what looks like a bizarre ritual around the body of a dead cat that had been run over in Boston, Massachusetts. Jonathan Davis filmed the startling spectacle and uploaded the 24-second clip to Twitter on 24 February with the caption: “These turkeys trying to give this cat its 10th life.” They were walking in a circle – not running or distressed, but walking with intention – around the cat in the middle of the road. The clip quickly went viral (and earned the splendid headline “Gobble, gobble, toil and trouble” in the Daily Mail).
Biologist Debra Kriensky told the New York Post: “It’s certainly unusual. Circling in itself isn’t unusual behaviour for turkeys – the males sometimes circle females when getting ready to breed... But it’s unusual to see so many circling a dead cat for example.” Perhaps the birds are performing what’s called a “predator inspection,” says Alan Krakauer, a biologist who studies the behavioural ecology of birds. He explained that turkeys, when faced with an animal that might eat them, sometimes follow the risky route of actually approaching the predator. It can help signal to other turkeys in the area that there’s a threat, or help the turkeys evaluate how big a danger the predator is. “Or it could let the predator know the prey are aware of its presence, which might encourage the predator to move elsewhere to seek an easier meal,” he said; “a lot like a group of small songbirds mobbing a hawk or owl they have discovered.” Such behaviour could of course backfire – if the predator is more conscious than the cat in the video. Krakauer continues: “During my studies of wild turkeys I watched a coyote trot through a group of turkeys – the turkeys gave it some space but acted alert in a similar manner to this video. In that instance the coyote kept walking and the turkeys went back to their business. However, in this video, the dead cat ‘predator’ doesn’t get up to leave, and the turkeys appear to be kind of stuck in their pattern of behaviour. Maybe they are waiting to see if the cat wakes up?” That is, waiting to see if the dead will arise, instead of ritually working to raise the dead.
Richard Buchholz, a professor of biology at the University of Mississippi has also seen this kind of circling behaviour in the turkey bird family, which includes chickens, pheasants, and quail. Following the tail in front of them is a way they stick together as a flock, he says. What could be happening is that the turkeys are stuck in some kind of never-ending circle, with each bird following the tail in front of it. The Verge, npr.org, 2 Mar; D.Mail, Sun, 3 Mar 2017.
The turkeys could be stuck in some kind of neverending circle